chamber
2021
Atmen Sie mit mir...ensemble in 3 groups & baroque organ
| Instrumentation: | baroque organ (with subsemitones) 3 players of clappers (orchestral whip/2 pieces of wood or similar) Group 1: flute/piccolo/bass flute (1 player) clarinet in Bb/bass clarinet /1 player) horn cello contrabass GROUP 2: oboe/english horn (1 player) trumpet in C/piccolo trumpet in Bb (1 player) trombone (with F-valve) tuba percussion GROUP 3 bassoon/contrabassoon (1 player) percussion 2 violins viola |
| Duration: | approximately 23 minutes |
| Commissioned by: | Swedish Radio for Gageego! |
| Premiere: | 24 october 2021 – Gothenburg with Gageego!, Ligita Sneibe-organ & Rei Munakata-conducting |
| Score: | Buy score at BabelScores! |
| Program note: | Atmen – Breath. From the onset my musical thinking has always aimed at composing out the abundance of mediations between a number of extremes, or pairs of opposites (like a single breath can be seen as the opposites of inhaling / exhaling): between sound and noise, extreme depth and highest height, durations of such length that they can hardly still be perceived, and the most fleeting moments, between greatest complexity and simplest static. Between the absolute periodicity and complete aperiodicity of rhythms, between scrupulously notated groups of notes or parts of a work and their free combination for performances, between the most detailed through-composed sections of works and passages left to the intuition of the interpreter. But breathing is also rhythm: oscillation or vibration. On the one hand, this is a term from physical acoustics. On the other hand, “vibration” also has a metaphysical connotation. (In the context of a “theology of dance”, as the theologian Hugo Rahner has deciphered it from Greek and early Christian texts in his book Man At Play, it is “the free-soaring motion [ Beschwingung ] which God as creative principle has imparted to the cosmos.) If music is the interplay of proportionate vibrations which move in time and which can reoccur cyclically but always generate new forms, then it is possible to say that rhythm is the essence of music, since rhythm is the reoccurrence of a movement as time passes, is repetition of something similar, not the same. The temporal arrow intervenes in the cycle of time and stakes its claim on the new, unrepeatable. In rhythm (and breath) the periodic reoccurrence of something identical, as indicated by the beat, is modulated into aperiodicity. |
2019-21
collidequartet
| Instrumentation: | clarinet (Bb/bass clarinet), violin, percussion, piano) |
| Duration: | approximately 21 minutes |
| Written for: | Kwartludium with support from Swedish Arts Grant |
| Premiere: | 13 november 2021 in Växjö with Kwartludium |
| Score: | Buy score at BabelScores! |
| the form of collide
collide is a composite composition form from four separate parts (with different combinations of instrumentation).
However, they are not played in sequence but are fragmented into sections and distributed through the 21-minute duration of collide in this way: (  = leading role in the part): The musical material and its internal development/non-development in the 4 different parts range from a dialectic (in a Hegelian sense) re‐reading of J.S. Bach’s double from Partita No.1 for violin, over detailed notated music with rapid and often extreme quick variations in expression to freely improvised music based on short instructions. The title collide, naturally, is descriptive of the collision between the 4 vastly different materials of the components. It’s a variegated weave but with shimmering threads and for me there is something poetical, something deeper, with these types of collisions, and maybe even “failures”. The names of the separate parts are all derived from the fragmentary novel Flights (Bieguni) by the Polish author Olga Tokarczuk, a novel that was a constant companion composing the piece. This short citation, which is also printed in the score, maybe sums it up: Moj zespoł objawow polega na tym, że pociąga mnie wszystko, co popsute, niedoskonałe, ułomne, pęknięte. Interesują mnie formy byle jakie, pomyłki w dziele tworzenia, ślepe zaułki. To, co miało się rozwinąć, ale z jakichś względow pozostało niedorozwinięte; albo wręcz przeciwnie — przerosło plan. Wszystko, co odstaje od ormy, co jest za małe albo za duże, wybujałe łub niepełne, monstrualne i odrażające. Formy, ktore nie pilnują symetrii, ktore się multiplikują, przyrastają po bokach, ączkują, lub przeciwnie, redukują wielość do jedności. Nie interesują mnie wydarzenia powtarzalne, te, nad ktorymi z uwagą pochyla się statystyka, te, ktore wszyscy celebrują z zadowolonym, familiarnym uśmiechem na twarzach. Moja wrażliwość jest teratologiczna, monstrofilalna. (My set of symptoms revolves around my being drawn to all things spoiled, flawed, defective, broken. I’m interested in whatever shape this may take, mistakes in the making of the thing, dead ends. What was supposed to develop but for some reason didn’t; or vice versa, what outstretched the design. Anything that deviates from the norm, that is too small or too big, overgrown or incomplete, monstrous and disgusting. Shapes that don’t heed symmetry, that grow exponentially, brim over, bud, or on the contrary, that scale back to the single unit. I’m not interested in the patterns so scrutinized by statistics that everyone celebrates with a familiar, satisfied smile on their faces. My weakness is for teratology and for freaks.) Translated into English by Jennifer Croft |
