• Per Nørgård
  • Modlys (1970)
    (Backlight)

  • Edition Wilhelm Hansen Copenhagen (World)
  • 2.2.2.2ssx.2/0.2.4.2/2perc/2pf
  • 13 min

Programme Note

BACKLIGHT (1970) - music for brass, pianos and percussion.
There is a strange paradox connected with the “backlight” phenomenon. On the one hand the foreground and its objects appear in clear profile, on the other, the eye is dazzled by a strongly direct amount of light.

It is this paradoxical phenomenon which I experienced for my inner ear when I wrote the chamber music work “Backlight”. Here, too, there is a clear and tranquil background which allows the many musical figures in the foreground to appear in profile, in much the same way as bagpipes´ bass notes emphasize the many melodic notes.

In “Backlight” two trumpets and two tubas take on a kind of intermediary role between the principal players: four trombones (background) and the rest of the instruments (foreground).

This is most definitely a composition for space, whose various dimensions are interwoven into the music.

The work was composed in 1970 for the inauguration of the new concert hall at the Royal Academy of Music, Århus, and is dedicated to Åse and Tage Nielsen.

Per Nørgård

Scores

Score preview

Discography

Works for Brass

Works for Brass
  • Label
    Classico
  • Catalogue Number
    730
  • Conductor
    Elgar Howarth
  • Ensemble
    Aarhus Sinfonietta / Ars Nova