LEGIONNAIRE

for solo contrabass

by

Kevan Atkins
(2014 rev. 2016)

Legionnaire
Instrumentation
Solo contrabass

Program Notes
Lgionnaires, vous tes faits pour mourir, je vous envoie l o on meurt, which translates to: Legionnaires,
you are made for dying, I will send you where you can die; the infamous words of French Foreign Legion
general, Oscar de Ngrier as he addressed his troops in 1894. The character of the legionnaire has become
synonymous with extreme resilience in the face the most unforgiving and cruel circumstances. Among the
ranks, De Ngriers words are not considered fatalistic but are issued as a challenge to the legionnaire. The
piece explores both the character of the legionnaire and the cruel conditions of war by drawing parallels with
not only through the sound of the instrument but also the performer.
Legionnaire is a glimpse into the gruesome demise of a soldier as he loses his limbs one by one in battle,
which is portrayed through the loss of strings on the instrument as the performer detunes each string
completely throughout the piece until ultimately one remains for the final section. But in true legion spirit,
both the solider and the performer must fight on, no matter how hard it becomes, right to the end. A number
of techniques are employed to evoke the front. Some are more direct, such as the use of snap pizzicato for
gunshots and bow overpressure for the roar of fighter jets overhead. While some are more metaphorical,
such as the quiet molto sul. ponticello tremolo and the use of temporal silence to evoke the stillness between
the episodes of unrelenting brutality.
The piece is comprised of four distinct sections: The first being a sort of exposition, establishing a number of
timbral, rhythmic and intervallic ideas of which two are used in each section following. These include
glissandi and molto sul. ponticello in the second section, bow overpressure and the minor 2nd interval in the
third, and the pitch class set [0,1,3,6,7,9] and jagged rhythms used in the final section.

Notations
Metre and Time

Time is indicated in one of two ways: Through

rhythm, meter and tempo indications, or through
the indication of changes or impulses using
brackets above and the duration in seconds:

In some instances, no metre is given, instead proportions

are shown to give some rough indication time. The exact
timing is up to the discretion of the performer:

Sometimes these methods are combined along with

dashed lines to help show time correlations where notes
or rests should line up in multi-stave passages.

Commas above barlines are indicate a brief break of

silence between bars. This should be in addition to the
duration of the bar.

Aleatoric passages
In some instance where the literal musical material is up
to the the performer boxes are used to show the
performer the musical material they have to work with.
Arrows extend the length of these quasi-improvised
passages.

Techniques
Transitions in parameters are always shown with an
arrow. For instance a change in tremolo speed from fast
to slow would be indicated thus:

Distortion is achieved through applying more pressure to

the string with the bow than is needed resulting in a
scratchy sound or a series of impulse depending on the
dynamic. Sometimes the dynamic written may require
shifting the bow position along the length of the string.
The notation is indicated by the thickness of a line above
the stave. The thicker the line, the greater the bow
pressure.

Snap/Barkk pizzicato is indicated with the conventional

symbol above the note and an X notehead indicates a
muted string:

Glissandi are indicated using the conventional lines

between notes, except where they go up to an
indeterminate pitch (usually very high) and stop, which is
indicated simply using an arrow. The stop point should
align with the rest underneath the arrow and the
glissando should occur over the duration of the note.

As the piece progresses, strings are progressively

detuned until slack until in the final movement, the only
taught string is the G string, on which all of the final
movement is played. Strings are slackened during
playing, played as a peg glissando. They are notated
with a star above the note and an arrow extending
downward:

Abbreviations
S.P.

sul ponticello

M.S.P.

molto sul ponticello

N.

normale

Kevan Atkins (2014)

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Copyright Kevan Atkins 2016

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