2020
Fernangekommen/Hinweggegangen/Fernglänzend
percussion with live-electronics
| Instrumentation: | vibraphone, 16 objects (3 wood, 2 glass, 5 metal, 2 stone, 2 ceramic and 2 skin, 4 glass marbles (2x5cm and 2x10cm in diameter) & 2 loose metal snares, live-electronics (max-patch), at least 2 speakers. All instruments should be amplified (vibraphone in stereo and connected to computer running the max-patch, objects with 16 contact michrophones.) |
| Duration: | approximately 22 minutes |
| Written for: | Tom de Cock |
2019
BES
for percussion with electronics
| Instrumentation: | percussion |
| Duration: | approximately 29 minutes |
| Commissioned by: | Tom de Cock with support from Konstnärsnämnden and Helge Ax:son Johnsons stiftelse |
-2017-19-
fold III – part 9 of Cycle III from synthetic fragments
for oboe and ensemble or oboe solo
| Instrumentation: | oboe and ensemble (or oboe solo) |
| Duration: | approx. 3 minutes |
-2017-19-
seals IV – part 11 of Cycle III from synthetic fragments
for contrabass and ensemble or contrabass solo
| Instrumentation: | contrabass and ensemble (or contrabass solo) |
| Premiere: | October 31, 2020 – Johannes Nästesjö in Malmö, Sweden |
| Duration: | approx. 5 minutes |
| Score: | Buy score at BabelScores! |
| Program note: |
| The title of this work, seals, comes from the Italian philosopher, mathematician, poet, Dominican friar and astrologer Giordano Bruno (1548 – 1600). Although not widely recognized he is celebrated for his cosmological theories, which went even further than the then-novel Copernican model. Bruno also correctly proposed that the Sun was just another star moving in space, and claimed as well that the universe contained an infinite number of inhabited worlds, identified as planets orbiting other stars. Because of his, at the time, radical thinking (including supporting Galileo Galilei) Bruno was forced to leave Italy in 1576, first to France and later to England and Germany. In 1591, in a time when the Inquisition seemed to be losing some of its impetus, and Venice seemed especially safe as it was the most liberal state in Italy; therefore Bruno was lulled into making the fatal mistake of returning to Italy. In 1592 he was arrested by the Venetian Inquisition, sent to Rome and charged of blasphemy and heresy. After 7 years of trial the Inquisition found him guilty, and in 1600 Bruno was burned at stake in Rome’s Campo de’ Fiori. Bruno’s case is still considered a landmark in the history of free thought and the future of the emerging sciences.
In addition to his cosmological writings, Bruno also wrote extensively on the art of memory, a loosely organized group of mnemonic techniques and principles and it is these writings that the title of my piece refer to. Early in 1583, soon after his arrival in England, Bruno published the massive volume on memory which is referred to as Seals, though it really consists of four items, as follows:
The seals are not confined to any one system. On the contrary Bruno states that he is trying every possible way; perhaps something for which he is not looking may emerge out of this, as alchemists who do not succeed in making gold sometimes hit on other important discoveries. In the later Seals he is trying variations of astrological arrangements, devices of a Lullist nature (or what he supposes to be Lullist), infiltrations of Cabalist magic in the unending search for a really operative organisation of the psyche. And the search always brings in the tricks of the memory trade, the old techniques of which can be recognised in Seal after Seal, though now presented as occult mysteries. There is something, to my mind, profound in the Seals, as though in its inner moulding of significant memory statues, this drawing out of tremendous forms by subtraction of the inessential, Giordano Bruno, the memory artist, were introducing us to the core of the creative act, the inner act which precedes the outer expression. The work seals IV is one of eleven works for solo instruments which form cycle III of “synthetic fragments”. |
2018
Ein deutscher Traum – part II of Cycle I from synthetic fragments
for ensemble
| Instrumentation: | flute, clarinet (Bb and Bass), percussion, piano, violin, viola, cello |
| Premiere: | Mars 27, 2019 – Norrbotten Neo in Luleå, Sweden |
| Duration: | approximately 10 minutes |
| Commissioned by: | Norrbottensmusiken |
| Score: | Buy score at BabelScores! |
| Program note: |
|
Ein deutscher Traum (A German dream) takes its title from the second part of Hans-Jürgen Sybergergs mega-film “Hitler – ein Film aus Deutschland” (1977).The film has no clear plot or chronology, instead, each part explores one particular topic with the second part focusing on the pre-Nazi German cultural, spiritual and national heritage that the Nazi propaganda related to.
