Bridges

dark water with reflections from the sky
2016
brass and percussion: 4/2/3/1/timp. + perc.
durata
11'

commission by Gävle Symphony Orchestra
first performance: 25.11.2016 in Gävle, Sweden, conductor: Jaime Martin

publisher: Svensk Musik

Interview in Tonsättaren by Anna Hedelius in connection with the premiere:

Bridges is a work written for brass and percussion. How did you get the idea for the work?
- The instrumentation of brass and percussion was a surprising request from the orchestra and it sounded exciting, unusual and challenging to me. I was later told that the piece would be first in the programme, an opening piece, which may have influenced the character of the piece.

How would you describe the piece?
- For the form of the piece, I had a recumbent hourglass in mind. I also knew that a kind of chorale could be used in its narrower passage. The music begins with an initial noise that soon forms melodic cells and lines of various lengths and then opens up into an increasingly driving braid with both height and deep falls, in which all the musicians are actively involved. This narrows and peels off towards the passage, it sways and glides ever thinner and deeper before opening up again, but differently, towards the end. In the centre of the piece, a chorale floats by. The title is of course a wish, a call: to build bridges across dangerous border waters, between different cultures, which unfortunately is far removed from today's reality at Europe's borders and inland islands.

bridges.pdf (855.49 KB)
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