Play!

There are several possible interpretations of the title of this work: “to play” means to use an instrument to make music, to take part in a game or to act on a stage or in a film. So there is an imperative request addressed to the performers to “make music”, to create an atmosphere, but also a suggestion of the playful dialogue between the two instruments and of the quasi-theatrical component of the work: the harpsichord player also uses a percussion instrument – a Tam-Tam – that transports the performers as well as the audience into a magic, dreamlike, out-of-time reality. The piece is “framed” by a “lullaby”, a “gate” in and out this new reality where the two instruments imitate, influence, chase one another in a cartoon-like manner or participate in a stravinskyan, barbaric dance. The music material tries to be as organic as possible, although there are fractures in the expression of the piece: there is basically only one mode based on minor thirds and a series of rhythmical values based on the Fibonacci series of numbers (a projection into the universal, archetypal world). The “lullaby” is actually the generative structure of the work, being based on a series of musical segments that are transformed and permuted; the repetitive nature of the “frames” helps creating the dreamlike atmosphere.The work was first written for flute and harpsichord, for the Takefu International Music Festival and is dedicated to the CAPUT duo (Kolbeinn Bjarnasson and Guðrún Óskarsdóttir).World premiere:Takefu, 1.09.2007 - Takefu International Music Festival  - Caput Duo: Kolbeinn Bjarnason (flute), Guðrún Óskarsdóttir (harpsichord).