My work Percussion Study II for solo guitar served as the basis and original output for the composition of As if. The idea behind this current piece evolved from my suspicion that even the most compositionally optimized or formal material still betrays a kind of unattainable synthesis. Thus, at the request of guitarist Klara Tomljanovič, I decided to put this theory to practice and see if within the cohesiveness of my original piece, there might lay an open path to further compositional intervention.

In other words, I wanted to attempt, with the specific materials used in Percussion Study II, yet another sonic reality or scenario for the elements used in the piece. For that purpose, we resolved to maintain the trajectory of the piece and where the original presented more than one tendency in its possible compositional route (due to having originally one soloist that constrained the development of more ubiquitous surfaces), to open up new sonic avenues that otherwise weren’t clearly visible, just implicit in the original compositional matrix. Thus, we opted to create a confrontational situation between the guitar and the other instruments where a quasi-improvisatory reaction (although somewhat pre-determined beforehand) would arise. Therefore having the musicians reacting against the guitar’s pre-composed materials with their own, would in its turn be re-incorporated by the guitar, transforming what was a “closed” sonic surface and re-emphasizing again its subsurface condition – a previous state where the materials are there only exhibiting their latent potential for possible compositional constructions.

Arthur Kampela