Luminous Virtuosity

Last night Arne and I rode the train into Copenhagen to attend a free concert--unheard of!--at the Black Diamond, the new addition to the Royal Library. The Black Diamond, which opened in 1999, is covered in glass and Absolute Black granite, stone that was mined in Zimbabwe and then cut and polished in Italy. When the sun is right the building throws its elegant shadow right over the canal toward Christianshavn. In addition to more archival space, the Black Diamond features a

The Black Diamond

lovely cafe with seating along the canal, a fabulous small bookstore, a gallery (where a show of Sally Mann's work opens next month, eat your heart out), and a gorgeous and acoustically perfect auditorium. It was here that we enjoyed a debut concert by Danish composer Peter Due.

Due grew up just north of where we live, in Hillerød, and then went on to the Fynske Musikkonservatorium in Odense where he studied violin and composition. From there he attended the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen, and in the last couple years he's been in Los Angeles studying film music. A respectable crowd came out for his music, many of them family and friends, judging from the number of folks who walked onto the stage at the end with bouquets of flowers and bottles of champagne, and judging also from the man sitting beside us who took pictures throughout the concert, even of Due himself who came out between numbers to attend to the arrangement of music stands.

One of Due's interests is astronomy and that interest has influenced his music. The first piece of the evening was a brand new composition for computer called “Sub-Limit” that featured two competing “melodies”--the first a thrumming note from deep space that was insistent and almost grating, and the second “melody” reminiscent of insects on a spring day--the two melodies working against and into one another. The second composition, “Han Den Det - Scene 6,” featured three singers, a saxophone, trumpet, slide trombone, piano, violin, cello, and two fellows on a variety of percussion instruments. Oh, and two water glasses. The music was eerie and soothing, returning in waves to the tonic but exploring atonalities on the way. Here is what it sounded like:

thththhhhh mmmm thk thk thk rrrrrrreeeeeeeeththththhhhh phthkphthkphthk mmmmmm

The third piece featured a whole string orchestra (14 violins, 6 violas, 4 cellos, and 3 basses) and two flautists (one the composer's sister). This music drew its inspiration from the two-star system in the constellation Leo called Gamma Leonis. These two stars have an orbital period of some 500 years which means that since they were first seen we've only witnessed a fraction of their orbit and therefore know little about them. The music hinted at the power of these two stars (having a luminosity 23 and 10 times greater than our own sun) but the hints matched the incompleteness of our knowledge about them. And what virtuosity on the flutes! The musicians had to hum and play simultaneously, blow and suck air through their instruments, and use the keypads percussively, all of this in quick succession with traditional playing intermingled.

The last piece before intermission featured Due's music for a short animated film by a Danish film student, and when we came back from the break we heard a longer piece for the string orchestra, one flute, harpsichord, and computer. This last piece made me realize how a baroque sensibility underlay all of these compositions: a fugal, linear method brought into the 21st century by a wide-ranging experimentation with the sounds that can be made from the instruments.

We walked back to the central station by way of the moat surrounding Christiansborgslot, the sprawling white castle and outbuildings constructed in the 17th century by King Christian IV, the inspired one-eyed king and member of the Order of the Elephant. Stars shone brightly above us, their music thrumming in our ears.