# Katve for quartet



## pkoi

Here's a work for Piano, 2 cellos & flute. My original intention was to compose a trio for piano, cello and flute but because of many things, I ended up writing it for quartet. With a little alteration, the work can be also performed with Piano, Flute, Viola & Cello.

Roughly translated, "Katve" means something like 'In the shade of something'. While I don't intend to picture any particular event or landscape in the music (or in my music in general), I did long walks in the forest while composing this and I think the end result sounds somehow inspired by the nature. This is where the name comes from also. I found myself many times thinking of the Finnish phrase "Puiden katveessa", which means "in the shade of the trees" and I choose "Katve" as the name for this work.

I hope you like it!

Performed by Anu Rautakoski - Piano, Jaani Helander - Cello, Martti Laivuori - Cello & Elias Trygg - Flute @ Music Centre of Helsinki, Finland June 2017


----------



## pkoi

I dunno if this is against the forums rules but I'll take the risk and bump this back to the front page! What do you think of this piece? Looking back at it myself, roughly 1,5 years after completion, I can see some aspects I like and some I don't. At the time of the composition I was very much into composing in a sort of neo-expressionistic idiom and thus the song hints quite strongly to the sounds of 1900's and 1910's Vienna. As much as I love that kind of music, It's something I might try to work against in my future compositions in order to break free from sounding too much like my influences.


----------



## Phil loves classical

To me it sounds more modern than the 2nd Viennese school, in that it sounds looser in pace, more lyrical in a way, less rigid than dodecaphony, it is again "free atonal" right? It is easier to digest also than Babbitt, Wuorinen, etc.

I would say there is advantage and disadvantage. An advantage is it is easier to follow, since it sounds improvised, the disadvantage is I'm used feeling I need to hear some shocking stuff with atonal music. If I wanted easier music I'd go for tonal stuff. Just my view.


----------



## pkoi

Hi Phil,

Thanks for your comment! This one is actually dodecaphonic but the treatment is quite free. I was never thinking that non-tonal stuff should be shocking in sound. Certainly it at times is but also often it is not. You are right that the more modern touch comes from the less obvious metre at times, while for example in schoenberg & co. the treatment of rhythm is very classical pretty much all the time.


----------



## Phil loves classical

pkoi said:


> Hi Phil,
> 
> Thanks for your comment! This one is actually dodecaphonic but the treatment is quite free. I was never thinking that non-tonal stuff should be shocking in sound. Certainly it at times is but also often it is not. You are right that the more modern touch comes from the less obvious metre at times, while for example in schoenberg & co. the treatment of rhythm is very classical pretty much all the time.


Oh, ok. I thought you did use some repetition of notes before all 12 were used. It sounds better the 2nd time!


----------



## ollv

oh I like it. I am listening you guitar composition ... I like it.
But I am the other ..


----------



## pkoi

Thanks Oliv! There was a thread here a few months ago, where someone asked for new guitar pieces, I posted the score of that guitar-variations over there, in case you're interested.


----------



## eugeneonagain

I'd disagree somewhat with Phil and say it _does_ have a flavour of the Vienna School - as an influence. It's angular and also very lyrical in places and I like it a lot. The two cellos make for a surprisingly rich string sound.


----------



## pkoi

Thanks eugeneonagain! I have to say I was also surprised how well the two cellos covered up such wide pitch range and sounded so good together. The original idea was to use viola, but I couldn't get anyone to play it and two cellists signed up so I decided to go with them. However, the players have to be very good to pull it off and I was lucky to get such good players to perform it.


----------



## Guest

Phil loves classical said:


> To me it sounds more modern than the 2nd Viennese school, in that it sounds looser in pace, more lyrical in a way, less rigid than dodecaphony, it is again "free atonal" right? It is easier to digest also than Babbitt, Wuorinen, etc.
> 
> I would say there is advantage and disadvantage. An advantage is it is easier to follow, since it sounds improvised, the disadvantage is I'm used feeling I need to hear some shocking stuff with atonal music. If I wanted easier music I'd go for tonal stuff. Just my view.


This piece is pretty far removed from Babbitt and Wuorinen...much closer to early Schoenberg and Berg. Can I ask how you went about writing this piece? Were there any specific goals or ideas you had in mind, any special kind of process?

Considering you got this performed at the Helsinki Center, you must have some pedigree...student at the Sibelius Academy?


----------



## pkoi

Hi Jeff N! Sorry for replying late. I replied to this message earlier but for some reason the message has disappeared.

This song is definitely inspired by Berg, Schoenberg etc. and not by American modernists, even though I really like that stuff as well, especially Carter, Feldman and Babbitt.

When composing this song, I wanted to create a piece with limited musical material on the level of pitch (in this one the quasi 12-tone row, where most of the musical material is derived) and texture (this song pretty much plays with three different textures, which also : the 'general expressionistic', polyphonic sound introduced in the beginning; the transitioning low register that precedes the third texture, which is the f-dynamic, active part). The different textural elements also dictate the overall form of the composition.

I am a student of the Sibelius Academy (Music Theory major and Composition minor) and hopefully get my MA degree this Christmas. For composition students of the faculty, the academy gives opportunities to get one's music performed in a concert at the Helsinki Music Centre (Musiikkitalo) usually 2 times per semester. This song was performed in one of such concerts.


----------



## Richannes Wrahms

I can certainly hear the Shoenberg in it. There is, like in Pierrot, a fluid yet sharp quality that reminds me of the rain.


----------

