Adored, Awake & Asleep

Performed by RoMA:
Mats Zetterqvist, violin, Anders Loguin, percussion and Roland Pöntinen, piano.
Recorded live, 9th March 2010.

Adored, Awake & Asleep was written at the time right after my daughter's birth, and the piece is dedicated to her.

When she was still unborn, I was hired to play some piano pieces at a funeral in Stockholm some days before Christmas. I didn't know the deceased one, but when the organist started to play the ancient Marian hymn "Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming" ("Det är en ros utsprungen"), I reluctantly burst into tears from trying to sing the text, specifically the words "O Flower, whose fragrance tender With sweetness fills the air, Dispel with glorious splendour The darkness everywhere" - of course, thinking of my soon-to-be-born daughter. Right after the ceremony, I recieved a phone call from my beloved Terés, who told me that our daughter was going to be delivered by caesarian section in just two days! Since this peculiar incident, my daughter has, for me, always been connected to Praetorius' old hymn.

The piece consists of three movements, following the title in their different characters.
The first is an ecstatic hymn, where the names of my daughter, her mother and me are encoded in the music, as well as an adaptation of the above mentioned hymn "Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming". The percussionist plays only metal instruments (bells, vibraphone etc) and the piano uses enormous pedal enhancement, all to convey an atmosphere of grand cosmic joy in this movement.

Without intermission follows the "scherzo", a rythmical, energetic, crisp and kind of silly music. The violin plays pizzicato, the piano is very dry and the percussionist plays only wooden instruments (xylophone, wodden blocks etc).

The third movement follows suite, and conveys a slumberous character. The percussionist plays on water-filled glasses (like a glass harmonica) while the pianist dampens the strings with the hands, producing a sound that almost seems to be "underwater".