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Programme Note

Karl Aage Rasmussen MOVEMENTS ON A MOVING LINE

’Movements on a Moving Line’ was commissioned by the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra and first performed in 1987 with Oliver Knussen conducting. Some old/new questions intriguing me for years also rummage in this mini-symphony: does time flow like a river or is it just there, endlessly? Does a musical experience carry us along in time or does it surround us with single moments? One single melodic line runs through the whole work: from it (and on it) four traditional movements emerge: Allegro, Slow Waltz, a Fanfare-Scherzo and a rhythmical Finale. The melodic line runs in a circle, however, within itself, fast and slow at the same time, like a whirl. Thus the movements come and go and the end is the beginning. What is past and present, fast and slow, if you are moving within a moving circle?

Karl Aage Rasmussen