)
search-1
search-1 Search
Located in the UK Located in the UK
Located in the USA Located in the USA
Located in Europe Located in Europe
  • Kaija Saariaho

  • Lichtbogen (1986)

  • Edition Wilhelm Hansen Helsinki (World)

Commissioned by the French Ministry of Culture

Find information about electronics here

  • 1(pic,afl)0.0.0/0.0.0.0/perc/hp.pf/str(1.1.1.1.1)/electronics (see link above for details)
  • 17 min
    • 15th May 2025, Philharmonie, Cologne, Germany
    • 1st July 2025, Royal Academy of Music, London, United Kingdom
    View all

Programme Note

For full information on the electronics, please see 'more info'.


The name LICHTBOGEN stems from Northern Lights which I saw in the Arctic sky when starting to work with this piece. When looking at the movements of these immense, silent lights which run over the black sky, first ideas concerning the form and language for the piece started to move in my mind. What is the dependence - and does it exist at all? - between this phenomenon of nature and my piece, I don't know.

In LICHTBOGEN I work for the first time with computer in the context of purely instrumental music. Special harmony and rhythm are worked out with two different tools in IRCAM.

For harmony I have worked with the CRIME system developed by Claudy Malherbe and Gerard Assayag: the harmonic material is created by analysing short transitions played with a violoncello, starting from artificial harmonic sound and ending to complex 'multiphonic' sounds. The analyses have been made by selecting many small windows in the different parts of the sound. From the results of the analyses I have reconstructed the transitions and made harmonic processes, which are often combined to the original playing manners of the analysed sound, so that harmony and timbral thinking stem from the same source.

For the rhythm I use a network for programmes which I have realised with Xavier Rodet in the FORMES environment. These programmes allowed me to construct interpolations and transitions for different musical parameters. The rhythmic interpolations here are created between different musical patterns by using circular lists, in which every time when repeated, values have changed, and thus modified the general character of the pattern. The calculated results have then been transcribed with approximations, which allows them to be playable to musical notation.

LICHTBOGEN is a commission of the French Ministry of Culture and is dedicated to Paul Mefano.

Kaija Saariaho

Media

Saariaho : Lichtbogen for Nine Musicians and Live Electronics

Scores

Features

  • Kaija Saariaho’s Poetic Montages
    • Kaija Saariaho’s Poetic Montages
    • From the very beginning of her career as a composer, Kaija Saariaho has turned to poetry as a material and inspiration for her music. The forms and logics of poetry have played a defining role in her output since then.

Discography

Kaija Saariaho

Kaija Saariaho
  • Label
    Ondine
  • Catalogue Number
    997-2
  • Conductor
    Hannu Lintu
  • Ensemble
    Avanti! Chamber Orchestra
  • Soloist
    John Storgårds, violin
  • Released
    31st May 2002

Endymion Ensemble

Endymion Ensemble
  • Label
    Finlandia
  • Catalogue Number
    FACD 361
  • Conductor
    John Whitfield
  • Ensemble
    Endymion Ensemble
  • Released
    1989
Title Unavailable
  • Label
    Finlandia
  • Catalogue Number
    FACD 374
  • Conductor
    Jukka-Pekka Saraste
  • Ensemble
    Avanti! Chamber Orchestra
  • Soloist
    Anssi Karttunen, cello / Jukka Tiensuu, harpsichord
Title Unavailable
  • Label
    Ummus
  • Catalogue Number
    UMM 102
  • Conductor
    Lorraine Vaillancourt
  • Ensemble
    Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne

Works for Orchestra

Works for Orchestra
  • Label
    Ondine
  • Catalogue Number
    ODE 1113-2Q
  • Conductor
    Esa-Pekka Salonen
  • Ensemble
    Los Angeles Philharmonic
  • Soloist
    Anu Komsi (soprano), Riikka Rantanen (contralto), Petri Alanko (alto flute), Anssi Karttunen (cello), Petteri Salomaa (baritone), John Storgards (violin), Pia Freund (soprano), Gabriel Suovanen (baritone), Karita Mattila (soprano)

More Info