Rather than devise a spectacle in the past tense, by attempting to simulate unrepeatable reality or showing a photographic document, this is a sort of spectacle in the present tense – “adventures in the head”. Reality can only be grasped indirectly – seen reflected in a mirror, staged in the theater of the mind. A fiction without being a narrative and a document without claiming objectivity for it: a hybrid form without respectable parentage? But in contrast to the lavish DeMille-like décors that Wagner projected for his tetralogy, Syberberg’s film is a cheap fantasy. Ein deutscher Traum is the second part in cycle I (from the large work “synthetic fragments”) consisting of 4 parts named after Syberbergs film; I – Der Gral, II – Ein deutscher Traum, III – Das Ende eines Wintermärchens, IV – Wir Kinder der Hölle; A grail, a dream, a tale. |
2017-18
OPUS INCERTUM
for trombone and percussion
| Instrumentation: | trombone, percussion (xylophone, crotales, 3 skin instruments, prepared tenordrum, pedal bass drum, 7 metal objects, seed pod chimes, sleigh bells (or similar e.g. Kagura suzu 神楽鈴), 3 temple blocks, prepared log drum, sandblock and 3 pair of resonant instruments e.g. glass bowls, gongs, cow bells, etc.) |
| Premiere: | 15 September 2019, Gothenburg; Ivo Nilsson-trombone, Jonny Axelsson-percussion |
| Duration: | approx. 25 minutes |
| Review (DN, in Swedish): | Click to read review on DN |
| Score: | Buy score at BabelScores! |
| Program note: |
|
OPUS INCERTUM
The Latin title has a dual meaning: uncertain (art)work and a term for a Roman masonry where the wall consists of irregularly placed stones of different sizes and materials. The piece can be divided into 9 “blocks” of material placed next to each other. Parts of these blocks are clearly linear and through the progress of the piece gradually reveal an underlying acceleration. Others are more sublime, fragmentary, atomized, grumbling, private and uncertain: intensely focusing on details. The different blocks may also be heard as different types of time: “now-time” which is divided ad infinitum into something that has just happened and something that will happen, constantly flying in both directions simultaneously; “cyclic time”, filled with states and movements of objects; “material-bound time”, the temporality of the concrete figure. Sudden changes in structure, perspective and direction. The work as a transition between solely imperfections. |
2017
Zwischen der kürzeste Schatten
for solo violin or violin and spatialised electroacoustic sound
| Instrumentation: | violin and optional electronics |
| Duration: | approx. 13 minutes |
| Score: | Buy score at BabelScores! |
2016-17
denkbilder
for ensemble
| Instrumentation: | alto flute/piccolo, Bb/bass clarinet, oboe/eng. horn, piano, percussion, violin, viola, cello |
| Premiere: | 30 april 2017, Brussels; Odysseia Ensemble |
| Duration: | approx. 12 minutes |
| Commissioned by: | Odysseia Ensemble |
| Score: | Contact the composer |
| Program note: |
|
The thought-image (Denkbild)—a word used by Walter Benjamin as a kind of generic term for his own shorter text-pieces—can be seen as lying at the heart of his work on thinking-in-images (Bilddenken). His thought-images are dialectical images in written form, literally constellationsbecome-writing (Schrift-gewordene Konstellationen).The concept of images has nothing to do with the history of material images, nor with a ‘mental image’ but as a constellation of resemblances which is figured in a third, beyond a form-content relation.
