Wanted On Voyage

A work for orchestra commissioned by Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra. The composer writes 'I have borrowed the title 'Voyages extraordinaires' from the writer Jules Verne and his famous novel series depicting fantastic or in reality impossible journeys. The title seemed fitting as my work is intended as fantastical musical voyages on which the listener encounters new worlds of sound through recurring orchestral transformations. I see the work somewhat as a tribute to how art has the abilities to transcend the limits of life. Some years ago I composed a horn trio 'Diagonal Musik' (2017) inspired by the Swedish artist Olle Baertling. Baertling’s paintings consist of large brighttriangular shapes and although the lines gradually approach one another the intersecting point is often placed outside the frame. Consequently the spectator will try to complete the angle in their own head. In my horn trio I wanted to transfer this to music: the lines that gradually approach each other but rarely meet except perhaps in the listener’s head. In 'Voyage Extraordinaires' I have tried to develop these techniques even further this time for orchestral forces and combine them with the magical transformations an important structural element of the piece. The fantastic journeys also refer to travels in our own imagination: what we believe and picture in our mind. The sudden musical transformations that occur are also reminiscent of dream logic and the dreamscape itself. Here it is possible to wander in and out through worlds in a way that feels consistent within the framework of the dream.' A work for orchestra commissioned by Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra. The composer writes 'I have borrowed the title 'Voyages extraordinaires' from the writer Jules Verne and his famous novel series depicting fantastic or in reality impossible journeys. The title seemed fitting as my work is intended as fantastical musical voyages on which the listener encounters new worlds of sound through recurring orchestral transformations. I see the work somewhat as a tribute to how art has the abilities to transcend the limits of life. Some years ago I composed a horn trio 'Diagonal Musik' (2017) inspired by the Swedish artist Olle Baertling. Baertling’s paintings consist of large brighttriangular shapes and although the lines gradually approach one another the intersecting point is often placed outside the frame. Consequently the spectator will try to complete the angle in their own head. In my horn trio I wanted to transfer this to music: the lines that gradually approach each other but rarely meet except perhaps in the listener’s head. In 'Voyage Extraordinaires' I have tried to develop these techniques even further this time for orchestral forces and combine them with the magical transformations an important structural element of the piece. The fantastic journeys also refer to travels in our own imagination: what we believe and picture in our mind. The sudden

Per Nørgård's Symphony No. 2 In One Movement - work for Orchestra dating from 1970. Programme Note: After the first performance of my chamber orchestra work VOYAGE INTO THE GOLDEN SCREEN (1969) I was very preoccupied with ‘voyaging on’ in the infinity series I had brought to fruition in the second movement of the work: instead of about 1000 notes of the series I wanted to use about 4000 in order to create the potential for further exploration of the many layers and interval combinations of the infinity series. Instead of the pristine progression of the notes and its orchestration in‘Voyage’ I now wanted to intervene: to create melodies lead up to climaxes darken enlighten etc. but all with respect for the continuous flow and the preservation of the special timeless objectivity characteristic of the infinity series. One can perhaps experience the many recurrences of motifs in tempo layers from fast to very slow as a successor to the fractal computer graphics of the eighties. At any rate this ‘Symphony no. 2 in one movement’ (which was the result) became the precursor of the other works of the seventies including my 50-minute long chorally integrated Third Symphony (from 1973-75) which is also based on the infinity series but in addition has incorporated the upper and lower harmonic series and rhythms with ‘Golden’ duration proportions. The Second Symphony lasts about 25 minutes and was given its first performance on13th April 1970 by the Aarhus City Orchestra conducted by Per Dreier. Per Nørgård August 1992