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- Haflidi Hallgrímsson
Notes from a Diary, Op. 33 (2005)
- Chester Music Ltd (World)
Commissioned by Thorunn Osk Marinosdottir with finanical assistance from Musica Nova in Iceland and NESTA
Programme Note
During a visit to Amsterdam two years ago, I found myself standing by a dark window covered in grey dense material in a house, no.263 in Prinsengracht, where Ann Frank and her family hid from the Nazis for two years during the second world war. Standing by the window in this unique museum with silent visitors passing by, my emotional response to this environment and what it represented was strangely muted. Suddenly a large bell was struck in the Westertoren Church nearby and the deep resonance emanating from that bell shook me profoundly for a split second. So this was the sound that Ann found reassuring; I was for a few moments painfully aware of her terrible fate. When I started work on a composition for viola and piano the experience in the Ann Frank Museum became more and more the magnet that shaped the musical character of the work.
The mysterious and almost secretive sound of the viola seemed perfect for the sound-worlds I wished to create. The piano represents at times the “outer” world and the viola the “inner” world. Notes From a Diary consists of 15 short movements that form a larger whole, like songs in a song-cycle. There are no direct references to Ann’s diary, but much to my own “diary of sounds” that emerged gradually from that single stroke of a bell that I heard in the Ann Frank Museum in Amsterdam two years ago.
HH, August 2005
The mysterious and almost secretive sound of the viola seemed perfect for the sound-worlds I wished to create. The piano represents at times the “outer” world and the viola the “inner” world. Notes From a Diary consists of 15 short movements that form a larger whole, like songs in a song-cycle. There are no direct references to Ann’s diary, but much to my own “diary of sounds” that emerged gradually from that single stroke of a bell that I heard in the Ann Frank Museum in Amsterdam two years ago.
HH, August 2005
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Score sample
Reviews
The [work] here [is an] impressivley eloquent example of the Icelandic-born, Edinburgh-resident Haflidi Hallgrimsson's art. Notes from a Diary, Op 33 (2005), inspired by a visit to the Anne Frank museum in Amsterdam, are given by the viola player Matthew Jones, are 15 crafted reflections, powerfully poignant as well as beautiful.
24th February 2008
Haflidi Hallgrimsson's new work, Notes from a Diary Op 33 (in memoriam Anne Frank) for viola and piano also conjoured some evocative images. Searing chord clusters and tightly pitched intervals recreated the haunting sound of the bells from Westertoren Church in Amsterdam...
10th November 2005
...a series of intensely expressive miniatures for viola and piano...
9th November 2005
Discography
Hafliði Hallgrímsson: Chamber Music Metamorphoses
- LabelDelphian Records
- Catalogue NumberDCD34059
- EnsembleFidelio Trio
- SoloistMatthew Jones, viola
- Released2008