Staern Orkesterverk

Dedicated to Maestro Stefan Solyom. The word Jubilate has its standing point in the phenomenon of spectators cheering with an inner power of joy and the experience to be part of the powerful jubilation. Its counterpart; to boo out and causing a riot like crazy hooligans that are sabotizing the festivities in which can end into total destruction. These roles are present in today’s society on big events, mainly in sports and culture. Musically it is translated into two antithesis: tonal versus atonal, loud versus soft, organic to mechanic and so on. These developments break and dissolve during the course of the work that are uniting towards the end. Stefan Solyom, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, City Halls, Glasgow 2010-02-25 UK PREMIERE

Published by Gehrmans Musikförlag, Stockholm AB.

Jubilate - prelude for symphony orchestra

It begins with a reversed ’big-bang’ chord and suddenly the wandering begins between the high and low ”coloured” brass instruments. The harmony is distorted by micro-tones and feels like looking through broken glass.

Colour Wandering

Recorded and broadcasted live from the world premiere of Godai
on May 15 with Marc Soustrot and Malmö Symphony Orchestra.


I wanted for a long time to write music that is danceable and can in many ways be physically received when listening to it. Godai means " the five great elements " in Japanese and has a background in Japanese philosophy about martial arts and is a Buddhist term with some influences from Hinduism. The Buddhist philosophy is perhaps best known in the West for their use by the samurai Miyamoto Musashi's famous text, The Book of Five Rings, which he explains different aspects of swordsmanship and martial arts by assigning every aspect of each element. The different properties are interconnected. The five elements are formed on the basis of the well-known basic elements: earth, water, fire , air, and the fifth element is a shadow , ie . the sum of all elements into one unit . From a musical perspective, I have used the orchestra as one large body of sound with both soli and tutti passages exchanged during the course of the work. In the instrumentation included except triple woodwind, brass, strings, harp, celesta, piano and percussion, bass drum, snare drum, cymbals, glockenspiel, tubular bells, gong, xylophone, marimba for more Asian instruments opera-gongs , java gongs , wattles , china cymbal , temple bowls and crotales (antique cymbals).
The work is divided into four movements, performed without interruption with clear leading notes/chords that binds each it together and are described as follows:

1 ) Earth. Introduction: stubbornness , stability, physicality that gives substance. The first movement opens with a grand opening of horns and trumpets along with vibraphone and bells , and later temple bowls with a five pitched motive (pentachord) (AC- C-sharp H -Ess ) as the basis for the entire work that gradually shifting to a flashy orchestral tutti . The music fades down to a pretty danceable and comic sections , much like watching " Kabouki - theater " and later show of martial arts.

2) Water. Aria: sentiment, conducted caution , adaptation , flexibility, keeping together things . The second movement is quiet and reflective. A string sound is like a rippling sea where boats pass by on the horizon (high woodwinds) and clock sounds from celesta and glockenspiel that gives rise to meditation (solos from instruments that is wandering along the orchestra like a small channel) the music goes softly. The fine moment is interrupted and then you are into defense and battle.

3) Fire. Intermezzo: passion , aggression, energy , heat that warms and transforms itself . A brief interlude that takes material from previous batches and turning into lava - like movements in the orchestra. It leads up to a climax and fades gradually into the thin air.

4) Air/Shadow. Finale: will, volatility, wisdom alternated with power, creativity , spontaneity , forming a nuclear reaction. The fourth and final movement has a volatile nature where abrupt changes are evident and where all the elements presented are shown again in the transformed shape and ultimately formed a shadow where the character turns into more intensive end where it says in the score " techno mayhem! " ( techno hell !) . Everything leads to total chaos and then an abrupt and sudden end on the note D as the work begins.

Godai was commissioned by the MSO under Music in the South within the project Musik i Syd ”Tonsatt Continued” and is dedicated to MSOs Chief Conductor Maestro Marc Soustrot .

Godai; De Fem Elementen Live från uruppförandet 15 maj 2014

year of production 2008/2013

dedicated to my mother Harriet Staern Cronström;

commissioned by Helsingborgs Symphony Orchestra

awards recommended works among top-ten composers of 
International Rostrum of Composers 2014

duration 30‘ 

first performance 
April 6th 2014
Anna Larsson, alto
Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra
Stefan Solyom, conductor


Går jag ej här rusig av rosendoft
-- ändå ha inga rosor kommit! --
Skälver ej allt höljt i gudomligt skir?
Hemliga löften dagrarna viska.

Fjärranifrån nådde mig nyss en vind,
lätt som en återhållen andning,
fylld av en blyg bävande väntans doft.
Allt sedan dess ett under jag anar.

