DESCRIPTION:
Violoncello Marco Simanocci recorded in June 2015 in Rome Italy.
The mystery of the voice is the central element in Dagfinn Koch’s oeuvre. Koch uses to quote Arne Nordheim (1931 - 2010) the grand old man in Norwegian contemporary music who said: «…and everything shall sing!».

His aesthetic position circles around melancholy which is very essential for him, where the emphasis is on melodic thinking, which can be seen as an expression of existential longing, loss, pain and loneliness. 

In «Le mystére de la Voix» archaic ornamentation and archaic rhythms known from Norwegian and Balkan folk music, are combined with a narrative form and refined emotions.

The composition was given it’s first performance by Boris Adrianov in the occasion of Ute and Thomas Helbing’s 40 years birthday in Lübeck/Germany 1999. Adrianov has among many prizes won the third prize at XIth International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.

Rolf Petrich former solo cellist in the Puerto Rico Philharmonic Orchestra and Hagen Philharmonic Orchestra, has performed the piece regularly since 2006. The piece indirectly led Petrich to write the booklet «Gedanken und Ideen für die Ausführung von Musik» (Thoughts and Ideas on performing music.) rtf-verlag Hagen-Garenfeld 2013, which lead to a commission in 2015 of «Livre de Praiers» (Book of Prayers), with fundings from Norway.

The Italian cellist Marco Simonacci made great success with the composition in two concerts dedicated to the music of Brahms, Mahler and Koch, with Roma Tre Orchestra in June 2015.

A key to grasp Koch’s music, is his occupation with metaphysics, and especially the Swedish scientist and mystic Emanuel Swedenborg (1688 - 1772), and his concept of correspondences.

Koch’s project can best be described in the words the Swedish composer Allan Pettersson (1911-80) wrote to the music critic and pianist Leif Aare (1933-) in 1968, when working on his second string orchestra concerto: 

«The composition I´m working on is my own life, the blessed and cursed: To rediscover the song the soul once sung».