Delicate Waters

‘Delicate Waters’

‘Delicate Waters’ for Soprano Saxophone, 2 Violins & Piano (2023)
World premiere: 26 September 2023, BRICK15, Vienna, Austria
Ambitus Ensemble

‘Delicate Waters’ is a work commissioned by Ambitus Ensemble, sponsored by Das Land Steiermark


I was thinking about the text “Schallplattenschüssel” from Alois Schörghuber’s book „Betreten nur für Befugte“ on my holidays, and was wondering about the power of something to transform into something else. In this case, the ‘record - bowl’, did the bowl lose its essence in this transformation? Was there no sense of metamorphosis possible, because the record wasn’t thought of in its meaningful way anymore? It was simply seen as a generic object, a material which could be used in any new way. But what if we name it a ‘singing fruit bowl’, an ‘aria bowl’, if it’s given a name related to its former function, does the object have the power to evoke the memory, and therefore its beauty? Is it the words which bring the meaning to something? Surely the thing itself, which is the music itself, is never lost, just transformed into new ways. And the record was never the actual music, but gave us the means to hear it.

I composed this quartet, with these thoughts in mind, and then I faced the same question. Is there a way to capture the piece, a title, a way to frame to bring meaning to these notes which are strung together to form music? Music is a language of past relics, as all notes are never new, they are simply strung together in a new way. Does my title “Delicate Waters” hint at what I was thinking about when composing this work? Or does it not let it metamorphose in the new way that it could for you, the listener, if I was to not give it a name?

Could you hold that bowl, that old melted record, and close your eyes, and hear the aria? Is there power in the ‘essence’ of things, Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology would teach us to observe these things, and to let them be truths.
Can you hear my piece, and swim in the Mediterranean salty waters, and see a sting ray below you, in the glistening sun?

-Tamara Friebel, 2023