Peter Kerkelov's website: www.peterkerkelov.com
The piece was awarded "top 10 recommended works" at 63rd International Rostrum of Composer, Warsaw, 2016
Time Etudes:
0:00 Prelude: Zero
0:51 Etude I: Shaken trees
3:38 Etude II: Smoke rings
6:23 Etude III: on B. Pasternak
9:05 Etude IV: Prayer
11:37 Etude V: Children's game
13:51 Etude VI: Raindrops on a pink snow
16:36 Epilogue: Chimes and Hymn "The Time is out of joint"
performed by Orchestra and Choir of Bulgarian National Radio with Reut Rivka Shabi - soprano solo, cond. by Dragomir Yossifov
Notes on the composition: “Time Etudes” does not attempt to musically deal with the subject of time as a deep philosophical question – infinity, stillness, immensity. Instead it uses the idea of “human” time – measurable, cyclical, finite... But human in time is far beyond the numbers he creates. It is about observation, childhood memories, rituals – all kinds of vital acts, that need time to unfold and thus we to unfold through them. And that merging of needless measure and foolish emotion is what gives time a true paradoxical beauty. The (close to) equally long studies of this composition are like six identically sized canvases, in which same spaces of density and emptiness are rearranged in different ways. It is a trial of a hopeless plea to understand what to do with “all this time”, to find the connection. But may be at the end of all this Hamlet awaits and retorts:
“The time is out of joint”.
Photographs credit (except Children's game) Albena Dimova