Ambiguous: having more than one possible meaning; open to two or more interpretations; of uncertain nature or significance; intended to mislead; not organized in conventional patterns.

Ambigua is my take on post romantic classical music and an homage to early 20th century composers who dramatically influenced the art. They revolutionized music with a series of stylistic breakthroughs, staring with symbolism and Impressionism, that had a tremendous impact on the way we perceive harmony, melody and rhythm today. I revisit these utopian and ideal places with modern tools and aesthetics (and mindset) searching the point where musics meet, whether time is linear, and where in the great scheme of the universe is the artist's home.

Ambigua consists of interpretations of selected pieces by composers Debussy, Satie, Schoenberg, Bartok, Mahler, Stravinsky and R. Strauss, mainly orchestral, preferably for string ensembles. Using mostly software synthesizers (*), I try to maintain the basic characteristics of ambiguity and intrinsic - extrinsic metaphor and the deepest, elusive and most tangible secrets of these compositions.

A modern envision of 20th century classical music is the presentation of the composition in an analogous way, so that the content is preserved in the utmost detail, while the sonic ambience is transformed to reflect the current aesthetics. I extensively use as much of modern sound designing, computer programming and recording techniques I could get my hands on, with future plans for 7:1 surround sound and 3D visual content.

Ambigua is conceived in three stages (Acts) that span chronologically to cover respective eras of the early 20th century.You can also find Ambigua - Act I on Apple Music, Amazon, Spotify, Napster, Tidal and Deezer  

Act Ι - "To Suggest is to Dream": G. Mahler - 5th Symphony, Mvt 4 - Adagietto, C. Debussy - Prelude à l'après-midi d'un faune, E. Satie - 3 Gymnopédies

• In a conversation between Debussy and his former master, Ernest Guiraud, Guiraud asks about an ideal poet. Debussy answers by telling him that an ideal poet is “one who only hints at what is to be said”, quoting Stéphane Mallarmé and the symbolists: to name is to destroy; to suggest is to dream. He goes on to say “one can travel where one wishes and leave by any door” when referring to a seemingly random cluster of notes he played on the piano.

Act ΙΙ - To transcend: Béla Bartók - Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta 

Ambigua Act II features Béla Bartók, one of the most forceful and influential musical personalities of the 20th century, whose music was so widely abused and misunderstood in his own lifetime. He fused and completely assimilated seemingly conflicting musical elements - the classical masters, contemporaries like Debussy and folk songs. Especially the polychromatic orchestral textures of Richard Strauss had an immediate effect upon Bartók's instrumental sense, evidenced in masterpieces such as Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta (commissioned by the conductor Paul Sacher to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Kammerorchester Basel and written in 1936.) It perfectly reflects the composer's style, as it had evolved through several stages into one of the most distinctive and influential musical idioms: Ingenious application of asymmetrical, sometimes driving, often savage, rhythmic propulsion and ear-tweaking sonorities, exploitation and refinement of devices likepalindromes, arches, and proportions based on the "golden ratio." 

Act III - Es Ist Ein Glanz Um Alles Her: Arnold Schoenberg - Verklarte Nacht

Act III is Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night), Op. 4 (1899), a string sextet in one movement. Inspired by a poem by Richard Demhel, Schoenberg composed it in three weeks, at the age of 25. It is a perfect showcase of his uncanny skills in classic harmony. Clearly rooted in D minor, it often ventures far from this home key, using extreme chromaticism, undermining both conventional harmony and metric boundaries, signalling the new era that Schoenberg pioneered a few years later: the 12-tone, serial music system.  

Electron Stories with Cats is an electronic suite in nine parts. It is based on the classical culture (harmonies, progressions, structure etc) of the 20th century modernism with an intense geometric character and mathematical evolvement. Twelve-tone serialism and Bartokesque pentatonics meet chilled soundscaping and abstract cinematic dissonances in an exploration of classical form and modern color. 

The musical laws - those of man and those of nature: Tonal gravity and the dark energy of pantonal* exploration. Slight air vibrations, a palette of colorful waves playing mind games. The illusion of time, against which everything is referenced, measured and acknowledged. The infinite crescendo from the minute to the immense and the primeval metaphor of antithesis. Electron Stories are inspired by the ultimate quest of understanding cosmos through science, art and ultimately religion, as the three mold this human universe for the doctor, the artist and the shaman. In this context, they are reminiscent of "a dying age in which a full synthetic view of nature was still possible, in which one man could not only unify the practice and teaching of medicine, physiology, anatomy and physics, but also relate these sciences significantly and lastingly to the fine arts." (Henry Margenau, his introduction to Sensations Of Tone by Hermann L. F. Helmholtz, 1954). 

"Our senses perceive this sea of energy from a certain limited standpoint and make up an image from that. It is not complete, nor is it accurate. It is just an interpretation." 

- Umer Arbrar