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- Hans Abrahamsen
Walden (1978)
- Edition Wilhelm Hansen Copenhagen (World)
- fl, ob, cl, bn, hn
- 11 min
- 4th May 2024, Wigmore Hall, London, United Kingdom
Programme Note
Walden for wind quintet was written in 1978 and commissioned by the Funen Wind Quintet. The title is taken from the American philosopher and poet Henry David Thoreau’s novel from 1854 about living in the woods, which Thoreau did for two years.
His stay there was an experiment, an attempt to strip away all the artificial needs imposed by society and rediscover man’s lost unity with nature. In that particular sense his novel is a documentation of social inadequacy and a work of poetry (Utopia) as well.
All thought Thoreau himself never completed any actual social analysis he was way ahead of his own time in his perception of the economy and cyclic character of Nature, today known as ecology. His ideas are particularly relevant now that pollution caused by society has reached alarming proportions.
Walden was written in a style of re-cycling and “new simplicity”. A lot of superfluous material has been peeled away in order to give space to different qualities such as identity and clarity. Various layers are encountered in the quintet such as the organic (growth, flowering, Decay), concretism (mechanical patterns) and finally the descriptive (distant horn calls and other ghost-like music of the past enter our consciousness like a dream). Walden consist of four movements.
In 1995 another version for reed quintet was written to the Calefax Reed Quintet.
Hans Abrahamsen
His stay there was an experiment, an attempt to strip away all the artificial needs imposed by society and rediscover man’s lost unity with nature. In that particular sense his novel is a documentation of social inadequacy and a work of poetry (Utopia) as well.
All thought Thoreau himself never completed any actual social analysis he was way ahead of his own time in his perception of the economy and cyclic character of Nature, today known as ecology. His ideas are particularly relevant now that pollution caused by society has reached alarming proportions.
Walden was written in a style of re-cycling and “new simplicity”. A lot of superfluous material has been peeled away in order to give space to different qualities such as identity and clarity. Various layers are encountered in the quintet such as the organic (growth, flowering, Decay), concretism (mechanical patterns) and finally the descriptive (distant horn calls and other ghost-like music of the past enter our consciousness like a dream). Walden consist of four movements.
In 1995 another version for reed quintet was written to the Calefax Reed Quintet.
Hans Abrahamsen
Media
Wind Quintet No. 2, "Walden": I. Moderato fluente - Allegro
Wind Quintet No. 2, "Walden": II. Alla marcia
Wind Quintet No. 2, "Walden": III. Andante - piu mosso ma calmo -
Wind Quintet No. 2, "Walden": IV. Allegretto grazioso
Discography
More Info
- FRSO Festival with Hans Abrahamsen and Joel Järventausta
- 7th November 2023
- This year’s Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra Festival centers on British composer and conductor Sir George Benjamin. Curated by him, the program includes Hans Abrahamsen and Joel Järventausta.
- Hans Abrahamsen premieres at Festival d'Aix-en-Provence
- 1st July 2023
- Two Inger Christensen Songs and Walden by Hans Abrahamsen to be performed at Festival d'Aix-en-Provence this summer