ORCHESTRA
2002 | ORCHESTRA B | for orchestra 3333.4431.timp.3perc.strings (min.14.12.10.8.6)13’
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This work was written with support from the Icelandic Radio Composer’s Fund for the Icelandic Composers Societie’s Dark Music Days in January 2003. The title alludes to the fact that the piece is conceived as if it were for two orchestras, of which we only hear the second of the two. For the listener, this means he should never expect to hear musical ideas presented as if they were a main theme, a principal rhythm etc. It’s all as a more or less distorted echo of something we do not hear.
Main performances
Reykjavik, February 6, 2003 (Iceland Symphony Orchestra, B.Wilkinson)
2011 | MANI | for orchestra 4343.4441.3perc.harp.strings (min.14.12.10.8.6) 8’
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Since Volkslied or world music was to be an underlying theme in my new piece I incorporated a sort of Lied-type tune in it. This tune was however not something I brought into the piece from the outside, not a preexisting tune. On the contrary I set about looking into my usual composing procedures to find out whether a Volkslied could be extracted from them. Indeed my rhythmic grid yielded a fragment of a tune in G major. This fragment is presented behind a veil in the beginning of the piece. As the piece goes on we discover that the notes of the tune are actually like five bells, each one of them ringing quite independently of the others and the piece evolves into a growing sound mass. Almost all sounds played by the orchestra are like single ringing bells of different amplitude, so there is not much melodic feel to the piece. The title, Mani, is the term for the Tibetan prayer wheel used in certain rituals. It was inspired by the fact that my piece is based on rhythmic cycles that are constantly repeated in different versions.
Main performances:
Cottbus, December 16 and 18, 2011 (Orkester des Staatstheaters Cottbus, Daniel Klajner)
Reykjavík, January 24, 2012 (Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Ilan Volkov)
2013 | FINAL THEME from the film In each mans dream his downfall looms | (registered under its Icelandic title: LOKALAGIÐ úr kvikmyndinni Í draumi sérhvers manns er fall hans falið | for solo piano and orchestra 3333.4331.4perc.harp.strings (8.8.8.8.6) 15’
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This piece was composed upon request from Víkingur Heiðar Ólafsson. It deals with the relation between piano and orchestra on different levels, both dramaturgically and musically. One of my main tasks was to combine the chromatic nature of the keyboard with a microtonal surrounding in the orchestra. This was done by choosing a popular Icelandic melody and reading its pitches as components in distorted sound spectra but also by establishing a very strict system of action and reaction between the two. We might also say that four aspects of sound are distinct but interrelated in the piece: Triadic harmony, diatonic materials, chromatic materials and finally spectral or microtonal materials.
main performances
Reykjavík, April 19 2013, as part of the Tectonics festival