Description
Lasse Thoresen: “Every Minute Opens Doors” (Op. 60) for Soprano, Violin, Violoncello and Piano (Set of parts)
(2023)
Music by Lasse Thoresen (*1949)
Words by Vladimir Levchev (*1957) from The Refugee.
Translation by the author with Henry Taylor.
Text Copyright © Vladimir Levchev. Reprinted by permission.
NOTE: This product includes the parts only. For the score, please see EP20221A.
Refugees have been a part, although not main part, of my life for several years. When the revolution in Iran happened in 1979, I happened to be responsible for facilitating the arrival of the first Bahá’í-refugees from that country. Now my heart bleeds again for the terrible war in Europe and the suffering it causes.
In the case of my composition for the Songs of Travel, I chose a poem called The Refugee by Vladimir Levchev. I found it reflected emotions I thought would be common to many refugees. In my conversations with refugees that have come to Norway from Ukraine, this was confirmed: The poem described their situation well and opened doors to their memories and the hopes.
A central theme of the poem is time. How is it experienced as influenced by one’s life situation? The poem portrays the refugee’s experience of time as enervating. While minutes pass, life is held in suspense, caught between memories both happy and painful, and an uncertain, unknown future. The dream of a paradise in this world or the next seems to be barred by the shackles of time.
Art music in the European classical music tradition—to which I feel strongly indebted—is capable of incorporating in music’s inner structure the very emotions and the situation that it reflects. So, I wanted the music to embody the concern with time. My music starts with a pulse with the duration of a second. Pulses in different tempi begin to overlap, creating a pattern of rhythms that will return throughout the piece. And there is suspense—nothing significant happens for a while. When will things move on?
One of the refugees told me about her experience of a bombshell in the middle of the night, how the air pressure struck her down, how her experience of time was acutely changed. So, there is a section in the piece reflecting shock and the spreading of dark clouds.
Is there an exit from the present into another life, one realizing the dream of paradise? A piece of classical music might answer in the affirmative with cadential closure. My piece does not: It simply exits. To where?
Lasse Thoresen
30 June 2023
Commissioned by Valdres Sommersymfoni for “Songs of Travel”, and co-funded by the European Union’s Creative Europe Cooperation Fund.
“Songs of Travel” is a partnership between the following European music festivals and one creative studio: Cellissimo (Music for Galway), Ireland; Fairplay Chamber Music, Sweden; Valdres Sommersymfoni, Norway; Piano Biënnale (Keys to Music Foundation), The Netherlands; Causa Creations, Austria.
This edition is supported by the Norwegian Society of Composers.
