Can you hear me? (salt water variations)

INSTRUMENTATION

Flute, clarinet, percussion, piano, violin, cello

COMMISSIONED

by Ensemble kammerklang with support from Arts Council Norway

Durata

ca 23 min

About

The work for Ensemble Kammerklang had the working title “Tåkelur” (Foghorn) for a long time, as the sound of a foghorn was one of the sources of inspiration. Eventually, the title no longer captured everything in the piece, so I changed it.

Ensemble Kammerklang also collects one-minute works, and they perform a selection of them at every concert. I submitted a precursor, an excerpt of this work, titled “Tåkelur, section.” These are closely related, but in Can you hear me? it is not just the foghorn calling, but also other voices trying to reach out. Debussy’s La mer runs through the piece as a foundation and, together with the foghorn, whale songs, and other sea sounds, is the origin of the subtitle “salt water variations.”

From the project description

My piece for Ensemble Kammerklang will be based on the most quintessential aspect of Vestfold—its closeness to the sea and sea life. I will draw inspiration from my own personal history: my father rowing as a child to visit his grandmother, my grandfather’s whaling background and my ancestors’ shipping trade. The second inspiration is sounds associated with the sea—in addition to wave sounds and underwater recordings, I think of the song that arises from masts and ropes in a small boat harbor in heavy winds, or a sound that is gone from the Vestfold coast—the foghorns of the lighthouses.

Score

Order from NB Noter 

Read watermarked score here:

World premiere

by Ensemble Kammerklang at Teie Hovedgård, Tønsberg, on November 30, 2024, at 16:00.

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Performances