Located in the UK
Located in the USA
Located in Europe
- Sven Helbig
Pocket Symphonies (2013)
(for string orchestra)- Bosworth Music (World)
The performance order of the movements can be chosen freely. Any selection of movements can be performed separately.
The electronics are optional. The electronics are performed exclusively by the composer, the specification can be obtained by emailing sven.helbig@sevenarts.info.
Tech rider can be obtained by emailing christoph.becker@artist-ahead.com
- pf/[electronics]/str
- 50 min
- 7th December 2024, Detroit Opera House, Detroit, MI, United States of America
- 8th December 2024, Detroit Opera House, Detroit, MI, United States of America
Programme Note
Related works:
Pocket Symphonies (for orchestra)
Pocket Symphonies (for piano quartet and orchestra)
Pocket Symphonies (for piano and string quartet)
Pocket Symphonies (for piano quartet)
1 Am Abend 3’30”
2 Gone 3’30”
3 Rise 4’
4 A Tear 4’
5 Autumn Song 4’30”
6 Eisenhüttenstadt 5’
7 Sing For The Moment 4’30”
8 Frost 4’
9 Zorn 4’30”
10 Urban Perfume 4’
11 Bell Sound Falling Like Snow 3’30”
12 Schlaflied 2’
The Pocket Symphonies are 12 miniatures for orchestra, combining classical orchestration techniques, with simple song structures.
In the Tarot, 12 stands for the unity of the divine and the mundane, the sacred and the profane by an option of dividing it into 3 or 4. The number of pieces and the oxymoron name incorporate this idea.
They mirror the coexistence of complex, symphonic orchestra composition and traditional song writing in the Pocket Symphonies. Finding the big in the small, like the DNA content all information for a complete organism, is the overall idea of this song cycle.
A whiff of a smell, the glimpse of a thought or a flash of a dejavú can trigger conclusions, creativity and sudden memories. We all know the moment, when a happy coincidence gives us the key for a process of unfolding energy and for long looked-after solutions.
A short view on my sleeping daughter can't be captured by even the largest symphony. For her is the shortest of all 12 pieces, the lullaby Schlaflied.
About Eisenhüttenstadt:
This is my hometown that was build as a planned city. After the wall came down, they deconstructed many of the buildings. So I lost the buildings and streets of my childhood. But when we lived there, everything felt like the future, something special and forward thinking, including the idea of communism. Things change quickly. Loosing and winning is totally mixed up.
I wrote the song, after I wanted to visit the place, where I grow up and it was not there anymore. And I was thinking in that moment, how all values turned upside down in such a short time.
About A Tear:
This piece is moving me every time I perform it, because of the story behind. I was reading about a man, who was in coma for many years. The doctors and the family decided to switch off the machine, because they didn’t see a chance for him to come back. And all of a sudden, they saw a tear running out of his eyes. Went I read this, I imagined how much he might be in a jail with a life we don’t understand. He tries to reach out, but he can’t cut through the silence. This is why it has this emotional, desperate climax. The piece starts quite calm and in harmony, without any suffering. It all turns into that desperation, when he feels, people give up on him.