Over the past few years I've gotten to know composer/pianist George Flynn. His remarkable, complex and highly virtuosic 3-part work "Trinity (Kanal, Wound, Salvage)" really had a powerful effect on me from the first time I heard his own performance on CD. Not too long after we began sharing thoughts on music (and Trinity itself) he announced that Fredrik Ullen would be recording the work. Over time Fredrik delivered an absolutely majestic recording, and in an unusual move, it was decided to include the PDFs of the entire score as well as high-quality MP3s added to the (relatively short) 3rd CD in the set. This is demanding music, for listener and performer, but it is very well crafted and full of invention and emotion and is one of the great works of latter 20th c. piano music.
Just the other day I received email from Mr Flynn telling me that Mr Ullen will be premiering a new 30' long work, "Northern Lights", this August in Italy. I don't yet know what plans for recording the work are, but I thought I'd share George's thoughts on the work:
When my wife Rita and I were in Sweden several years ago to attend Fredrik Ullén’s performance and recording of my music, I witnessed spectacular celestial phenomena at night that I assumed were northern lights, and decided to create a piano work for Fredrik with that title. Over time I made some preliminary sketches, but did not begin serious work on the piece until 2008. By then the piece had evolved in my mind from simply creating a sonic image that could poetically resemble ways that we might describe northern lights to including musical gestures and textures that could suggest feelings resembling those resulting from thoughts, images and memories awakened by such a nighttime experience. In my mind this work had become an extended meditation - a musical revisiting of mental, emotional experiences - generated by the night phenomena; and thus, like many of my efforts, has been influenced by the writings of the philosopher Kenneth Derus, especially his ideas regarding the relationship of present experience and memory - specifically, the near-total dominance of memory experience in any present experience.
Northern Lights is a continuous work, but can be described generally in three sections - the first and last fourths of the work (roughly) surrounding a larger middle half. Northern Lights opens with a distant, “remote” sound, but becomes more present and forceful, even “threatening” before gradually subsiding, leading into the middle half of the work. This second section at first is flowing and extravagant, exhuberantly exploring every register of the piano in a resonant manner, and is, perhaps the most obvious attempt to “portray” the breathtaking nature of northern lights. The section then blends flowing and chordal textures, assuming a more calm and stable sense. The final section of the piece is essentially meditative, and eventually assumes an attitude of serenity as the work ends, recalling, indirectly, the initial presentation of the musical material.
I am grateful that my good friend, the wonderful pianist Fredrik Ullén, has consistently encouraged me to write this work. I am the first to admit Northern Lights is technically and poetically challenging, but I cannot think of a pianist more able to meet those challenges, and provide the listener with whatever compelling musical and emotional qualities the work might have.
George Flynn,
February, 2009
Topic: George Flynn + Fredrick Ullen = New Work!