Klangstenen i Håga

Klangstenen i Håga

Klangstenen i Håga First performance on Swedish National Radio 2006
EAM
Duration: 7´45
Composed: 2005/2006

Info

Klangstenen i Håga (The Ringing Stone of Håga) was commissioned by the Swedish National Radio.

Other performances

“Gem, Set & Match”, Fylkingen, Stockholm -06
Royal College of Music in Stockholm – 07
Ev Terpe Jubileumskonsert at Nybrokajen 11, Stockholm -07
Synthèse 2008 in Bourges, France -08
Arbrå, Hälsingland -08
Orsjöborg, Hälsingland -08
“Musikmagasinet: Muzik”, Swedish Radio -08

Program note

In Håga in the Uppsala region of Sweden there is a so called “ringing stone”. Archaeologists believe that this ringing stone was perhaps used during religious ceremonies during the bronze age. A person would strike the ringing stone with another smaller stone to generate a resonant tone. Over many years use the ringing stone has developed indentations and hollows, each with a particular sound character when struck.
It is from the sound spectrum of these struck indentations that this piece is created. The overtones of the ringing stone were analysed and a musical scale created from them, a scale unique to the stone itself. The original source sound for the musical scale can be heard at certain points throughout the whole piece. Even the melody, which weaves it’s way through the piece like a thread has been generated from this spectrum. Some overtones have been magnified, others extended in time, dependant on the harmonic progression of the whole.
“Klangstenen i Håga” (The Ringing Stone of Håga) has been composed as “absolute music”, without any non-musical associations. Despite this I have allowed myself to be inspired by the sound from the ringing stone of our ancestors in order to, with the help of modern technology, create an echo of the past.
“Klangstenen i Håga” is a commission from the Swedish National Radio.