Missing from the thought-image are the formal features of narrativization. One searches in vain for a central subject or a clearly defined plot development but rather it’s a constant flight from place to place to place. |
2016-17
totenkopf
for duo
| Instrumentation: | piccolo & oboe or piccolo & Eb clarinet |
| Premiere: | (clarinet version)30 april 2017, Brussels; Katrien Gaelens, flute – Dries Tack, clarinet |
| Duration: | approx. 9 minutes |
| Commissioned by: | (clarinet version) Odysseia Ensemble |
| Score: | Buy score at BabelScores! |
| Program note: |
|
‘Whereas in the symbol destruction is idealized and the transfigured face of nature is fleetingly revealed in the light of redemption, in allegory the observer is confronted with the facies hippocratica (totenkopf) of history as a petrified primordial landscape. Everything about history that from the very beginning has been untimely, sorrowful, unsuccessful, is expressed in a face – or rather in a death’s head.’ (W. Benjamin)
This piece started off as what could perhaps be labelled a ‘transit piece’ in the context of the cycle einbahnstraße. This is even (somewhat naively) represented in the work by the transitions in register in the 2 instruments: the piccolo beginning with its very lowest note and always aiming upwards; and the other instrument’s opposite route. But this allegorical transit is constantly unsuccessful; other material breaking through and piling themselves up and what could be simple becomes complex and fragmented. totenkopf exists in 2 versions: for piccolo and oboe or for piccolo and Eb clarinet. |
2015-16
matheme
for double trio
| Instrumentation: | bass flute, bass clarinet, contrabass, violin, alto trombone, piano |
| Premiere: | 24 october 2016, New York |
| Duration: | approx. 14 minutes |
| Score: | Buy score at BabelScores! |
| Program note: |
|
The matheme indicates a relationship, where the relationship is problematic, unstable and continuously open to re-negotiation. Two separated trios playing separate music. The ambiguity of where this music can meet seems to endorse the notion of a ‘transitive’ space – a matheme, creating an invisible third space perhaps. |
Recording:
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/302649265″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]
2015-16
mirrors
for trio
| Instrumentation: | violin, alto trombone, piano |
| Duration: | approx. 13,5 minutes |
| Score: | Contact the composer |
2015-16
Meaning of No Meaning
for trio
| Instrumentation: | bass flute, bass clarinet, contrabass |
| Premiere: | 9 october 2013, Brussels – Katrien Gaelens, Dries Tack, Jens Similox-Tohon |
| Duration: | approx. 13,5 minutes |
| Score: | Buy score at BabelScores! |
| Program note: |
|
On a pure musical level this music is about contrasts. Two ‘themes’; one melodic, looping restatements, obstacles and ornamented planes, tentative lattices of simultaneity, networks forming and diffusing with a fine tread running between the instruments; the other like a broken machine, jolting and splattering. But also ‘themes’ against ‘no-theme’, or development against ‘staticness’ and so on… (Meaning against No Meaning). Maybe what I am after with this music is what’s between these contrasts, leaving the music for itself, “being by itself”. |
-2016-
O ew'ge Nacht
for piano, cello and electronics
| Instrumentation: | piano, cello and electronics |
| Premiere: | 28 June 2016, Santiago de Compostela; Vertixe Sonora (David Durán, Thomas Piel) |
| Duration: | approx. 19 minutes |
| Commissioned by: | Vertixe Sonora |
| Score: | Buy score at BabelScores! |
| Program note: |
|
When approach to participate in the project “Sound Correspondences” I was told that the concert was to be related to a collective exhibition of the CGAC. For me the artist involved is María Ruido who presented her work “La memoria interior” for me. While there may be certain connections between our works (construction of memory would be one), what immediately struck me was the very beginning where, in complete darkness, Nur Stille, Stille (from Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte) is heard. The title of my piece, O ew’ge nacht, is also taken from Die Zauberflöte where it is a short recitative; the topic being that of questions about the afterlife, eternal life, and love. If the recitative is a Message from Beyond, this music struggles, through the performers (as some kind of deformed Papageno and Pamina figures), trying to ask a question. The effect of struggle is twofold, for while the music itself articulates a search through potential material, the player is faced with notation of great complexity from which a performance must be extrapolated. In this sense, the struggle is not only that of the extreme performance situation, but also one of creating a piece of music of any real significance. |
-2016-
Beyond the Quintessential Quincunx
| Instrumentation: | bass clarinet, violin, acoustic guitar, sound objects |
| Premiere: | 31 Mars 2016, Århus; Curious Chamber Players (Dries Tack, Karin Hellqvist, Frederik Munk Larsen, Rei Munakata) |
| Duration: | approximately 6 minutes |
| Score: | Buy score at BabelScores! |
Recording:
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/262430383″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]
2015-16
drifting – part 2 of Cycle IV from “synthetic fragments
| Instrumentation: | percussion, alto-flute, optional live electronics |
| Premiere: | 26 February 2016, Barcelona; Duo Arà (A. Rombolá, N. Andorrà)+ Henrik Denerin |
| Duration: | variable (12-15 minutes suggested) |
