conTemp[s]lations

The piece was performed by Nikolay Bogdanovskiy at its world premiere at  ljudoljud music festival at Tyska Kyrkan Stockholm on May 25, 2010.

The piece requires mechanical stop actions. An assistant might be needed, depending on the exact layout of the stops.

Program note:

This is not a religious piece of music.

Nevertheless, Christian connotation is omnipresent for the term „contemplation“ as well as for the organ, which is an association to be accounted for. In this case, this is done by employing a cantus firmus in the bass that comes from the last 16 syllables of the Lord’s Prayer as sung in the Roman-Catholic liturgy. Only once, is this line (seemingly) interrupted, when a 'wind cadence' roughly in the middle of the piece is improvised by the organist. In addition, the idea of meditation - i.e. contemplation - implies the dimension of time, whereas the dimension of space is contained in the Latin etymon that refers to a Paigan temple. Since an organ is not a transportable instrument, and is tied to the room it is built into, it is the room itself that determines time. In this respect, “becoming” is just as important as “being”. In this work, strange three-note harmonies gradually emerge and disappear. Much of the substance here is related to the transitions between emptiness and completion.