Unfolded (2020)

Unfolded, composed for Cikada Trio in 2020, explores a tense interaction between discrete, perhaps irreconcilable, types of musical ideas. Hellstenius describes it as a development from “a spare material of chords and sound objects … towards a more linear music”, though the process is not quite as simple as that. Working together, the trio is initially concerned with small micro-gestures, most of which are either non-pitched, such as brushing piano strings, or have their pitch content obscured or cancelled out through dissonance, clashes and percussive impacts. Yet almost from the outset there are indications of a very different behavioural impulse, soft and sustained, focused around a gently undulating almost-unison microtonal melody. As Unfolded progresses, the friction between these two kinds of material, transient and extended, doesn’t simply manifest in episodic juxtapositions but also triggers internal dissent among the players. The piano, in particular, is persistent in wanting to return to this gentler music, but loud interruptions repeatedly thwart these attempts. It’s not until the closing minutes of the piece that the violin and cello are genuinely won over, leading to an exquisite epilogue of quiet delicacy, interjected (but now not derailed) by a couple of wild joyous runs from the piano. Unfolded eventually manages to achieve an integration of its disjunct ideas, arriving at a state of unity.

Simon Cummings