| Score: | Buy score at BabelScores! |
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/252308787″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]
-2015-
monade (diskontinuierliche Endlichkeit)
for trio
| Instrumentation: | clarinet in A, cello, piano |
| Premiere: | 10 january 2016, Paris; Ensemble Aleph (Dominique Clément, Christophe Roy, Sylvie Drouin) |
| Duration: | approx. 10 minutes |
| Commissioned by: | Ensemble Aleph |
| Score: | Contact the composer |
| Program note: |
|
Monad (from Greek μονάς monas, “unit” in turn from μόνος monos, “alone”)
The monad, the word and the idea, belongs to the western philosophical tradition and has been used by various authors, most famously by Leibniz that designates the monad as metaphysical point (without extension) in which the entire universe is reflected. Monads are manifest, they are everywhere, and there is no extension without monads. They are, then, the plenum, that is to say, the condition of an infinitely dense universe, but nevertheless they are unextended. However, this doesn’t mean that they lack of any function (as far as they project and reflect force), matter (since they come with it) or that they are extended (considering that they don’t interact with anything in the world). The ‘intensive infinity’ within the monad is in excess of any concept. Monadic fullness is dizzying, ‘confused.’ The infinity within the monad is infinitely analyzable, which means that it cannot be captured by a finite consciousness, but is lost for intentionality. Nonetheless, this loss is not an abstract negation of knowledge, since the monad has all the complex determinacy of an intensive gathering of relations. The ‘pregnant’ fullness of the monad intends no mythic re-enchantment of nature. On the contrary, it definitively secularizes temporality, and shows how the modern notion of progress reintroduces the Christian via recta into the representation of time. monade (diskontinuierliche Endlichkeit) – Oscillation measures the failure of a limit to exist. |
Recording:
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/243863777″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]
-2015-
seals II – part 4 of Cycle III from synthetic fragments
for cello & soprano or cello solo
| Instrumentation: | cello & soprano (or cello solo) |
| Premiere: | 2 mars 2017 (both versions), Brussels |
| Duration: | approx. 1 minute |
| Score: | Buy score at BabelScores! |
| Program note: |
|
The title of this work, seals, comes from the Italian philosopher, mathematician, poet, Dominican friar and astrologer Giordano Bruno (1548 – 1600). Although not widely recognized he is celebrated for his cosmological theories, which went even further than the then-novel Copernican model. Bruno also correctly proposed that the Sun was just another star moving in space, and claimed as well that the universe contained an infinite number of inhabited worlds, identified as planets orbiting other stars. Because of his, at the time, radical thinking (including supporting Galileo Galilei) Bruno was forced to leave Italy in 1576, first to France and later to England and Germany. In 1591, in a time when the Inquisition seemed to be losing some of its impetus, and Venice seemed especially safe as it was the most liberal state in Italy; therefore Bruno was lulled into making the fatal mistake of returning to Italy. In 1592 he was arrested by the Venetian Inquisition, sent to Rome and charged of blasphemy and heresy. After 7 years of trial the Inquisition found him guilty, and in 1600 Bruno was burned at stake in Rome’s Campo de’ Fiori. Bruno’s case is still considered a landmark in the history of free thought and the future of the emerging sciences.
In addition to his cosmological writings, Bruno also wrote extensively on the art of memory, a loosely organized group of mnemonic techniques and principles and it is these writings that the title of my piece refer to. Early in 1583, soon after his arrival in England, Bruno published the massive volume on memory which is referred to as Seals, though it really consists of four items, as follows:
The seals are not confined to any one system. On the contrary Bruno states that he is trying every possible way; perhaps something for which he is not looking may emerge out of this, as alchemists who do not succeed in making gold sometimes hit on other important discoveries. In the later Seals he is trying variations of astrological arrangements, devices of a Lullist nature (or what he supposes to be Lullist), infiltrations of Cabalist magic in the unending search for a really operative organisation of the psyche. And the search always brings in the tricks of the memory trade, the old techniques of which can be recognised in Seal after Seal, though now presented as occult mysteries. There is something, to my mind, profound in the Seals, as though in its inner moulding of significant memory statues, this drawing out of tremendous forms by subtraction of the inessential, Giordano Bruno, the memory artist, were introducing us to the core of the creative act, the inner act which precedes the outer expression. The work seals II is one of eleven works for solo instruments which form cycle III of “synthetic fragments”. |
-2015-
fluchtlinien-D
for flute and percussion
| Instrumentation: | flute (with B foot), percussion |
| Premiere: | 26 February 2016, Barcelona; Duo Arà (A. Rombolá, N. Andorrà) |
| Duration: | approx. 8 minutes |
| Score: | Buy score at BabelScores! |
| Program note: |
|
fluchtlinien-D is fluchtlinien with a structured improvised percussion part.
