“Tractus is originally the name of one of the Gregorian chants. In the Middle Ages, the tractus repertoire grew considerably and was seen as a form of lamentation. In my composition for cimbalom, harmonium and 22 strings, I have used the tractus Exáudi me from Feria III post Diminicam Septuagesimae, but just the first section of it. The lament itself is only heard at the beginning and at the end of the piece. By using a system of what’s known as metric modulation, the slow initial tempo is first doubled, and then tripled, before finally returning to the slow tempo of the beginning.
In addition, I have adopted something of the tractus’s church mode: the so-called hypodoric, but again, only at the beginning and the end. Most of the time, however, there are a limited number of chords, which are usually repeated in a fixed order.
In addition to the string orchestra, the piece consists of cimbalom and harmonium. I got the idea of using these two instruments while completing the 1919 version of Igor Stravinsky’s Les Noces, which I worked on in late 2007 / early 2008. The instrumentation of that version consists of piano, 2 cimbaloms, harmonium and percussion. The cimbalom is mainly used to indicate tempo and meter, so the piece could be played without a conductor. The harmonium is used to color the sound of the string orchestra and, in a way, to distort it.”

– Theo Verbey