On Night
Himmelfahrt in die Tiefen der Nacht (2010-11)
den nächtlichen Funken entgegen (2011)
Verlöschend (2011)
Zifferblatt der Nacht (2011)
Fulmer’s cycle ‘On Night’ for soprano saxophone and ensemble was revealed in it’s full dimension for the first time on December 11, 2011 by the Argento Ensemble featuring Eliot Gattegno with the composer as conductor. The work, traversing over a multitude of textures and contours, and lasting nearly an hour in duration, has been a work in progress for over a year.
‘On Night’ comprises of four pieces; Himmelfahrt in die Tiefen der Nacht (Ascension into the Depths of the Night), den nächtlichen Funken entgegen (Toward a Spark in the Night), Verlöschend (Extinguishing), and Zifferblatt der Nacht (Night’s Dial). Himmelfahrt was composed for the Heidelberger Frühling Internationales Musikfestival, and premiered there in the Spring of 2011. Den nächtlichen Funken entgegen, was commissioned by the SONiC festival (NYC) and premiered at Joyce SoHo, where Fulmer collaborated with film-maker and choreographer Deborah Lohse. The solo instrument in combination with a delicate scoring of percussion appears in this interlude as the work folds into Verloschend; a short, intimate fantasy for solo saxophone. Zifferblatt der Nacht, commissioned for the Argento Ensemble and the Moving Sounds Festival, is the fourth and final piece of this sonic web. Perhaps the most sonically dense of the pieces, Zifferblatt der Nacht includes timbrally thrilling sounds of unusual and seldom heard metallic percussion instruments underneath a fragile veil of textures that emerge from the extended techniques of the saxophone. Luminous articulations of bowed percussion combine with unique harmonic structures of the solo instrument to sculpt a sonic landscape searing with microtonality and endless temporal boundaries evoking the “sounds of night”. Inspired by the works of Edvard Munch, and the woodblock prints of Hideo Hagiwara, ‘On Night’ punctuates rich textures focusing on contrasting profiles of light and dark.