Tristram and Isolt

Tristram and Isolt, on a text by Madison Cawein, was written for an Odysseia Ensemble workshop at the Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel on 6 May 2013. It was then selected for a matinee performance by the ensemble in the Henry Le Bœuf Hall at Bozar on 23 June 2013. Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder provides the point of departure: tiny motifs, the Tristan chord and a Romantic atmosphere are transformed through quarter-tones, harmonics, bisbigliandi and spectral colour. The result is a demanding neo-Romantic work in which the source remains present but altered.