Composition database

This is the Composition Database of BMC, which includes information about works by composers that are either Hungarian or Hungarian by origin or live in Hungary.

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Title of the work

Märchen / Conte / Tale

Composer
Eötvös Péter
Original / Hungarian title
Mese
Foreign language / English title
Märchen / Conte / Tale
Subtitle
Hungarian folk-tales selection
Year of composition
1968
Type
Tape music
Instrumentation
tape
Duration
13 min
Movements, parts
One movement
Commissioned by
WDR Electronic Music Studio Cologne
Premiere information
2 September 1968, Darmstadt
Publisher / Source
Edition Feedback Köln
Recordings
BMC CD 038, 2000
BMC CD 138, 2009 (Bonus audio-only DVD)
Hungaroton SLPX-11851
1 min. sample
1 Tale
Remarks, other info
"Sprachkomposition" on tape (voice: Piroska Molnár) relaized by Péter Eötvös and Werner Scholz at the WDR Electroacoustic Music Studio Cologne.

In “The Tale”, 99 Hungarian folk tales are „squeezed” into 12 minutes and 34 seconds. The form of the composition corresponds to the general structure of all folk tales in the world:
– the introductory formulas (… once upon a time …)
– the quantitative description of the characters (3 brothers, 7 young goats…)
– the conflict (here a violent fight against the dragon)
– the resolution of the conflict leading up to the final formulas (… it was so.)
All the sounds of the sound play are produced by a female voice, filtered in the form of a three-part ratio round (3: 4: 5), cut, and as a result it is faster, to imitate a bird, or slower, to imitate a bear, telling the fairy tale made of fairy tales.
The time shifts create passages full of polyphony and counterpoint, where sequentiality turns into an odd simultaneity, as in our contemporary world of music, where three or four successive centuries are layered into and on the top of each other mixing into and suppressing the present time. (Peter Eötvös, 1995)
 

Recordings

Title Publisher
BMC Records
Eötvös, Péter: As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams BMC Records