Lead, Kindly Light

The first idea for the work was of something vague developing into a more clearcut structure.This idea gave associations to the Norwegian translation of the hymn ”Lead, Gently Light”, which depicts a light shining through foggy air. During the composing process, I decided to include the hymn tune towards the end, and making a gradual motivic assimilation towards that tune. Most of the music is also based on a 9 note mode extracted from the hymn tune.

After the ”foggy” opening and a somewhat similar section later in the piece comes a repeated melodic line, changing between the instruments and rhythmically formed by a repeated formula that is shorter than the melody so that it becomes less recognisable when repeated, although the intervals are the same. Afterwards, there is music that approaches harmonic spectra, the second time after the hymn tune has been introduced (p. 20 in Preview.).