Lighthouse (1997)

Stravinsky has said once: some composers are like lighthouses whose powerful influence can be seen over the centuries. This explains the essence of the title of my work. At the beginning I was planning to use some direct quotations from Johann Sebastian Bach but after a certain period of working I felt that the idea is overexploited. Actually, after the Symphony of Luciano Berio it is quite hard to create something more significant by using direct loans from the past.

My piece communicates with the Bach’s era in a more abstract way. The key motif is, like some musicologists have called it, a cross motif. We can find it in many works of Bach and other baroque masters. I have developed it by creating gradually shifting textures and by hidding it in the middle of very different musical material. Transitions between tonal and atonal sections are also an important part of the conception. There are many rhythmically contradictional layers going on at the same time creating an illusion of simultaneously played different tempis.

To say it in a more abstract way: the light can be seen sometimes very brightly, sometimes in the mist.

Erkki-Sven Tüür