Jeno Pertis (1939–2007)
We cannot ask Jeno Pertis (1939–2007) any more why his Serenade for brass quintet sounds in yellow. Is the reason the association of colours connected to tones or is it just a serene suggestion of the golden-yellow-shining brass instruments? The piece was written in 1984, in the age of the composer when he was drawning towards a musical language which was reformingly up-to-date. It begins statically with silent long notes, dynamic short notes coloured by wah sordino as well as with repeted notes. Its melodic world is created within narrow frame of alternating notes. It becomes wider and differentiated step by step by signal-like scale-melodies, ascending passages, note-repeating chords. It gets more and more dense but the inner motions are rather similar to when one imagines gestures in a sculpture. The 7 minutes long serenade is rounded off in form – we do not know whom it was played to, we only feel it was in yellow… The music might have been statical but not stiff, not cold. It was warmed up by the poetry of Jeno Pertis.
Score and parts
