Located in the UK
Located in the USA
Located in Europe
- Asbjørn Schaathun
Epithalamion (2003)
- Edition Wilhelm Hansen Copenhagen (World)
Programme Note
Epithalamion for hardanger fiddle (alternative orchestration: Viola)
The piece is commissioned by the Osa Festival, Voss in Norway. To begin with I decided that I would not come from abroad and force all possible and impossible tunes and strange urban behaviour on the fiddle. No, fiddlers like to play and I wanted Lars Underlid from Vågslid in Telemark to do exactly that.
Epithalamion begins with a folk-like figure, which, however, displaces itself microscopically in order to recreate what I hear in most folk music: that the music moves all the time while it also stands completely still. Yet, the urban fickle of mind sneaks in from time to time in the form of long enduring notes, and the result is that some refrains come to a stop.
One might sense that the theme from Bach’s Goldberg Variations is the fundament of the folk material in the piece - it has been through my own knitting machine - everything is real home made, as one would have said in Telemark.
The piece is commissioned by the Osa Festival, Voss in Norway. To begin with I decided that I would not come from abroad and force all possible and impossible tunes and strange urban behaviour on the fiddle. No, fiddlers like to play and I wanted Lars Underlid from Vågslid in Telemark to do exactly that.
Epithalamion begins with a folk-like figure, which, however, displaces itself microscopically in order to recreate what I hear in most folk music: that the music moves all the time while it also stands completely still. Yet, the urban fickle of mind sneaks in from time to time in the form of long enduring notes, and the result is that some refrains come to a stop.
One might sense that the theme from Bach’s Goldberg Variations is the fundament of the folk material in the piece - it has been through my own knitting machine - everything is real home made, as one would have said in Telemark.