Bach To The Future

Bach To The Future for Percussion Duo and Orchestra was composed by Per Nørgård in 1997.

Programme Note:

For many years I have been specially fascinated by three of the preludes ofBach’s Well-tempered Piano, and I wish with this concerto-version for percussion-duo and orchestra to 'highlight' some of the structural aspects of these pieces: It is my belief that there is a tradition in the music history, thatmakes it possible to let certain germs in an earlier period unfold into new, but not heterogenious, dimensions of a perhaps several hundred years later phase of the tradition.This concerto is a result of several yearscollaborationwith Uffe Savery and Morten Friis ('Safri-Duo'), as well in original compositions - (Resonances, Repercussion, Resumé in EchoZone I-III) as in arrangements of the 3 Bach preludes, preparing for the enormous stylistic challenges ofthis work.A few introductory comments to each movement:I Movement: The archetypal sequence of broken chords within C-major has established itself as almost a cultural code, allowing the composer of 1996 to tell his tale-in-tonesonly by stressing and colouring the tones in the original piece without changing the pitches or (relative) durations as a ‘palimpsest’ containing as well the old as the new musical tale simultaneously. Later in the movement, thissingleline is multiplied by the, till then discrete, but permanently pervading, proportion - throughout the piece - very close to the ‘Golden Section’(= 3:5:8.t.i:8 before repetition, 5 before starting anew from the deepest tone,3 as the rest etc. unchanged). The 3 tonal levels as well as the 3 relative speeds are treated according to these proportions for certain passages, but even in those the main focal point is directed at the freely invented melody(by me) incarnating itself solely by the unpermutad sequels of the original prelude.II Movement: One feature of the F sharp-prelude pervades all the six minutes-long second movement: A 4 times identical rhythmic