René Staar

Hommage à un temps perdù op. 6

Parodies often play a liberating role in a composer's output: they can serve as loosening exercises between the earnest efforts of constantly searching in the "mine" for new, noble metals of musical ideas that take a long time to process and develop. The alienation and parodic exaggeration of familiar melodies, genres, or styles is used rather subtly in the Hommage à un temps perdu op. 6. The three parts (Air, Perpetuum mobile, and Rezitativo) follow the great violin tradition of the 19th and 20th centuries. However, they give the impression of a grotesque diminution through the somewhat stilted manner of articulation and phrasing.