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Title	Diabolus Polka (Im Pechgraben)
Category	Concert/wind/brass band
Subcategory	Concert music
Instrumentation	klBlm (small wind band)
Instrumentation/info	Polka francaise
Publisher's article no.	KL 1674
Year of publication	1995
Price	49.00 EUR (incl. 10 % Austrian VAT)
Composer	Freudenthaler, Erland
Sample score	click here
Sound sample
Video sample	Do you know of a video that demonstrates this item well? Please send us a link or send us the video via e-mail (office@kliment.at) or snail mail. Thank you.
Available	yes

Programme notes: "Im Pechgraben", a Polka francaise subtitled with "Diabolus-Polka" I wrote in 1994 for the MV Pechgraben/Upper Austria for the opening of their new music home. The piece was released on CD (Amos CD5787) in 1995 and was played by the brass band CESKA under Joh. Mösenbichler. This Upper Austrian formation has dedicated itself to Bohemian brass music, whose peculiarity in the instrumentation I found particularly appealing. Especially the use of the bass trumpet in the accompaniment, as well as the exposed use of the E-flat clarinet make the sound special. (Also the dominance of the flugelhorns as melody carriers in contrast to only two clarinets is at least unusual). Of course I was aware that this kind of instrumentation has become rare in the meantime. Therefore, my colleague and friend Prof. Johannes Mastnak (he is also the director of the MV Pechgraben, by the way, and thus the commissioner of the Polka) made an arrangement for large wind orchestra, which was also published by Kliment. The "clay" letters of this word (B-E,C,H,G,A,B-E) as well as those from Johannes Mastnak (H,A-Es and again A-Es-A) form the motivic material of the entire polka. In it there is a conspicuous dominance of the tritone, the "diabulus in musica", an interval that carries very great tension. This explains the title of the piece, as well as the harmony, which is not quite "conflict-free" in terms of sound. The comedy of the polka, I believe, arises from the contrast between the traditional polka francaise-ductus (the piece thus resembles Johann Strauss rather than a peasant polka) and "new" surprising harmonics, which derive from the tritone tension. Nevertheless the piece is quite pleasant to listen to and has always been well received by the audience.

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