Ten Secret Doors | Britta Byström - Wise Music Classical

Orchestration
2.2.1+Ebcl.2/2200/1perc/str
Duration32 min

CategoryOrchestra

Composer
Britta Byström

Performances
View Past Performances

Programme Note

Each of the ten movements in the orchestral suite Ten Secret Doors contains a transformation, a stage-change in sound, meant to give a feeling that the music “slips away”. In the first movement this transformation is achieved by a sudden orchestral sound change from tutti to solo. There follow changes from muted sound to open sound, from wind section to string section, from bow play to pizzicato play… In the last movement there is a trumpet solo that is first played on stage, then off stage – a transformation from close to distant. I pictured the ending of every movement as the opening, rather than the closing, of a door.

In this work there is also a small musical quotation from Von fremden Ländern und Menchen (from Robert Schumann’s famous Kinderszenen). This phrase snuck into music as a greeting from another suite characterized by many short movements of flightiness and lightness.

Britta Byström