IVAR FROUNBERG composer/works Embryo (1985)

EMBRYO was commissioned by "The Danish Music-festival" 1985", which was founded on a contribution from an anonymous donator. However, due to technical problems the world-premiere was delayed and didn't take place before the 10^th of March 1986 at The Royal Danish Academy of Music. The piece is dedicated to my friend, the Danish composer Ib Nørholm.

The 'germ' referred to by the title is a number of unordered sets each containing six pitches. Each set is dedicated to one of the instruments of the score: the piano, the string-trio, the electronics and the solo-violin. The six pitches make up an unordered set, and forms therefore not any 'motivic sequence' or 'theme'. I'm critical to any 'serialistic' approach, but the use of sets constitutes a form for harmonic unity.

A consistent principle of composing is the differentiation of the basal Gestalts: in the time domain it is obtained through the existence of a 'labile' pulsation, in the pitch domain around the six-tone groups, in the dynamic domain through the opposition of crescendo/decrescendo and as gestural expressions as an opposition of resonance and acoustic dryness.

I have tried to make the form of EMBRYO unable to articulate any directional action of the music, which is a paradox because music moves in time. The 'plot' should be deducted only from the various relations and the degree of consistency between the single formal elements of the whole piece. EMBRYO was composed with an inherent 'plot', which can be described as 'the synthesis of two antagonisms interacting each other!'.

EMBRYO received a special award from the States Council for the Arts in 1986.

Ivar Frounberg, 1986.