For his new piece Aube (Dawn), Jean-Frédéric Neuburger wanted to write descriptive music, as opposed to the more narrative styles to which we have become accustomed. This new adventure has given him the opportunity to explore new forms of writing, notably through dynamic techniques.

“While writing this piece I had a duration in mind which was around 8 to 11 minutes; finished, the piece lasts 10 to 11 minutes. I wanted two things. First, I wanted to write impressionistic music based on the theme of morning - descriptive music about nature that was contrary to my previous work, especially my chamber music which is more dramatic, and more narrative than descriptive. Secondly, I wanted to create a study of orchestration based on crescendos and decrescendos so the entire piece is made up of crescendos and decrescendos in varying degrees – not only on a macro-structure level but also on a micro-structure level with sounds or textures or layers of sounds that inflate and deflate. I chose to write a work based around crescendos and decrescendos because it’s particularly representative of nature where everything that is born grows to a certain point – think about a human being, a flower - it reaches a certain point of development before finally receding and then dying. So for a piece reminiscent of dawn and the morning, it seemed rather apt.”



Often in Neuburger’s compositions – for example in Maldoror for piano or in his string quartet – the music begins with lively momentum followed by a sudden pause that takes the audience into a different universe - what he calls “an initial Big Bang.” For the composer “it’s a way of opening up the listeners’ ears, of letting them know in some way that we’re here and then allowing them to find themselves in a given universe, which will be very different depending on the piece.”

Aube (Dawn) has an elegiac atmosphere. The tempo is quite slow, and the end of the piece is subito scherzando. “At the beginning there is the Big Bang that opens up the listeners’ ears for thirty seconds, but at the end I needed a moment of unexpected lightness and so it is necessary for its own reasons.” Neuburger explained.

Aube ends with a literal representation of the sounds of the morning. In doing this, Neuburger wanted to express that “the night is over and that now the day is beginning with its brighter, lighter and essentially happier activities.”