Constellations

By Erling Kullberg


    Composed 1958

    Version for 12 solo string instruments:
    Dedicated to Lamberto Gardelli.
    First performance 3.11.1958 by the Danish Broadcasting Corporation, on the radio. The Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Lamberto Gardelli.
    Version for 12 string instrument groups:
    First performance 22.5.1959 by the Danish Broadcasting Corporation, on the radio. The Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Thomas Jensen
    Length 22 minutes


Constellations must be regarded as the work that gave Nørgård his real breakthrough. It is his first major, independent orchestral composition (the First Symphony, Sinfonia Austera, was of course written while he was a student at the Academy). At the same time, it is the last work written within the framework of the 'universe of the Nordic mind', using a predominantly diatonic tonality, but with a compositional technique which in many respects points beyond this universe. The year after its first performance, the work was performed at the ISCM Festival in Rome in 1959. Nørgård attended the Festival himself, and this provided him with a strong incentive to continue in the modernist direction he was already preparing to embark upon.

In general it can be said that Constellations is characterised by a markedly polyphonic compositional technique as well as elements of dance, not least due to the dominant 12/8 time. Even the slow 2nd. movement is based on a  dance theme. On the dust cover the composer is quoted as saying: 'And like a guiding star over the whole work, which in the third movement is almost like a modern concerto grosso, shone the dance'. He also offers an explanation of the many concomitant events taking place in the work, describing his experience of the multifarious movements and sounds taking place at the same time on the ferry across the Great Belt, which he sailed on regularly in the period when he was composing this work.


Per Nørgård about Constellations:

    There's a problem in it which is a general characteristic of my music - I will call it the simultaneity of different musical events, layers of movement that meet and part and influence each other - and there is also a particular situation that I remember very clearly.

    At that time I travelled every week to Odense to teach at the Academy there. Since Constellations called for an unusual amount of concentration I was afraid that the work would come to a halt during the many forced interruptions. So I decided to write at least one new note a day. I got used to sitting composing on the ferry over the Great Belt, and all the events that were taking place at the same time during these trips entered into the structure of the work itself: the gentle forward movement of the ship, the rumbling of the engine, the regular sounds from the signal buoys fading away into the distance, and over it all the crying of the gulls.

    Incidents of that kind seem to me to be present in the whole of our existence - and not only on journeys. And like a guiding star over the whole work, which in the third movement is almost like a modern concerto grosso, shone the dance. Even the slowest movement must be borne up by dance.
    (Note from dust cover Fona S 4)



Constellations has three movements, the titles of which represent three different aspects of Nørgård's compositional technique: Constellations - Contrasts - Interactions; three basic concepts which later came to play an important role in his musical universe.