fluchtlinien – With this concept Deleuze and Guattari points at possible alternatives to the dominating approach. One example is how the music sends out lines of flight (fluchtlinien) when it multiplies and spreads like a diverse weed of sound. Fluchtlininen thus indicates the potential for something different to take shape, for example, the opportunity of re-thinking. |
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/252309984″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]
-2015-
fluchtlinien
for flute
| Instrumentation: | flute (with B foot) |
| Premiere: | 23 August 2015, Tokyo Opera City, Tokyo (Japan); Kazuko Ihara |
| Duration: | approx. 8 minutes |
| Score: | Buy score at BabelScores! |
| Program note: |
|
With this concept Deleuze and Guattari points at possible alternatives to the dominating approach. One example is how the music sends out lines of flight (fluchtlinien) when it multiplies and spreads like a diverse weed of sound. Fluchtlininen thus indicates the potential for something different to take shape, for example, the opportunity of re-thinking. Every form of life – a body, a social group, an organism or even a concept – consists of links and connections. Genes come together to form cells; cells are collected to form tribes. The term ‘human being’ is an example of such an interconnection of reason, a certain type of body (white, male), speech, and so on. But every connection also allows a fluchtlinie; there is always the potential for genetic mutation. The definition of man as rational also enables a dispute about what constitutes humanity: e.g., is it rational to put up a stock of nuclear weapons? Thus, every definition wears, every territorialisationtorium or body, the opportunities that opens up for a fluchtlinie that could turn it into something else. |
-2015-
verzeitlichung
for ensemble
| Instrumentation: | clarinet (Bb/bass), piano, violin, viola, cello |
| Premiere: | 23 April 2015, Fabra i Coats, Barcelona (Spain); Ensemble Recherche |
| Duration: | approx. 11 minutes |
| Commissioned by: | Mixtur Festival for Ensemble Recherche |
| Score: | Buy score at BabelScores! |
| Program note: |
| Perhaps it is first in the interpretation process that an artwork unfolds to what it is interpreted as. Interpretandum is thus not something instantly given but grows from esthetic experience and critical reflection – it is both the result of and the object of the study. Also in a temporal respect, mediation between production and interpretation is crucial: the artwork is produced not in its contemporary history (the past), but its time (the present) in the artwork. This temporalization (verzeitlichung) of the artwork during the process of composition transforms its interior into a “micro eon”. The interpretation crystallizes the work to a structure. |
Recording:
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/230448158″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”250″ iframe=”true” /]
-2015-
seals I – part 1 of Cycle III from synthetic fragments
for violin solo & ensemble
| Instrumentation: | violin solo, english horn, Eb clarinet, piano, soprano, cello |
| Duration: | approx. 2 minutes |
| Premiere: | 21 June 2015, Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel; Veerle Houbraken – soloviolin & Odysseia Ensemble conducted by Bart Bouckaert |
| Score: | Buy score at BabelScores! |
| Program note: |
|
The title of this work, seals, comes from the Italian philosopher, mathematician, poet, Dominican friar and astrologer Giordano Bruno (1548 – 1600). Although not widely recognized he is celebrated for his cosmological theories, which went even further than the then-novel Copernican model. Bruno also correctly proposed that the Sun was just another star moving in space, and claimed as well that the universe contained an infinite number of inhabited worlds, identified as planets orbiting other stars. Because of his, at the time, radical thinking (including supporting Galileo Galilei) Bruno was forced to leave Italy in 1576, first to France and later to England and Germany. In 1591, in a time when the Inquisition seemed to be losing some of its impetus, and Venice seemed especially safe as it was the most liberal state in Italy; therefore Bruno was lulled into making the fatal mistake of returning to Italy. In 1592 he was arrested by the Venetian Inquisition, sent to Rome and charged of blasphemy and heresy. After 7 years of trial the Inquisition found him guilty, and in 1600 Bruno was burned at stake in Rome’s Campo de’ Fiori. Bruno’s case is still considered a landmark in the history of free thought and the future of the emerging sciences.
In addition to his cosmological writings, Bruno also wrote extensively on the art of memory, a loosely organized group of mnemonic techniques and principles and it is these writings that the title of my piece refer to. Early in 1583, soon after his arrival in England, Bruno published the massive volume on memory which is referred to as Seals, though it really consists of four items, as follows:
