SKU: HL.14032192

ISBN 9788759858394. 12.0x16.5x0.78 inches. International (more than one language).

Symphony No. 6 for orchestra, 1997-99. Preface / Program Note:... with the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day(New Testament, 2 Peter 3:8)My SYMPHONY NO. 6 was commissioned by the Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Gteborg Symphony Orchestra and the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, to be premiered at the millenium 2000.The subtitle AT THE END OF THE DAY can be understood literally or it can mean when all is added up. However, in my opinion, nothing ever quite adds up, there is always something missing, any ending will be provisional ...This symphony appears to end only a few minutes into the first movement, the first passage, as the music fades away to almost-silence, after a start of flying colours. But then there is still something, a small motive (first heard in the initial sound-waves) which reappears, hesitant, but persistent, and this embryo is what leads on the musical progression. An agitated section of many instrumental voices comes next, until all the voices become obsessed with the same phrase, a see-saw motive based on thirds. This section evolves into almost martial ferocity, when broken off by a tutti descent into an extreme bass-world (a bass-world which actually permeates the whole symphony, emplyoing instruments that I have never used before: double-bass tuba, double-bass trombone, double-bass clarinet, and bass flute).The second movement, the second passage, apparently takes off where the first passage ended, but now the events are more ambiguous, and the same music may be perceived as fast-moving one moment and slow-moving the next. This section is a kind of passacaglia, the characteristic baroque bass-variation.Without a break follows the third and last passage, in a contrasting high register. The music is rhythmically knotty as well as freely flowing. As in the beginning of the symphony, a never-ending descent or fall breaks off the events, and at the very end a delta of new beginnings, of other worlds, is revealed ....The symphony is dedicated to Helle, my wife. - Per Norgard.

SKU: HL.14033079

ISBN 9788759858332. Danish.

There were wild oatsAnd the soil was blackBut sparkledWhen the sun was outThe air sharp in the nostrilsHard to defineSomewhere between knife and coal andAcid and that special light and sweetWhiteness thornbushes exhaleIt was nothing specialBecause everything was special...Thus the opening line of the poem TERRAINS VAGUES by Klaus Rifbjerg, the Danish Poet. I chose to adopt this title for my orchestral work, because of its closeness in associations: an indeterminable, often polarized, state of rhythmic and tonal ambiguity.The expression seems created by the Franch author, Victor Hugo:And here lies the fascination: in the kinds of terrains vagues, which are simultaniously bizarre and ugly, as if created by two alien species of nature. To watch the suburb is like observing and amphibium: trees vanish, roofs appear, grass vanish, cobble stones appear, ploughing fields vanish, shops appear, beaten tracks vanish - passions appear; the murmur of Nature Divine ends, the noise of Mankind takes over. (Victor Hugo)Still, the atmosphere as well as the material of TERRAINS VAGUES have its origin, in my SYMPHONY NO. 6 (1999), the last minute of which, cut up rough, appears as the start of my new work. The music of TERRAINS VAGUES subdivides itself, without breaks, into three sections, or shades:I: TERRAINS - II: VAGUES (Waves) III: TERRAINS VAGUES.Per Norgard, March 2001.