Listen

Instrumentation: 2 piccolo flutes, 4 flutes, 4 alto flutes and 2 bass flutes

Durata: 10’

Premiere: October 8th, 2006 by Reykjavik Flute Choir in Skalholt Church, Iceland.

Commission: Nordic Music Days, 2006 in Iceland

Program note: 
A few years ago my choir piece “Hav” was wonderfully performed by the Hamralid choir in the Skalholt Church. The text of the piece was by Icelandic Steinn Steinarr, one of my favourite poets. When now composing again for a concert in the Skalholt Church I wanted to once more compose music inspired by Steinarr’s poetry. This time I chose a poem from the collection “The Time and the Water”.

The poem has several symbolic themes that have influenced the musical material and the structure of the piece. “Silence”, “Sunshine” and “Darkness” are the main topics and their appearances in different paragraphs create the overall form of the poem. In my composition they served to shape different musical materials based on either air sounds, soft and high pitched material, or low pitched material with growls and humming. The notions of motion, such as “standing”, “stretching” and “walking” have influenced the different motion structures of the phrases in my piece.

Steinarr suggests in this poem a brighter view on the existence compared to many of his other texts. “ljómi” refers to the “glitter” of the ending paragraph of the poem: “…the glittering black darkness flew with golden wings through the sunshine”.

Score and parts: contact the composer
Score preview: ljómi_5_pages.pdf