Tombeau De Copernicus, for Cello solo

©2020 by Peter Swinnen (http://www.peterswinnen.be) Performed by Eugen-Bogdan Popa Tombeau de Couperin was born out of my interest in the Harmony of Spheres. Originally presented by the ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras (6th century BC), who calculated that all planets and the sun move in resonant circles around the Earth, it has been refined by Copernicus (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres 1453), Kepler (Harmonies of the World 1619) and Newton (Philosophiæ Naturalis Principe Mathematica 1687), who successively improved the calculations of the elliptical orbits of the planets around the sun. 1687 is also the publication date of Marin Marais' Tombeau de Lully, which gave rise to the basic idea of this piece: an imaginary journey, inspired by Viola da Gamba techniques, where the player's right arm movements are based on the elliptical orbits of planets around their suns, so that the notes represent the positions of the planets at different moments in time, leading us gradually through galaxies further and further away. Happy listening. Peter Swinnen