| PLAY AND DESTROY | 2005 fl , cl , vn , vc , perc , pno , computer, video 18’
percussion: vib. 2 boo-bams, 2 bongos, 2 congas, medium tam-tam
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Play and Destroy was commissioned by the CIRM centre in Nice with support from the French Cultural Ministry. The electronic part was realised at the CIRM studios with the assistance of Frédéric Voisin. An eight minute video is part of the work. It was realised by Simone Bellotti and Lino Greco. Leaving aside the possible symbolic and conceptual contents of the piece, let me only describe how it appears: A silent video shows a man demolishing a sculpture - a sort of angel or scarecrow - made of various materials. He visibly produces a number of different noises with these materials but the only thing to be heard are the instruments playing rather freely. As the video ends, the original and elaborated sounds from the performance enter the stage and the instruments begin playing more distinctly evolving parts around them, although never gaining an unchallenged lead on the noise.
main performances
Nice, November 5, 2005, ensemble Sillages
Reykjavík, Feb. 11, 2006, Caput Ensemble
Montréal, March 2, 2006, Caput Ensemble
| PICTURES OF THREE FOLKSONGS | 2007 mezzo/folk voice, flute, violin, cello 5'
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I added a third arrangement to the two I did in 1996 to form a small cycle. The instrumentation was decided by circumstances at the time, but I just maintained it. I guess Luciano Berio's example is very present whenever one sets to work on folksong arrangements, but his most important lesson is perhaps that one should act as if the songs were of one's own composition. I am not looking for anything like an authentic sound for these tunes, I just try to react on how they speak to me. I particularly enjoyed doing the second song which turned out to have nothing typically Icelandic about it.
percusssion
perc I: marimba A - c’’’’, wood blocks, finger cymbals, 3 temple blocks, tubular bells, Glockenspiel
perc II: Vibraphone f - f’’’, Wood block, Claves, Triangle, Tam-tam (medium), 1 crotale (C sharp’ ),3 tom toms, timpano (…inch)
comment
While composing A verso for piano I envisaged the possibility to pronounce and enlargen its structure in a work for piano and instruments. The following year this led to O versa for piano and 12 instruments. The first part is basically a transcription and orchestration of the solo piece, but before it is over the work takes a new direction, more typical of a concertino, and adds a series of “perorazio” to the original development of the compositional idea. The idea itself may be described as a study on repetition, on various levels of the structure, from the articulation down to the cell structure that makes up the sequences in the piano part, or to the right out repetion of one or more notes. All this probably stems from my interest in literary metrics with the relative formulas of rhytmic repetition and alliteration. The brief cadence was added only after the first performance. It takes off at a point where the material has been distilled and only pure “vapour” remains in the form of octave figures.
main performances
Reykjavík, February 16, 1992 (Íslenska Hljómsveitin, soloist: A.G. Gudmundsdottir)
Stavanger, October 27, 1993 (NMH Samtidsensemble, soloist: J.F Heyerdahl)
Stockholm, October 6, 1994 (Uppsala Chamber Soloists, soloist: Per Lundberg)
Milan, November 8, 1998 (Ensemble Nuove Sincronie, soloist: Kumi Uchimoto)