commissioned by Finnish Broadcasting Company
premier March 8, 1999 Heikki Nikula and Zagros Ensemble cond. Hannu Lintu
available at Music Finland:
https://open.spotify.com/album/0d5Kun2PVuJSq7TNVmHXs3
Sade avaa
(1998-99)
bass clarinet solo + fl, ehn, bsn, hn, perc, vln, vla, vlc, db
Duration: 15'
The starting point to Sade avaa (Rain opens) was a poem by a famous Finnish modernist Eeva-Liisa Manner. The poem begins with the same words: ‘Rain opens the sleeper’s ears/ rain opens the shadows for the walker/ rain opens your listening, the promenade inwards./ (—)
Nevertheless, my aim was not to follow the details of the text or to write program music. Rather I found the poem an inspiring muse in composing: my dream was that the music would tell the poem in a sort of secret language – it would express something, which we still wouldn’t exhaustively understand.
(L.W.)