Aquaticum is the the second movement of Ultramarinus. The first movement, Ceruleus, was a metaphoric journey toward distant lands: somewhat tumultuous and occasionally chaotic. Aquaticum is the place we arrive at and start to explore: a blue universe of waves and sun. The title (the Latin word for aquatic: of or belonging to the water, or growing, living by the water) is related to two images that followed me as I composed the piece. The first is of a traveler swimming in the sea, underwater, looking up at the surface and around him at an alien underwater world. The second is that of an aquatic creature, an alien intelligence, incomprehensible and remote in its ruminations, outbursts, and meditations. Compositionally, Aquaticum is strongly related to Ceruleus: it uses the same harmonies, a similar but shortened form, and similar motives, although it quickly develops into a piece characterized by the absence of strongly recognizable themes. It depicts a meandering place, and a rather inscrutable one at that, where only a pervasive rhythm, heard first in Ceruleus and restated at the beginning and at the end of Aquaticum, is always present.
Main influences for Ultramarinus are Claude Debussy, Dmitri Shostakovich, a bit of Magnus Lindberg, and Ernst Toch and the French spectral school of the 1960's. Technically Ultramarinus uses some mathematics to derive the large inharmonic chords (and the corresponding scales) that are ubiquitous in the piece, and to help organize mid scale rhythmic structures, but otherwise relies on somewhat traditional techniques for part leading and melodic/thematic development.
