2 mins
PREMIERE of the MONTH
SHADOWS AND FOG: The Jack Quartet performed the world premiere of Natacha Diels’s Beautiful Trouble at Penn Live Arts, University of Pennsylvania (UoP), on 2 February, with its New York premiere on 15 March. Diels, assistant professor of music at UoP, created the work to ‘examine a moment in time through the power of abstract narrative and music’. The five-act live performance describes a mini-plot in the style of The Twilight Zone, creating ‘a sensory experience that is relevant and knowable to the current typical audience-goer’s ability and desire to consume media’.
Photo: Joe Lamberti
A matter of time
Day and night inspire a new violin concerto
COMPOSER Britta Byström
WORK ShorteningDaysfor violin and orchestra
ARTIST Janine Jansen (vn) Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra/Jaime Martín
DATE 16 May 2024
PLACE Konserthuset Stockholm, Stockholm, Sweden bitly.ws 3gd9E
Britta Byström
Janine Jansen
BYSTRÖM PHOTO ARNE HYCKENBERG. JANSEN PHOTO LUKAS BECK
I knew that in this work, I wanted to have two sorts of music and convey this feeling of going towards darkness,’ says Swedish composer Britta Byström about her new violin concerto Shortening Days for Dutch violinist Janine Jansen. ‘So the idea of day and night was very appealing.’
The 27-minute work is divided into six parts: three ‘days’ and three ‘nights’. The ‘day’ parts gradually shorten, while the ‘night’ parts gradually lengthen. The day music has different rhythmic figures passed around the orchestra and soloist. ‘There are different layers, but they’re all connected by a similar pulse,’ says Byström. A liveliness is created by, among other things, a ‘web of pizzicato’. The day music is often diatonic, contrasting with its more chromatic ‘night’ counterpart.
In the more unstructured night music, the violin sounds ‘almost like an improvisation, flying over the orchestra’, she says.
‘This is what I feel when I see Janine perform – that she is sailing.’ In being softer in dynamic, it gave the composer licence to experiment with timbres that may not usually sound in a loud orchestra. The brass players are playing on their mouthpieces only, and the soloist plays in the violin’s low register with mute on. And parts, such as the pizzicato, that were hidden in the day music are now in the foreground. ‘We often hear sounds at night that we don’t notice during the day,’ says Byström. ‘It offers a change in perspective.
‘I think it’s a dream of every composer to have their works performed by Janine. She has a voice of her own and adds so much to the performance,’ continues Byström, who has collaborated with the violinist previously. ‘I wanted to write something that combines my own voice as a composer with her very special, personal expression.’