Located in the UK
Located in the USA
Located in Europe
- Per Nørgård
Strenge (Strings) (1992)
(Strings)- Edition Wilhelm Hansen Copenhagen (World)
Programme Note
I. Moderato
II.Allegro
III. Adagio
IV. Presto
The title is referring - of course - to the ensemble performing the music, and also to the various ´strings´that link together the four movements.
The first movement is a freewheeling, lyrical ´Fantasia´, in which two smoothly moving motifs meander around one another, strongly featuring rhythmical durations to each other in proportions close to the golden mean (approx. 3 : 5 : 8). This approach to rhythm reappears in the fourth movement as the accompanying basis for long spun solos in the violin part, which, in its turn, is derived from the melodic content of the second and third movements.
In the formal structure, however, the four movements are sharply contrasting: the initial ´Fantasia´ is followed by a short, intense hammering, scherzo-like ´Perpetuum mobile´, contrasted by en equally short Adagio with uninterrupted contrapuntal developments between the three instruments. Further contrast is heard in the fourth movement - a vivid Finale in which a complicated (´golden´) rhythmic polyphony accompanies the wide-spun melismas of the violin. However, towards the end, this garland of rhythm and melody is dissolved into its two components, both having had their brief heydays before the work accelerates into a shimmering nothingness.
Per Nørgård (1992)