DESCRIPTION:
Winner of the Swedish Music Publisher Awards 2017 in chamber music.

instruments guitar solo, small ensemble and electronics

commissioned by Christian Karlsen, Jacob Kellermann and Föreningen Kammarmusik NU

dedicated to Christian Karlsen and Jacob Kellermann

year of production 2014-16

movements:

1. Air; 0:00
2. Spiral I; 5:29
3. Light; 12:39
4. Spiral II; 19:39
5. Epilogue 23:59


first performance
July 1st 2016,
Apelrydsladan, Båstad
Jacob Kellermann; guitar.
Christian Karlsen, conductor
Camilla Hoitenga, flute
Karin Dornbusch, clarinet
Trio Lendvai:
Nadia Wijzenbeek, violin
Ylvali Zillicaus, viola
Marie Macleod, cello
Magdalena Meitzner, percussion
David Huang, piano and sampler
Arne Bock, klangregie


work comments

Over a period of years 2013-14, I wrote music for the Gesamtkunstwerk Saiyah erected at the Norrland Opera during the MADE Festival. The work focused on the neurological condition synesthesia in which an interconnection in the brain between the two senses. Concretely, it may mean that a person hears music also see it, for example in the form of different colors.

In there was a section for guitar and ensemble I decided to do a concert piece in five movements as a "wordless song cycle without words" and described as follows:

1. Air - peace and quiet with small pedal tones from the glasses and guitar shapes an aria-like line while the ensemble comments.

2. Spiral I - this is music in motion a perpetual motion where it leads to a break with a djembe in a "virtual jam session" which literally breaks down. It ends with a cadence of the guitar solo with glass.

3. Light - which takes up the first movement material but the character here is more meditative and minimalist with oozing bright sounds in and out like the colors and shadows of an abstract painting.

4. Spiral II - a continuation of the second movement soon purring material, but this is the term the more aggressive moving toward a more improvisational cadenza where everyone in the ensemble are involved in events like a traffic accident and disappears into thin air.

5. Epilogue - from this comes a wide "free pulsative" epilogue where the guitarist puts down the guitar on his knees and trembling with a glass on the strings and gradually hanging ensemble that particular sound. Everything fades gradually down dynamically to finally disappear completely.