Iris ter Schiphorst

Eden Cinema 2

The work, which the composer counts among her favourite pieces, was inspired by the life and work of Marguerite Duras. In her play of the same name, a Flemish woman goes to Saigon at the beginning of the 20th century, marries a civil servant and has two children. After her husband's death, she also works as a piano player at the local 'Eden Cinema'. Eden Cinema, which is 'to be played like a traditional piano piece from the Romantic period' according to the composer, sounds poetic, but also cool, funny and extremely modern. Motif repetitions and ostinatos play a major role, as they do with Duras. In addition, quotations appear, literal ones from Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata as well as vague echoes of dance rhythms and commonplace music as used in silent film theatres. The preparation of the piano strings - metal parts on the high ones, rubber pieces on the low ones - creates a tonal patina and the impression of the past - 'in connection with Duras also recognizable as traumas sedimented in the subconscious, whose indistinct traces obsessively push to the surface' (Eckhard Weber).