IN MEDIAS RES (2004)

IN MEDIAS RES (“In Mid-Sentence”) was Žuraj’s first large-scale orchestral composition to be constructed according to strict structural principles. Featuring a very large orchestra including triple woodwinds, four trumpets, four percussionists, organ, piano and celesta in addition to the standard symphonic forces of strings and other brass, it is an ambitious composition of twenty minutes’ duration. Beginning almost literally in mid sentence with an accent and microtonal glissandi around a central D, it builds in a series of threatening crescendi and a battery of bass drum strokes to an initial French horn solo. The French horn and the clarinet are afforded especial prominence as soloists in the orchestral texture, as is the piccolo trumpet. Despite the large orchestra, the work is full of quieter moments, especially an extended period involving string harmonics and bowed percussion, to which the woodwinds gradually add rapid, whispering figures.

The calm is interrupted by a passage of busy textures and sheets of sound, with the horn making a return to prominence and a virtuoso percussion solo before the floating string harmonics return. This time, the rapid figures are given to percussion and organ, before building with ever louder insistence in the brass. This culminates in a tumultuous tutti, after which the bass-drum blows of the opening return. A barely audible glissando in clusters in the strings, and a similarly soft tapping on the woodblocks seem to see the piece fade out, before it is abruptly brought to a close by three rapid, forceful strokes on the bass drum.

Alwyn Tomas Westbrooke