• Peter Bruun
  • Quest (1996)

  • Edition Wilhelm Hansen Copenhagen (World)
  • vc, fl, cl, perc, pf, egtr
  • 13 min

Programme Note

The piece is in three movements: the first movement present three different types of music juxtaposed, meeting in the end in a chaotic, brutal sound. The second movement is the longest, consisting of an expressive opening and a gradual build-up of an exstatic, motoric motion until a climax; the opening then comes back and the music dies away. The third movement is a very short pianissimo echo.

The primary focus of the piece is the element of sound. Polyphony is absent, and the instruments are always "packed together", playing in a very narrow register, merging into a dense, monophonic or occasionally heterophonic sound. The harmony is based on drones and the tonality is G#, modulating only once (in the climax of the second movement) and all the motivic material is derived from a kind of G#-Phrygian scale. All in all this gives associations to the sound-world of oriental ethnic music.

Peter Bruun.