| THREE MOUMENTS |
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Three Mouments are three quite tonal melodies for medium level flute students.
Main performances
Several performances, often in schools, but also as an encore in concert.
| OPNA |
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The two pages of an open book are called opna in Icelandic, but opna also means “to open”. The work was composed beginning with the central part, which constitutes a sort of symmetrical point. After the central part I proceeded to realising the sections towards the beginning and towards the end using the structural potential of the centre.
Despite the almost structuralist appearance of this approach the outer sections hide their relation to the centre, which for the listener seems to be only another part of the form.
Opna was written on request of Nuove Sincronie in Milan for Harry Sparnaay and Johan Faber.
For performers: A willingly virtuosistic piece for both performers.]
main performances
Varese, July 28, 1991 (Harry Sparnaay, cl, Johan Faber, mar)
Paris, January 11, 1992 (Didier Pernoit, cl, Pascal Zavaro, mar) Johan Faber, mar)
Tel-Aviv, 1993
| POST SCRIPTUM |
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A post scriptum is something you add after the letter is finished, just some short free flowing additions to what you have already said. The piece was written for fiurí›ur Jónsdóttir and was meant to be a PS to a concert she gave in Iceland in November 1998.
| BLAST II | 1998 two trumpets or trumpet and delay device 3’30’’
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This piece is a second version of the solo piece Blast for trumpet. The second trumpet is conceived as an echo of the first one. It may be placed at a certain distance from the first one, or it might play the whole piece through with a practice mute. An alternative solution might be playing the piece on one trumpet and using a very precisely adjusted delay device.
| FLECTE LAPIS II |
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Given the clear-cut formal structure of Flecte Lapis, and the fact that its material and some of its sounds are derived from a clarinet-like spectre, I envisaged the possibility of adding a solo clarinet part to the practically unchanged sampler part. This version was premiered in Reykjavík in 1998 at the Erkitid Festival, which also commissioned this version.
For performers: While preparing the clarinet part I met with Gudni Franzson. Blame him if this seems to be unplayable. Actually it isn’t. There are no rhytmically overcomplex passages or such, just a lot of special effects and some microtones. The special effects allow some variation in interpretation. Then there is one improvised passage. So the character of the piece is quite “crossover-ish”. Still, I guess you need to be one of those “just-write-it-I’ll-play-it” clarinettists that are around…
main performances
Reykjavík, October 1998 (Gudni Franzson (cl), Snorri S. Birgisson (kb))
Milan, November 20, 1999 (Rocco Carbonara (cl), Aldo Orvieto (kb))
| THE JUGGLER'S TENT |
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This piece was written on commission from NOMUS, by request of Sören Hermansson and Erica Goodman. It is divided in four movements which are closely related. The work begins with extremely reduced pitch material, to juggle with it in a fixed rhythmic framework. New notes are added very gradually, and only in the third movement the piece makes use of more than 6 notes. There is a very strict contrapuntal scheme hidden behind all the events, a scheme which only becomes audible in its purest form in the third movement.