Douglas Geers: Laugh Perfumes



		Title	Laugh Perfumes
		Genre:	Concerto for amplified violin and orchestra, with theatrical components * orchestra: 3,3,3,3;4,3,3,1;piano; 2 perc; timp; strings * (chamber version in-progress)
		Duration:	22 minutes
		Score:	Available upon request
		Audio:	MP3 excerpt HERE
		Video:	Available upon request

Laugh Perfumes is a twenty-two minute concerto for amplified violin and orchestra, and was premiered on October 26, 2006 by soloist Maja Cerar and the Radio-Television Orchestra of Slovenia, Evan Christ, conductor. The premiere performance was part of the Unicum Contemporary Music Festival, and was part of the 2006 American Music Days celebration. This concert was a subscription series concert that was broadcast on live national radio and subsequently shown twice on the Slovene national television network.

The work was commissioned by the 2006 Unicum Contemporary Music Festival especially for its theme “The stage—a place for new music.” Laugh Perfumes directly embodies this concept, as it transcends the traditional ideas of a violin concerto by incorporating visual and theatrical elements. The work has also been written expressly for violinist Maja Cerar, who has forged a unique path among contemporary virtuosi through the bold use of multimedia and theater in her performances.

The primary inspiration for Laugh Perfumes is the influential classic 1912 work Pierrot Lunaire by Arnold Schoenberg, a work for soprano and chamber ensemble which in its eccentric expressionist beauty draws from stock characters of the Commedia dell’Arte theater tradition. In Laugh Perfumes, the violin soloist becomes the focal point representing Pierrot figuratively. The orchestra represents Pierrot as well, embodying the wildly varying ranges of his thoughts and emotions through musical means of texture, dynamics, and rhythm. Meanwhile, Laugh Perfumes intensifies the bonds between soloist and orchestra through visual and dramatic elements. A large sculpture onstage represents the Moon, which is the object and the cause of Pierrot’s desire and demise, and special focused lights represent moonbeams.

The soloist interacts with the visual objects both musically and physically to portray Pierrot and his obsessions, including traversal of a ramp that leads back into the orchestra. Together, the image of the moon, the movement of the soloist, the lighting effects, and the music itself create an unpredictable path of vivid, sweet, and uncanny scenes from Pierrot Lunaire. These include visions of sensuality, intrigues, and nostalgia. The character of Pierrot is drawn as a well-meaning but psychologically unstable soul searching for meaning and comfort in a complex, sinister world, and the multiple “scenes” of the concerto follow Pierrot from his discovery of the Moon through to his final attempts to achieve complete union with it.

Unlike most concertos, the violinist in Laugh Perfumes wears a small microphone on her instrument. The microphone is attached to a small speaker near her initial position onstage. The amplification is used to allow for the softest violin sounds to be audible in the concerto setting, even while the soloist moves to numerous positions onstage. The musical materials for the piece take advantage of the intimacy possible because of the violin’s amplification, and include exploration of both fine nuances and extremes of tone color. The concerto’s themes and harmonies are completely original, but were developed with the use of melodic, rhythmic, and timbral materials derived from Pierrot Lunaire. However the Laugh Perfumes themes create their own unique sound world, with overt references to Pierrot Lunaire shimmering through in fleeting moments.

Formally, Laugh Perfumes has a “fractal” organization based on a seven-note motive from Pierrot Lunaire. That is, the composition has seven major sections, each based on the tonality of one pitch from the following motive, which appears in the first measures of Pierrot Lunaire: G# - E – C – D – Bb - C# – G. Each of the seven main sections of Laugh Perfumes further divides into seven sub-sections, and these also follow the same pitch contour (although transposed) of the motive above. The seven large sections of the work may be thought of as “movements” of the piece, but most occur atacca in performance, so that the orchestra rarely falls to complete silence between sections. The seven major sections of Laugh Perfumes are as follows: 1. Dream 2. Rubies 3. Absinthe 4. Moonstruck 5. Nostalgia 6. Red Mass 7. Apotheosis.

Concepts for the character and actions of Pierrot in Laugh Perfumes are strongly related to the characterization of Pierrot in Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire. This vision of Pierrot is quite dark, with macabre scenes and black humor. Some writers have said that Pierrot became a symbol of the figure of the artist in many symbolist and expressionist early twentieth century works depicting him; and I have used this notion of a creative but psychologically disturbed persona in Laugh Perfumes. This Pierrot is obsessive, and he wants to possess the Moon, which is his inspiration and a source of paranoia. He is willing to transgress laws and moral codes, but also has a heartfelt nostalgia for his distant home.

If you would like to know more about the methods used to compose this piece, please email Doug Geers.

vid. AF