The seals are not confined to any one system. On the contrary Bruno states that he is trying every possible way; perhaps something for which he is not looking may emerge out of this, as alchemists who do not succeed in making gold sometimes hit on other important discoveries. In the later Seals he is trying variations of astrological arrangements, devices of a Lullist nature (or what he supposes to be Lullist), infiltrations of Cabalist magic in the unending search for a really operative organisation of the psyche. And the search always brings in the tricks of the memory trade, the old techniques of which can be recognised in Seal after Seal, though now presented as occult mysteries. There is something, to my mind, profound in the Seals, as though in its inner moulding of significant memory statues, this drawing out of tremendous forms by subtraction of the inessential, Giordano Bruno, the memory artist, were introducing us to the core of the creative act, the inner act which precedes the outer expression. The work seals I is one of eleven works for solo instruments which form cycle III of “synthetic fragments”. |
Recording:
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/243844546″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]
2014
Rhizom
for ensemble
| Instrumentation: | flute (C/alto/piccolo), soprano saxophone, percussion, piano, cello |
| Premiere: | 30 November 2014, La Caja, Vigo (Spain); Vertixe Sonora Ensemble |
| Duration: | approx. 15 minutes |
| Commissioned by: | Vertixe Sonora Ensemble |
| Score: | Buy score at BabelScores! |
| Program note: |
|
“A rhizome has no beginning or end; it is always in the middle, between things, interbeing, intermezzo. The tree is filiation, but the rhizome is alliance, uniquely alliance. The tree imposes the verb “to be,” but the fabric of the rhizome is the conjunction, “and. . . and.. . and. . .” So far Deleuze. Subterranean passages of thought: that is what Deleuze and Guttari call a RHIZOME. It tests the intelligent capacity for finding beginnings. A labyrinth without beginning or end: “A non-hierarchic structure of concepts that propagates in all directions and invites to multiplicity.“ When I a few years ago read their book “A Thousand Plateaus” (“Mille plateaux”) I did it enthusiastically even though I may not have completely understood all of the ideas (some are even still quite difficult to understand). But at least some thought images have had a lasting impression. When I started this work I came to think about how their philosophical concept “Rhizome” has gradually become a way for me to think about structures in musical composition (form) and how these structures can communicate itself to listeners. Rhizom is based on a “predefined book” of rhythmical structures, harmonic progressions and instrumental combinations. In order to try to adhere to the conception of Rhizome it is composed in a non-linear fashion. |
Recording of the premiere with Vertixe Sonora Ensemble
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/185194068″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”250″ iframe=”true” /]
2014
breathing
for cello solo
| Instrumentation: | cello |
| Premiere: | 14 August 2014, Darmstadt; Alice Purton |
| Duration: | approx. 6 minutes |
| Score: | Buy score at BabelScores! |
| Program note: |
| breathing for prepared cello is the last section (section 10), but the first to be composed, from a much larger work for cello, electronic music and visual performance. Performed as a solo piece, breathing does not utilize any electronics or video. The music isn’t intended to illustrate any kind of breathing but to be in itself the “breathing”, in the large scale work as a re-wakening and as a solo piece, the enjoyment of life (breathing gives life!). Structurally the work as a whole and down to its very details is influenced by prime numbers. The reasons for this are manifold. They grow like weeds among the natural numbers, seeming to obey no other law than that of chance, and nobody can predict where the next one will sprout. The second fact is even more astonishing, for it states just the opposite: that the prime numbers exhibit stunning regularity, that there are laws governing their behavior, and that they obey these laws with almost military precision. The stability of the structure, its symmetry and beauty, is the way in which the understanding takes its perceptible form and communicates itself to the listener… to understand something about the material and how, conceptually, music communicates itself to the listener. “the dichotomy between the very predictable world of mathematics and the almost whimsical nature of prime numbers” |
2014
seals I – part 1 of Cycle III from synthetic fragments
version for violin solo
| Instrumentation: | violin solo |
| Duration: | approx. 2 minutes |
| Score: | Buy score at BabelScores! |
| Program note: |
|
The title of this work, seals, comes from the Italian philosopher, mathematician, poet, Dominican friar and astrologer Giordano Bruno (1548 – 1600). Although not widely recognized he is celebrated for his cosmological theories, which went even further than the then-novel Copernican model. Bruno also correctly proposed that the Sun was just another star moving in space, and claimed as well that the universe contained an infinite number of inhabited worlds, identified as planets orbiting other stars. Because of his, at the time, radical thinking (including supporting Galileo Galilei) Bruno was forced to leave Italy in 1576, first to France and later to England and Germany. In 1591, in a time when the Inquisition seemed to be losing some of its impetus, and Venice seemed especially safe as it was the most liberal state in Italy; therefore Bruno was lulled into making the fatal mistake of returning to Italy. In 1592 he was arrested by the Venetian Inquisition, sent to Rome and charged of blasphemy and heresy. After 7 years of trial the Inquisition found him guilty, and in 1600 Bruno was burned at stake in Rome’s Campo de’ Fiori. Bruno’s case is still considered a landmark in the history of free thought and the future of the emerging sciences.
