''Sur le même accord'' (''On only one chord'') is a piece by the French composer

Henri Dutilleux Henri Paul Julien Dutilleux (; 22 January 1916 – 22 May 2013) was a French composer active mainly in the second half of the 20th century. His small body of published work, which garnered international acclaim, followed in the tradition of ...

for solo

violin The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...

and orchestra. It was composed for the violinist

Anne-Sophie Mutter Anne-Sophie Mutter (born 29 June 1963) is a German violinist. She was supported early in her career by Herbert von Karajan. As an advocate of contemporary music, she has had several works composed especially for her, by Sebastian Currier, Henri ...

, and was premiered by her on 28 April 2002 in London with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by

Kurt Masur Kurt Masur (18 July 1927 – 19 December 2015) was a German conductor. Called "one of the last old-style maestros", he directed many of the principal orchestras of his era. He had a long career as the Kapellmeister of the Leipzig Gewandhaus O ...

. The piece lasts about 10 minutes in performance. Dutilleux describes the piece as "a nocturne-like work".Sur le même accord
, ''Schott-Music.com''. The one movement consists of an introduction followed by an alternation of rapid music and slow, lyrical passages: Introduction – Rapid Music – Lyrical Section I – Rapid Music – Lyrical Section II – Rapid Music. The entire piece is based on one six-note chord, heard at the beginning of the piece, which is manipulated in various ways. The chord has the property of all-

combinatoriality In music using the twelve tone technique, combinatoriality is a quality shared by twelve-tone tone rows whereby each section of a row and a proportionate number of its transformations combine to form aggregates (all twelve tones). Whittall, Arnold ...

, and Dutilleux uses this property several times to create an aggregate. The piece also features the Dutilleux trademark of mirror writing, which can be heard in several passages. The work is tonally centered on G, which is established by assertion, most notably by the repeated use of the violin's low open G.

Instrumentation

The orchestration of the works is: 2

flutes The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedless ...

(1st doubles Piccolo), 2

oboe The oboe ( ) is a type of double reed woodwind instrument. Oboes are usually made of wood, but may also be made of synthetic materials, such as plastic, resin, or hybrid composites. The most common oboe plays in the treble or soprano range. ...

s, 2 clarinets, 1 Bass Clarinet, 2 bassoons, 2

Horns Horns or The Horns may refer to: * Plural of Horn (instrument), a group of musical instruments all with a horn-shaped bells * The Horns (Colorado), a summit on Cheyenne Mountain * ''Horns'' (novel), a dark fantasy novel written in 2010 by Joe Hill ...

, 2

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...

s, 2

trombone The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate ...

tuba The tuba (; ) is the lowest-pitched musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, the sound is produced by lip vibrationa buzzinto a mouthpiece. It first appeared in the mid-19th century, making it one of the ne ...

timpani Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a membrane called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally ...

, 3

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...

, harp and strings

Sources

Compositions by Henri Dutilleux 2002 compositions Compositions for violin and orchestra {{classical-composition-stub