Velouria. Madrigal book for 24 voices

Hölderlin, Friedrich; Trakl, Georg; Kusche, Izy

The Mannheim composer Daniel Smutny draws on a historical vocal music genre in his book of madrigals for 24 singers, ‘Velouria’. The piece was premiered on February 14, 2010 at the ‘ECLAT’ festival in Stuttgart by the SWR Vokalensemble Stuttgart. The term ‘Velouria’ could be associated with a song by the group ‘Pixies’ with the same title, but that was actually only indirectly Smutny’s intention.
In his new piece he has combined poems by Friedrich Hölderlin and Georg Trakl with new settings of individual lyrics by Uphill Racer. Smutny's music sounds ‘vellutato’, which means something like ‘behind a curtain’. Due to the polychoral nature of the 24 singers, which not only serves as a false theater floor, but also as a means of expressing contradictions, the material achieves an inevitable increase, a kind of ‘movement forward,’ as Smutny says, somewhat like the view of the dark rooms of David Lynch's ‘Blue Velvet’ - a curtain without a behind that pulls in, swallows up.

‘In the car you don´t speak
all the way you don´t move
because you know
the sun is coming out
Blind and aware
it is not you who is moving
it´s the world’
(lyrics von uphill racer)

For Smutny, Velouria is also a memory of the time in which he himself performed as a chamber choir singer. In particular, he had Giovanni Croce's villanelles madrigal book ‘Triaca Musicale’ from 1596 in mind. ‘Velouria’ begins with its specific declamatory expression, which is linked to the text which is characterized by homophonic rhythms. ‘All other musical properties,’ continues Smutny, ‘are subordinate to this, so that the voices are supported in their direct address, just as I once found in madrigal book art.’
(Helmut Peters)