In addition to his cosmological writings, Bruno also wrote extensively on the art of memory, a loosely organized group of mnemonic techniques and principles and it is these writings that the title of my piece refer to. Early in 1583, soon after his arrival in England, Bruno published the massive volume on memory which is referred to as Seals, though it really consists of four items, as follows:
The seals are not confined to any one system. On the contrary Bruno states that he is trying every possible way; perhaps something for which he is not looking may emerge out of this, as alchemists who do not succeed in making gold sometimes hit on other important discoveries. In the later Seals he is trying variations of astrological arrangements, devices of a Lullist nature (or what he supposes to be Lullist), infiltrations of Cabalist magic in the unending search for a really operative organisation of the psyche. And the search always brings in the tricks of the memory trade, the old techniques of which can be recognised in Seal after Seal, though now presented as occult mysteries. There is something, to my mind, profound in the Seals, as though in its inner moulding of significant memory statues, this drawing out of tremendous forms by subtraction of the inessential, Giordano Bruno, the memory artist, were introducing us to the core of the creative act, the inner act which precedes the outer expression. The work seals I is one of eleven works for solo instruments which form cycle III of “synthetic fragments”. |
2014
Das Ende eines Wintermärchens – part III of Cycle I from synthetic fragments
for ensemble
| Instrumentation: | Bb clarinet, percussion, piano, violin, viola, ‘cello, contrabass |
| Premiere: | April 13, 2014 – Ensemble Aleph in Fontevraud Abbey, France |
| Duration: | 6 minutes |
| Commissioned by: | Ensemble Aleph |
| Score: | Buy score at BabelScores! |
Recording by Ensemble Aleph
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/176699035″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”250″ iframe=”true” /]
| Program note: |
|
Das Ende eines Wintermärchens (The End of a Winter’s Tale) takes its title from the third part of Hans-Jürgen Sybergergs mega-film “ein Film aus Deutschland” (1977).The film that has no clear plot or chronology , instead, each part explores one particular topic with the third part exploring the holocaust and the ideology behind it. Rather than devise a spectacle in the past tense, by attempting to simulate unrepeatable reality or The music should however not be misinterpreted as crudely illustrative, some (more or less) musical Maybe this music could be viewed upon as “abstract storytelling”, having no real “plot” but Das Ende eines Wintermärchens is the third part in cycle I from the work “synthetic fragments” where cycle I consists of 4 parts, all named after the parts |
2014
empty space – part 1 of Cycle IV from “synthetic fragments
texts and material examples for structured improvisation
| Instrumentation: | percussion, contrabass, (optional live electronics) |
| Premiere: | May 5, 2014 – Núria Andorrà, Johannes Nästesjö |
| Duration: | variable |
Recording:
2009
mnēmoneuein
quartet
| Subtitle: | Six Tones version |
| Instrumentation: | trio (dan tranh, dan bau, dan ty ba)+ computer(live-electronics) |
| Premiere: | 28 Mars 2009; Nybrokajen 11, Stockholm/SwedenSix Tones – Thanh Thuy, Ngo Tra My, Stefan Östersjö, Henrik Frisk |
| Program note: |
|
mnēmoneuein (prin khronisthēnai) the act to remember (takes place when time has passed) This piece is about memory. Memory as recollection, as trace; memory that reviews – memory that repeats. Two extreme forms of memory, each regarded in their pure state, but also as a transitory form, as a compound phenomenon that emanates from their amalgamation. A transition from the virtual to the actual. But also about imagination and the border line between them. A concealed object that is brought forth by the act of remembering and by imagination. |
|
Video below is from Atalante in Gothenburg/Sweden 2009-04-01 |
Recording from Babel in Malmö/Sweden 2009:
2007
Scritto x1
for ensemble
| Instrumentation: | cl, pno, vln, vlc |
| Premiere: | 2007-05-14; Acadamy of Music in Malmö, SwedenJonas Losciale – clarinet, Fredrick Haglund – piano,Alexandra Hjortswang – violin, Gustav Ölmedal – cello |
| Duration: | ca 7′ |
| Program note: |
| This piece is mainly about perception, walking through three perceptive categories: the active – the medial – the passive. The path over which the approach is made could obviously be many and here I attempt to suggest a number of possibilities. In attempting to try to do something which could (platitudinously) be termed “clearly musical” one has to find a material that can both be a flickering interplay of surface gestures and sink below the surface. This web tries to be constantly mobile – always moving towards the center. |
2006 – revised 2012
Alcheringa
for string orchestra
| Instrumentation: | String orchestra (9 vln, 3 vla, 2 vlc, 1 cb) |
| Premiere: | 2006-12-01; Concert Hall, Växjö/SwedenMusica Vitae/Michael Bartosch |
| Duration: | ca 9′ |
| Program note: |
| Alcheringa is the term for the creation of the world as perceived by the Aborigines. This concept can be explained as an extra dimension of life, a dimension that has part in time, room and humans personality. Alcheringa is all that we in other religions denotes as divine. The form is a sort of mirror with two gestures spreading out through the piece. The gestures is composed as a micro-polyphony, and thus becomes both still and mobile at the same time. Small “alien objects” are inserted acting as pre-echoes to the rest of the cycle. |
| Comment: |
| Under Heaven is a cycle consisting of 7 parts, each for different kinds of ensembles. They are all composed of the same material and using similar ways of forming. This, however, does not mean that they don’t have a personality but only belong to different cultures – different ways of growing. |