for soprano and ensemble
Texts from «The Living Mountain» by Nan Sheperd
- Year of composition: 2019–2020
- Duration: 15′
- Photographs: Awoiska van der Moolen
- Commissioned by Conertgebouw Amsterdam (composer in residence)
- WP: April 30, 2022 · Amsterdam (NL), Het
Concertgebouw, Kleine Zaal
Sarah Aristidou (soprano), Gregory Charette (conductor), ASKO|Schönberg Ensemble, Awoiska van der Molen (photographer) - Orchestral cast: fl(pic)-2perc(timp, vib, crot, tub bells, steel pans, cowbell, cym, xyl, mar, b.d., tenor drum, wdbl, rainstick, lightweight paper, thundersheet-acc.pno(prepared)-str(2.2.2.2.1)
- Recordings: The Living Mountain, ECM 2023
- Introduction
- «At first, mad to recover the tang of height»
- «As I reach the highest part of my dark moor»
- «In September dawns I hardly breathe»
- «Once on a night of such clear silence»
- «Further up it is all snow»
Background
[english]
Programme note
Mountains have always played an enormous role in my life, as an active mountaineer as well as a composer. At one point, I found a wide open, empty space for my soul to roam around … at other times climbing could be a challenge, I could experience extreme situations and dangers. What I never had experienced, though, was such a thorough and unpretentious look at the mountains as author Nan Shepherd or photographer Awoiska van der Molen have shown me. In Shepherd’s book it is not about mystifying the mountains or ‘testing oneself’. It is about discovering their beauty in one specific sound, in one look. It is about hearing the whole universe of music in one cry of a bird. And it is about hearing, feeling and experiencing yourself.
Thomas Larcher
The Living Mountain
24 x 29 centimeter / 48 pages / greyback paper + 16 pp on IBO (Japanese bound, black inside) / 5 colours + varnish / cahier / EN / Design: Hans Gremmen / Isbn 978-94-90119-88-1 / 2020
This is the third publication in which Awoiska probes deeply into the essence of the remote unspoiled natural worlds where her images are created. The book is published alongside the music composition «The Living Mountain» written by Thomas Larcher as composer-in-residence at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam (2019-2020). The music piece draws inspiration from photographs that Awoiska made for Larcher in the mountains of his native Tirol (Austria). The monochrome landscapes are combined with reproductions of Larcher’s scores and remnants. The title for both the composition and this book is taken from Nan Shepherd’s book of poetic prose on the Scottish Cairngorms mountains that she wrote in 1942 and which was first published in 1977. (quoted in https://www.awoiska.nl/books)