Bagatelles

Bagatelles for piccolo, flute, and soprano saxophone is a nine-minute work in four movements. Its central conceptrevolves around the creation of so-called combination tones, or Aliquot tones, produced through the interaction of pitches in the instruments’ extreme upper registers.
The first movement explores this phenomenon through minor seconds in the high register.These intervals gradually shift and develop rhythmically, eventually forming a two-bar structure that leads into a thematic idea. The theme first appears in unison and later in a homorhythmic texture, coloured by tritones and minor thirds. It is passed between all three instruments, gradually shifting forward by one sixteenth note at a time.
The second movement is written in 3/4 time. The piccolo introduces a lyrical theme accompanied by an ostinato figure, which is occasionally disrupted by abrupt rhythmic and harmonic changes. The lyrical and playful material is first taken up by the saxophone and then continued by the flute, before gradually fading away through the progressive omission of individual notes.
The slow third movement is dominated by fourthsin the instruments’ upper registers, producing a particularly rich spectrum of combination tones. The pitch continuously rises into the extreme registers of all three instruments, reaching the very limits of playability. The piccolo then introduces an expressive theme, coloured by parallel motion in tritones and seconds. Following a polyrhythmic passage, the music reaches a high unison, which gradually descends into the lower register through achromatic spiral and subtle rhythmic displacement, ultimately creating an almost undefinable blend of sound.
The fourth movement explores the hoquetus technique, a compositional device dating back to the Middle Ages. Numerous short motifs are arranged in complementary rhythms, creating an intricate interplay between the three instruments. As in the preceding movements, the material is coloured by tritones and major seconds. The work concludes in the extreme registers of the instruments, pushing their sound to the very edge of their expressive possibilities.