Composer’s note
The title refers to the character of the passage that opens the composition. The musical phrases, repeated with slight modifications, always begin with the same high note. Each phrase is always played in the same way: with the greatest initial energy, emphatically, as if making a firm assertion, as if trying stubbornly to convince someone of something. A similar phrase brings the piece to a close, whilst in its central section, at a slow tempo and in the lower register (here the performer switches from the C flute to the alto flute), a distinctive melody emerges. Its successive notes are played with ever-changing articulation, though always the same for a given pitch.
I composed Thesis in 2001 for the outstanding flautist Carine Levine. She gave its premiere in Germany that same year. Since then, the piece has been performed on numerous occasions, including by such distinguished flautists as Mario Caroli and Łukasz Długosz.
— Tadeusz Wielecki
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Composer’s commentary
Contemporary playing techniques
Composer
Tadeusz Wielecki
Born in 1954 in Warsaw, he studied composition with Włodzimierz Kotoński and double bass with Alfred Wieczorek and Andrzej Mysiński at the Warsaw Academy of Music. In 1986, he was awarded the Witold Lutosławski scholarship, which enabled him to continue his composition studies with Isang Yun in West Berlin and Klaus Huber in Freiburg im Breisgau between 1986 and 1987. As a double bassist, he has given concerts in many European countries, as well as in Asia and the United States, performing a contemporary solo repertoire. He is also active in the field of improvised music, playing with the ensembles Kawalerowie Błotni and Laterna. In 1995, his Historia bardzo prawdziwa (A Very True Story), a tape composition, won second prize (the first prize was not awarded) at the EAR radio competition in Budapest, and in 1999, his Koncert à rebours (Concerto à rebours) for violin and orchestra received a recommendation from the UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers in Paris.
