A Healing Lantern

by Matti Heininen

for solo piano

Description

A Healing Lantern is written for a historic Ehrbar grand piano.

Two traditional German songs called “Martinslieder” (Sei gegrüsst, Sankt Martin, Gottesmann, and Laterne, Laterne) acted as a starting point for the commission/composition. These traditional melodies act not as themes in the work, but as “musical lanterns” which shed their healing light onto the music. Sometimes the musical light emitted by the songs radiates directly into the music following it, sometimes it is refracted from other musical objects. In order to avoid the songs to be perceived as musical themes in the traditional sense, they do not appear in the work as such, but are instead themselves “sung” through various different lightings. Towards the end of the work the songs vanish into the background and their light loses its efficacy; not to enter into darkness, but instead a state of calming dimness, in which the healing effect of the light has already served its purpose.

Instrumentation

pno

Category

Works for Solo Instrument

Premiere

Ragna Schirmer, piano, November 2018, Domäne Marienburg, Hildesheim, Germany

Commisioned by / dedications

Commissioned by Kulturring Hildesheim. Dedicated to Ragna Schirmer.

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Archive number

MF35040

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