• str(4.4.3.2.1)
  • 13 min

Programme Note

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

Media

Scores

Reviews

[...] Even though all the pieces might have lead to Britten's Serenade, the musical highlight of the evening was much earlier, with an exhilarating performance of Erkki-Sven Tüür's Lighthouse. Even a generic performance of this piece would be an adventure, as the music is extraordinary in itself, but Britten Sinfonia provided the piece with such intensity and controlled chaos that it transcended itself. [...]

Renée Reitsma, onestoparts.com
28th November 2013

Britten Sinfonia, cond. Pekka Kuusisto, 
Nov. 24. 2013 Milton Court, London

[...] Outstanding in its exploitation of multifarious shades of orchestral colour and density, the Estonian Erkki-Sven Tüür's Lighthouse was given a performance as full of vitality as the work itself. [...]

George Hall, The Guardian
26th November 2013

Discography

Tüür: Desert Island

Tüür: Desert Island
  • Label
    Finlandia Records
  • Conductor
    Juha Kangas
  • Ensemble
    Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra
  • Released
    19th January 2001