Due Movimenti

In his first composition, Grech explores the possibility of treating a core musical idea in radically

different ways thereby creating one piece centered around the unvaried repetition of this idea (i.e. an

‘Ostinato’, the first movement) and, conversely, another piece based on a repetition that exploits the

rhythmic permutations to the greatest possible extent (which Grech calls ‘Ritmo interrotto’, the second

movement). Although the compositional treatments are antithetical to each other, the global effect of

the work is one of weighty fixedness on a single body of sound, an effect jointly achieved by the

repetitiousness of ‘Ostinato’ and the malleability of ‘Ritmo interrotto’. The austere title of the work, ‘Duemovimenti’ captures the hidden unity underlying the work’s surface antinomies.