The Winter Night Was Dark and Still

SKU: HL.14036215

ISBN 9788759875384. Danish.

Winternach was written in1976-78 and the title was taken from a poem by the Austrian poet Georg Trakl. The four movements, which are all very precise and dreamingly poetic, are almost classical in terms of clarity and discipline in orchestration and form: hence the dedication of the third movement to Igor Stravinsky. However, the music has a strong impressionistic quality as well: four introverted still lifes of the velvety, dark iceness of a silvery winter night (one can veritably sense the fairy-tale-like sleigh ride in the two outer movements). The second movement is dedicated to the eccentric lithographer M.C. Escher and the first and last movements are both dedicated to Georg Trakl. As in the well-known orchestral work, Stratifications, we can enjoy Amrahamsen's fiscination with having several events occur simultaneously: a thoughtful as well as playful multilayered quality mirrors the poetic and mysterious worlds of painting, literature, nature and most important of all: music.

SKU: FG.55011-455-5

ISBN 9790550114555.

This cycle of carols, to the poetry of Christina Rossetti, was assembled piecemeal over a number of years, gradually acquiring a larger dramatic and harmonic arch shape as new settings were added. I was particularly attracted to Rossetti's conflation of the dark, fallow winter landscape with that of the soul waiting for salvation. The cycle traces the long nights of watchfulness before Christmas, with the great event constantly deferred, only glimpsed periodically in different visions before the music turns inward again to contemplation. The opening carol embodies this spirit, with passages of diffuse, roving harmony interspersed with meditative, lyrical pedals, calling out the night watch and dreaming of a far-off summer of the spirit. Earth Grown Old is a kind of double carol, setting two complete poems, their lines at first presented separately as a still, expectant chorale and a jubilant dance, then progressively interwoven toward a fervent climax before once again receding into quiet. In the bleak mid-winter, which sets a highly compressed version of Rossetti's original poem, presents an enfeebled landscape frozen in time, in dire need of deliverance. A gentle melody weaves its way through static drones, broken by an angels' chorus announcing the joy to come. Love Came Down at Christmas ends the waiting, with its gently falling, overlapping lines building to a final revelation, the mystery of Christmas at last made real.