SKU: HL.14028044
ISBN 9788759850640. 12.0x16.5x0.605 inches. Danish.
The full score of Ruders' Solar Triology for large orchestra.
SKU: HL.14027979
ISBN 9788759888780. English.
Corona - The Solar Trilogy No. 3 for Orchestra was composed by Poul Ruders in 1995. Programme note: CORONA makes the final part of the SOLAR-TRILOGY, a huge symphonic triptych about the life and behavior of the Sun. The first'panel' GONG depicts the birth, life and final collapse of our nearest star, the second ZENITH describes in its ultra-slow tempo the patient rise of the Sun toward midday ferocity and its subsequent setting. CORONA, then, is a symphonic 'portrait' of the phenomenally hot whispy brim encircling and radiating from the Sun, a sizzling halo of electrons and photons visible only during a total eclipse. Formally CORONA follows the process of such totalityin progress:the gradual eclipsing by the Moon - total darkness with thefierce, sparkling outer corona - the gradual 'rebirth' of the light toward the full gl.ory and warmth of the Sun.Besides the obvious astronomical narrative of the SOLAR-TRILOGY there's a metaphysical angle too, underlying each of the three compositions: GONG, in spite of its apparent energy, may be the most pessimistic of them all, epitomizing the death and ultimate annihilation of the prime source of Life itself. ZENITH is a hommage to human aspiration and spiritual endurance and CORONA ends with Hope and Glory after a journey from depression throughtotal despair. Super-structurally, the zenith of ZENITH makes the zenith of the entire trilogy, i.e. when the E- flat of the unisone horns in ZENITH is heard, we are exactly halfway through the collected work. Poul Ruders.
SKU: HL.14028038
ISBN 9788759854730. 12.0x16.5x0.3 inches. English.
The word GONG is saturated with associations: the splendour of the Orient, mysticism, drama, loud metallic clangour, violent impact, etc. The present piece draws upon all those connotations, but it is primarily a symphonic drama about the life and behaviour of the sun, our closest star and prime source of life on Earth. Describing the sun in music is not a new idea, of course; during a visit to Greece, Carl Nielsen was inspired by the orbit of the sun and its very un-Danish ferocity and thus wrote the Helios Overture. GONG is a Helios Overture too, of sorts, albeit more abstract. Recent astronomical research shows, that the surface of the sun reverberates like a gong, in four different, simultaneous tempi (not directly depicted in the score, though); the sun looks like a GONG, - the O in the written work looks like the sun; there is even a solar research group called GONG (Global Oscillation Network Group). Formally the composition follows the life and fate of the sun, from the initial explotional birth through the hyper-activity as energy source as we know it today to the final, predicted flaring up and collapse into a so-called white dwarf. But - being a musical composition, not an astrophysical thesis - GONG is brought to its compositional conclusion by a real concert-ending, a chord taken from the middle of the piece and sustained over several bars, from virtual nothingness to full force.
