Saariaho: Vent Nocturne, for viola & electronics

Spectral Strands, with works for viola, both with and without electronics, interpreted by the most outstanding contemporary viola player, combines with the literally brilliant video material, a unique conjunction of sound, space and images. Garth Knox’s collaboration with video artist Brian O’Reilly has resulted in an audiovisual programme where the audible and visible correspondences of light, shadow, texture and colour and their fragmentation offer new ways of perception.

Although the rainbow is a familiar object, the discovery that ordinary white light can be split into a spectacular spectrum of bands of light remains a source of wonder. With the advent of spectral music the same process was applied to sound, and the no less spectacular sound spectrums obtained with the help of the computer excited a whole generation of composers. The music, with its abstract but particularly emotional qualities and the video, in its play with barely recognisable forms and objects which dissolve into patterns, coloured surfaces and rhythms establish in the selected works consistent references to each other. It is precisely in this special relationship that hearing extends itself into seeing and vice versa.

NTSC, Dolby Digital AC 3, 5.0 or Stereo

Country code: 0 , Languages: German/English

Running time: 56:44 minutes