- Kaija Saariaho
Study for Life (1980)
- Chester Music Ltd (World)
Study for Life was reconstructed in 2019.
- electronics, light
- Soprano
- 18 min
- T.S. Eliot
Programme Note
Study of Life is a twine of glass and white light. It sometimes becomes entangled around the stem – the vocal part – sometimes pushes out new shoots, which prevent the stem from being seem. Light is silent glass, a living image with the parameter of time; scratching glass, tinkling, breaking of glass are sounds of light.
“… I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
…”
The piece is composed for and dedicated to Marjatta Mahlamäki.
2nd February 1981 – Kaija Saariaho
Media
Scores
Sample pages for perusal
Features
- 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.