Listen to a sample of the recording of Étude pour “I don’t belong to your world” by Miquel Bernat
Originally this piece was a marimba solo, in the form of an etude focused on rapid and widely- spaced chords. afterwards, these tense, rapid musical patterns brought forth the idea to give this gesture to vocalizations made by the performer, repeated continually, without recompense. As presented now, it is more of a short performance piece, though the theme and desperate character are perhaps not particularly conducive to the stage.
This piece was originally a brief interlude with stage action from the composer’s chamber opera “Lear, a King”. I found playing it a huge technical challenge because the constituent thematic material involved sudden leaps and changes to different registers on the instrument. Also, its lively, intricate rhythmic mechanisms were not easy to cope with: it was necessary to carefully choose the sticking bearing in mind the direction of the leaps in order to always keep the tempo fast and constant.
In this version, now intended to be played in a concert or recital outside the operatic context, gestures, text and singing have been added for performance by the marimba player, while retaining the greater part of the original instrumental material. we thus enter the domains of musical theatre, which is one of the defining characteristics of François style.
In the cd that comes with this book I have included two different versions of the piece: the current one that corresponds to the score in this collection, and one of the initial versions or sketches (Étude 6).