The fully-unfolded sound - stages in growth
Certain sounds have had a strange kind of growth quality for me, that is, they can appear as a two-three note motif, a two-three note sound, and actually be very satisfying in certain contexts. And then it turns out that when this sound reappears somewhere else in the composition it needs two or three extra notes, which perhaps give it an extra, dissonant quality, at all events it becomes richer, and in a way anticipates a later stage. The fully-unfolded sound may perhaps be so complex, though still clearly marked by the original suchness of the sound, that it can be compared to a completely unfolded flower. It is neither inferior nor superior to the other stages.
My music abounds with examples of unfolded, non-unfolded, less unfolded and kernel sounds, all the time, because I almost always return to motifs and phrases which are looked at in a new way. The most characteristic example of this is perhaps the whole thematic series which unfolded itself in a number of works, starting with the work Sub Rosa, played by Sub Rosa, which was called Den himmelske kærlighed (Heavenly Love), and in this there is a melody, Flos ut rosa, 'A flower as the rose did bloom when the Virgin gave birth, in a completely new kind of birth'.
Now this little theme, which was then later fully unfolded in the orchestral work, Twilight, and which has been unfolded in an interplay between singer and lute and later again in an interplay between singer and organ, singer and guitar/harp in various versions, this theme sometimes reveals itself in its simplest form and sometimes in a colossally expanded version. A former pupil of mine, Hans Gefors, who has become a famous English-Swedish opera composer, used this same theme as a paradisiacal unfolding in his opera, Parken, which had its premiere in Wiesbaden to Botho Strauss’ libretto.
