IN CIRCLE (2011)

For Orchestra 

commissioned by Young Euro Classic, Berlin 

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On the Composition: Cosmogony and the Eternal Circle

How the world began, no mythology knows for certain. But in almost every story, it does not begin from something. It begins from emptiness. From chaos. From a dark, formless desert, before anything could take shape. And in many old traditions, the relation between creation and destruction is not a conflict, but a breath.

In Circle follows the cyclical cosmology of the Hopi. There, the world is not created once, but again and again. The first world ends in fire. The second in frost. The third in water. We live in the fourth. It, too, will end.

The piece is built in three sections that follow these elements: fire, frost, flood. The orchestra becomes a vessel for a cycle that cannot be stopped and perhaps is not meant to be. A sounding meditation on passing, on decay, and on the beginning that is already implied in the ending.

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Performance Concept & Spatial Staging

In Circle is the inversion of Haydn's Farewell Symphony. Instead of an orchestra slowly leaving the hall, the music returns to an empty room.

At the beginning, two first violins and a timpanist. Nothing more. From here, the orchestra grows. The other musicians enter one by one, playing, walking through the space, carrying their instruments with them. The scores wait on the stands. Until then, everyone plays from memory.

The sequence of entries is set: first the violins, one at a time, then bassoons, flutes, oboes. Later the first trumpet, violas, double basses. At the end, the two horns and the second trumpet. When the orchestra is complete, everyone finds each other for a brief moment. That is where the first part ends, which also exists as a standalone piece. ​​​