On March 14 and 16, the Seattle Symphony and conductor Dima Slobodeniouk perform the US Premiere of Stonework by Sebastian Fagerlund.
Stonework is a "feast" for a large virtuoso orchestra. While works referring to stone often concentrate on pounding percussion and monolithic orchestral slabs, Fagerlund here sows the seeds of a myriad hues and features, evoking silence just as much as to thunder.
The opening, with robust yet warbling wind figures, serves as a reminder that stone is actually quite a malleable material. Its irregular rhythms suggest the dynamic role of stone in cultural and military history. Stone is often thought of as a dead substance, but in the music of Fagerlund it lives and pulses and generates seamless continuity. Fagerlund alternates, overlaps and mixes his motifs into a convoluted shape that finally builds up to a wild, fortissimo climax. In the last bars the music dissolves into a void, as if to remind us that geological history is much, much longer than the story of mankind.
For more information, please contact your local Wise Music Promotion Team. See Contact Us.
