Darabukka

"The Darabukka is an Arab hand-drum .......... which can produce two sounds: one high and one low. By uncovering the lower aperture, the low sound disappears, leaving only the high sound. The use of the drum's name implies that Darabukka is a rhythmical piece for piano. The C#1 key is treated like a drum, and all possible finger and hand combinations are to be drawn from the darabukka's richness of sound."
Nicolas. A. Huber

In a comment to the composition Beds and BracketsHuber relates a story about a meeting with his former teacher, Luigi Nono: "In Beds and Brackets there is a piece within a piece:Statement on Nono's Thumping.Shortly before his death, I worked together with Nono on a jury panel for a composition competition. In those days he used to sometimes hit the desk with his fist in heavy thumping rhythms of elemental proportions: 'ffff'. These liberating outbursts stayed in my memory for the duration of my work on Statement. They were derived totally from the immediate range of what is possible to do and to percieve. For the rest of the piece such close-upof the human physical world remain my model for performing and listening."
Nicolas. A. Huber

"There I abandon modality and proceed to a kind of harmony and tonality. In fact I do not use any predetermined modes or tonal material in this piece; rather there is someting which modulates and transforms it pitchwise. It is, as the title also suggest, about bringing the twelve tones to light.
Lars Sandberg

All this music, even when it is gayest and most vigorous, bears with it the stamp of a great Loneliness .......But take you the trouble to make it closer aquaintance shall you mark that this hermit disposition, this Sentiment of Solitude which surrounds the music resembles not the air of an empty cottage, not sorrowful and forlorn, but replete with a whole world of its own richness. Thus one who listens to it can either embrace it not at all or with enthusiasm."
Carl Jonas Love Almquist(1793-1866)
(From a letter to Vendela Hebbe)
Almqvist: The most many-faceted and unconventional writer and composer of Swedish romanticism.

"When I began work on Schattenlieder for 1-6 arbitrary melodic instruments in 1987 it was a new departure for me. I wanted somehow to "make a fresh start", and in order to circumvent my own established taste and preferences I resorted to what were for me previously untried combinations of serial, aleatoric and intuitive procedures. The final piece embodied a number of variable elements, and I subsequently worked out fully determined versions for different instruments, including solo piano.

In Schattenlieder VI I have let my "companion" of many years, Carl Jonas Love Almqvist, cast his shadow over the music, creating a veil of silently depressed resonance strings and extremely lightly stuck notes throughout the piece. The pitch material is taken from Almqvist´s song Uppvaknandet (The Awakening). The words of the song could also provide a motto for Schattenlieder VI : "Hear the spring´s clear slow murmuring sigh!....""
Mats Persson