Fenn, Nirmali: An Interior Monologue

Inspired by American poet Clayton Eshleman’s reflections on the drawings of Henri Michaux, Nirmali Fenn creates a subdued yet highly expressive sound world in her latest work. The solo viola’s open strings, of which the top and bottom are detuned, trapping the music within a tritone pair, act like outer voices, as in counterpoint. They are, in the composer’s words, “like balloon strings”, limiting the melody lines on other strings and generating an acute sense of elasticity as the relationship between the lines is stretched to the extreme.