Arctic Philharmonic Henning Kraggerud
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HENNING KRAGGERUD ARCTIC PHILHARMONIC music from the work by Jostein Gaarder & Henning Kraggerud HENNING KRAGGERUD – 24 POSTLUDES IN ALL KEYS FOR VIOLIN AND CHAMBER ORCHESTRA Afternoon – Concerto in C 20:39 Night – Concerto in F sharp 17:13 1 C Major (Greenwich) 03:21 13 F sharp Major (Taveuni) 02:43 2 D Minor (Prague) 02:42 14 G sharp Minor (Mary's Igloo) 03:53 3 F Major (Alexandria) 03:04 15 B Major (Tahiti) 02:08 4 G Minor (Baghdad) 02:39 16 C sharp Minor (Whitehorse) 02:33 5 B flat Major (The Aral Sea) 03:21 17 E Major (Santa-Barbara) 03:14 6 C Minor (Jaipur) 05:32 18 F sharp Minor (Puerto Vallarta) 02:42 Evening – Concerto in E flat 15:30 Morning – Concerto in A 15:57 7 E flat Major (Dhaka) 02:37 19 A Major (New Orleans) 02:47 8 F Minor (Lake Baikal) 02:11 20 B Minor (New York City) 02:16 9 A flat Major (Hangzhou) 02:54 21 D Major (Manaus) 02:50 10 B flat Minor (Kyoto) 02:57 22 E Minor (Hvalsey) 02:54 11 D flat Major (Sydney) 02:21 23 G Major (Flores) 01:49 12 E flat Minor (New Caledonia) 02:30 24 A Minor (Horn) 03:21 25 C Major – Overture 03:39 Henning Kraggerud, violin and leader Arctic Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra 2 3 The narrator finds himself in London where he has Each meridian he visits – always with his little been for a neurological examination. Waiting for companion – continues over the poles and forms a the result, he goes out to Greenwich, where he circle. As the two semicircles meet, the narrator visits the Royal Observatory. also meets the same person twice, once on each side of the globe. It is the spring equinox. In the middle of the day, he stumbles out into Greenwich Park, where he is Woven into several of the tales are stories of how catapulted on a kaleidoscopic journey to all 24 time mankind has oriented itself in time and space, first zones, one for each fifteen degrees. An hour later on our own planet, but gradually out in the he again meets the young woman who had looked universe, too. The core question linked to the so mischievously at him when he was in the Time observatory in Greenwich was the longitude 24 KEYS TO A WORLD and Longitude Gallery, noting down some of the problem. After a series of fatal shipwrecks, in 1714 place names from the large globe. the British parliament set up a longitude BEFORE IT SLIPS AWAY commission, at the same time promising a prize of JOSTEIN GAARDER AND HENNING KRAGGERUD He has 24 hours in Greenwich before he must leave £20,000 to anyone who could find a way to and return to the clinic to receive a possible calculate longitude at sea with an accuracy to confirmation – or denial – that he is in the process within half a degree. of losing his mind. He wants to use the time to She smiles warmly and provocatively, but looks down the light and airy F major, Baghdad in exasperation’s recount something from every time zone. The Almost sixty years later it was the carpenter’s son, at the black notebook that I am still holding onto. She G minor … and so on around the globe. The final stop journey goes eastwards and takes him around the John Harrison, who eventually received the money. asks: “What is it you are going around and taking is Iceland, a heart-rending A minor, before the circle is world. At every stop the narrator meets a strange He had made a ship’s watch that was so exact and notes about all the time?” closed in the park here and we are back in C major.” person, beginning already in Greenwich Park. reliable at sea, that at any time it could tell what the This hurts me, because when one goes around She laughs. She gives me a flower she has been time was in Greenwich. Then it was enough to taking notes all the time, it is because there is holding between two fingers. It is a daisy. She says: Out in the middle of the large lawn is a majestic oak calculate the local time to know where on the globe something one is afraid of forgetting. “Write about this!” tree. Wasn’t there something that slipped around one was. It was with the help of such a watch that “I am supposed to write about this spring I am so taken aback that I scarcely have a the stout trunk just now? A squirrel? But I walk Captain Cook made the first surprisingly precise equinox,” I say. “I want to try to relate a small sample chance to thank her before she adds: “A daisy … towards the tree and catch sight of a man of short charts of the islands in the Pacific. from each of the time zones, and thus include all of the Do you know what that means?” stature dressed in black. He is swinging a powerful hours of the day and all of the 24 musical keys as well.” I shake my head. I didn’t even remember that flashlight and shines it on me, even though the sun We stand there a while talking about the spring “Musical keys?” daisy was the English name for this flower. is shining from a cloudless sky and it is the middle equinox, time zones and musical keys. While we She watches me nod devoutly: “I follow the She regards me intensely. Her green eyes of the day. are talking, the cell phone she is holding in her left circle of fifths in major and minor. Greenwich is the sparkle secretively. Then she says: “Day's eye … The little man points to the east. He says hand starts ringing. She just switches it off with a starting point for everything and is in a straightforward We say that this flower is the day’s eye because it simply: “We are going that way!” brusque movement without checking the identity of C major, Prague in the ghostlike D minor, Alexandria in closes at night and opens again the next morning …” the caller. I think that she knows who was calling. 4 5 We talk some more, tell each other things, and the music also has some central motifs that span we become so personal in the end that I make her the separate movements. Each movement is written privy to my disgrace. Tomorrow, I confess, I will as a postlude to Gaarder’s text, not only as an perhaps find out that I am walking the first steps of illustration of the text, but as a further commentary an early stage of Alzheimer’s disease. and development of the theme and motif in its own She then takes my hand. Her eyes are shining. musical right. It is not only due to me. She too is in the process of losing something. I have disclosed my secret, but I Equinox is divided into four parts: Afternoon, do not know hers. She says: “I have thrown away Evening, Night and Morning. As far as the music is many years of my life. It is shameful how much I concerned, this means four concertos with six have squandered. I have wasted a part of this movements in each, and as a conclusion an universe!” overture, which in this case comes as a finale. The text of this final movement is the upbeat to the * narrator telling his story. In Equinox we set out on a musical journey through Each concerto begins and ends on the same note. 24 keys. The journey follows the circle of fifths from Afternoon (Concerto in C) begins in C major and C major through the flat keys, and when the ends in C minor. Evening (Concerto in E-flat) begins geographical odyssey crosses the date line, we in E-flat major and ends in E-flat minor. Night move musically from 6 flats to 6 sharps. (Concerto in F-sharp) begins in F-sharp major and ends in F-sharp minor. And Morning (Concerto in A) Our main character finds himself in present-day begins in A major and ends in A minor. Finally comes Greenwich, but parts of the text deal with the 1700s the Overture in C. We are back in Greenwich, where and 1800s, with threads even further back in time; the musical and literary odyssey began. this tension between the old and the new is also an audible element in the music, where the keys are But what is it about these keys? Is there any sense often interrupted by an undiatonic scale, and a in saying that E-flat minor is the key of depression couple of movements are built on this alone. and apparitions, that F major is natural and light, or Harrison’s watch, train sounds and many other that B-flat minor is a dark key that lends itself to elements from the text are also used as underlying suicide attempts? Does each key have its own structures and motifs in the score. essence or “soul”? Does it really matter if a composition is played in C major or D major, A Just as the text has a cluster of underlying threads minor or B-flat minor? Must one have perfect pitch that stretch over several of the separate texts, so to understand these nuances? Music lovers dispute this.