21 Sep EVANGELISTEN / THE EVANGELIST

Sjøforsvarets musikkorps med ny hornkonsert «Evangelisten».

The work was commissioned by the band’s horn player, Christian Holter. My collaboration with the band goes back many years. They have premiered many of my compositions – at the Bergen International Festival, Autunnale, Borealis and BrassWind, among others. The band is a cornerstone of Bergen’s musical life and a driving force in creating new works in collaboration with Norwegian composers.

My approach to composition is based on dialogue with the performers. Christian and I are both interested in improvisation, something we explored throughout the composition process.

In "The Evangelist", we have drawn inspiration from the way the Evangelist is portrayed in Bach’s Passions, both as a preacher and as an important communicator. We used this as the basic premise for the soloist’s relationship with the ensemble. The Evangelist appears to have an important message, but for it to reach the audience, it must be presented in a rhetorical form that can be understood and absorbed. The Evangelist himself must possess both ethos and pathos, lending credibility and passion to both the message and its delivery. The work includes quotations from the music of J. S. Bach, who is a major source of inspiration for both the soloist and me. Our hope is that the work’s underlying message – a desire for peace – can be perceived.  

The work has a total duration of approximately 21 minutes, with three movements that can be performed independently but together form a complete work. The first movement, *The Explorer*, has a meditative character and explores various aspects of the horn’s sound: extreme registers, natural harmonics, half-valve glissandi and multiphonics. The second movement, *The Performer*, is more extrovert and virtuosic in character, placing the soloist in close dialogue with the entire ensemble. The final movement, *The Evangelist*, quotes from Bach’s *St John Passion*, setting his sublime music against the movement’s rhythmic and improvisational elements.