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Programme Note

HEDDA GABLER (1993). Soundtrack for TV produktion, BBC). For viola, harp and piano.
The music was composed for the BBC production of Henrik Ibsens´s famous play “Hedda Gabler”. For the production the director Deborah Warner changed the location from Bergen, Norway to Dublin – two cities with many things in common, both in size and atmosphere.
All the movements are played attacca, as one movement, and the reason that I accepted this incidental music to be performed as a concert piece is that it has a unity – decided by Deborah Warner and me – always following the character of Hedda. In Fiona Shaw´s´ interpretation Hedda Gabler is just as ruthless as Ibsen created her – but also deeply felt, understood and shown as a victim of the suppressed role of women in the Victorian age.
Therefore the associations to the salon music of the era are coloured with a strong expressionistic expression – the music being entirely created from the inner universe of the main character Hedda.
Per Nørgård (1993)