Qafsiel (2015)
(version for clarinet and organ)

WP version for clarinet and organ 2015, Niko Friedrich (clarinet), Johannes Matthias Michel (organ), Mannheim (Johanneskirche)

Qafsiel, according to Hebrew, Christian and Islamic sources, is the angel of tears, who watches over death, among other things. In my work, this first attribution is the source of the work's ideas.

The first version, for clarinet and organ, was written for Niko Friedrich, clarinet, and the organist Johannes Michel. The work is conceived as a composition of a simple line with underlying harmonies. The world premiere took place in the Johanneskirche Mannheim in 2015.

Two years later, I started to think about the new pictures by the illustrator Malte Spohr, with whom I have done several projects, because his new pictures, which for the first time were in colours (until then, his drawings had been in graphite, i.e. various shades of grey), have evoked associations in me that seemed to demand a musical response. The result is a series of works for violin and accordion. The first work of this new series is a new version of Qafsiel.

Sidney Corbett, Schwetzingen, October 2021