The string quartet's Fimm fuglar, fjórir fingur (E.: Five birds, four fingers) first chapter, Eyjan Iona (E.: Iona the island) was written for the festival and workshop The Process held in Vilnius 2012. There it was performed by the Latvian ReDo Quartet. While in Lithuania I started working on the quartet's second chapter, Í bjarnarhíði (E.: In the bear's den) and finished it shortly after I got back to Iceland where the whole quartet was played at a students' concert three weeks later. The whole piece was again performed at my grauation concert from the Iceland Academy of the Arts. This is the only piece of mine where I have used synesthesia very consciously and structured as a composition method. Before writing the piece I painted a picture of the quartet like I pictured it (see annex). I pictured two chapters, one with a rust red base, and the other with a dark blue base. I painted this base in the form of a horizontal line on the bottom of the picture (rotate page to panorama view). If observed from left to right one can see how this base-line goes from rust red to dark blue. The chapter change occurs on the clearest change from red to blue. So the colour mass on the red part of the line belongs to the first chapter while the mass on the blu part belongs to the second. The painting is not in any way a accurate chart on the pice itself, but a registry of what will become the piece. The colour mass on the bottom line represents the texture, tint and harmonics of the piece. The brightest harmonics are nearly white, unclear harmonics are greyish and cloudy, while some harmonics have a very clear tone and therefore gain more colour. The mass of the blue base is more aqeous, grey and transperant than the one of the red base, which makes the huge difference between the two chapters. After painting the picture I designed a pitch-set system based on pitch-class-set therory like it is put out by A. Forte in The Structure of Atonal Music. I used this system to create a more detailed and defined musical content. I chose numbers that fit with the colours of the painting, i.e. I developed the base-set of the first chapter's system from the tone A, so A = 0, since I see A as a red colour. I thought a lot about water in association with the second chapter and decided to add a crystal bowl which the performers would be situated around, each and one with their own straw connected to the bowl. The performers play on the bowl with their bows while changing the pitch of the bowl's tones by drinking from it. The addition of the crystal bowl makes the chapter's tint more pure and weighs up against the cloudy harmonics of the strings.
Explanations Fimm fuglar, fj贸rir fingur
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Place finger on note without pressing down. This is to create a harmonic effect. In the score you will find the information needed to perform this action.
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@ Stroke crystal-bowl with bow.
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Other: norm. = normale c.l. = col legno
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Drink water with straw.