Intet jag vet -- går som i fjärran land,
går som i dröm, i dröm om rosor.
Allt är som förr -- likväl är allt förbytt.
Sällsamma gåtfullhet över tingen!

Sånger om bländvit kärlek: 3 Vårens Väntan

year of production 2008/2013

dedicated to my mother Harriet Staern Cronström;

commissioned by Helsingborgs Symphony Orchestra

awards recommended works among top-ten composers of 
International Rostrum of Composers 2014

duration 30‘ 

first performance 
April 6th 2014
Anna Larsson, alto
Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra
Stefan Solyom, conductor

Nattens djupa violoncell
Nattens djupa violoncell
slungar sitt mörka jubel ut över vidderna.
Tingens töckenbilder löser sin form
                i floder av kosmiskt ljus.
Dyningar, lysande långa,
sköljer i våg på våg genom nattblå evighet.
Du!  Du!  Du!
Förklarade lätta materia, rytmens blommande skum,
svävande, svindlande drömmars dröm,
                bländvit!
En mås är jag, och på vilande sträckta vingar
dricker jag havssalt salighet
                långt östan om allt jag vet,
                långt västan om allt jag vill,
och rör vid världens hjärta --
bländvitt!

Sånger om bländvit kärlek: 5 Nattens Djupa Violoncell

year of production 2008/2013

dedicated to my mother Harriet Staern Cronström;

commissioned by Helsingborgs Symphony Orchestra

awards recommended works among top-ten composers of 
International Rostrum of Composers 2014

duration 30‘ 

first performance 
April 6th 2014
Anna Larsson, alto
Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra
Stefan Solyom, conductor

Kunde jag följa dig långt bort,
längre än allt du vet,
ut i de yttersta rymdernas
världsensamhet,
där Vintergatan rullar
ett bjärt dött skum
och där du söker ett fäste
i hisnande rum.

Jag vet: det går inte.

Men när du stiger huttrande
blind ur ditt dop,
tvärsigenom rymden
skall jag höra ditt rop,
vara dig ny värme,
vara dig ny famn,
vara dig när i en annan värld
bland ting med ofött namn

Sånger om bländvit kärlek: 2 Kunde Jag Följa Dig

year of production 2008/2013

dedicated to my mother Harriet Staern Cronström;

commissioned by Helsingborgs Symphony Orchestra

awards recommended works among top-ten composers of 
International Rostrum of Composers 2014

duration 30‘ 

first performance 
April 6th 2014
Anna Larsson, alto
Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra
Stefan Solyom, conductor


En kärleksförklaring
Fr. Nietzsche:

(varunder diktaren föll i en grop)


O dröm!  Han flyger än.
Han stiger, vilande på vinge spänd.
Vad lyfter honom än?
Vad är hans mål -- hans väg, av ingen känd?

Eviga stjärnor lik
i rymder utan liv han vilar tryggt,
ömkande jordens skrik --
och högt flög den, som bara såg hans flykt.

O albatross i skyn!
En evig drift mot höjden driver mig.
Jag såg dig -- och min syn
blev blind av tårar.  Ja, jag älskar dig!

Sånger om bländvit kärlek: 1 En Kärleksförklaring

year of production 2008/2013

dedicated to my mother Harriet Staern Cronström;

commissioned by Helsingborgs Symphony Orchestra

awards recommended works among top-ten composers of 
International Rostrum of Composers 2014

duration 30‘ 

first performance 
April 6th 2014
Anna Larsson, alto
Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra
Stefan Solyom, conductor

Ängslan
Svek, svek --
annat var aldrig mitt liv.
All min skam,
penna, stackare, skriv.
Skriv om vägar långt, långt
bort från mitt sanna,
skriv om en mur kring allt som var bäst...
Nej, stanna.

Outredda mörkers hot
fyller mitt sinn.
Åskdiger knoppningstid
än är min.
Jag vill vara stilla,
bida och se,
vänta på solen,
sakta le.

Vad sker i mörkret,
medan jag ler?
Dör min själ?
Hittar jag hem ej mer?
Gud, Gud, behåll
en glimt allen
av mitt allvar
ren, ren!

Sånger om bländvit kärlek: 4 Ängslan

In Sacrificio (sacrifice) the solo tuba is the sacrifice which performs a ritual that goes from noise to pitch while the orchestra goes in opposite direction, from pitch to noise. The electronic sounds provide a link between the soloist and the orchestra. The work is built around a formula played by the tuba in the introduction where the playing instructions says ”quasi cantus firmus” (almost plain chant). What differs from an ordinary cantus firmus (rhythmically simple and ascetic melodic line) is that it is more expressive and dynamic, which in turn generates material that is further processed in the concerto. 
Sacrificio is divided in three parts with two separate solo cadenzas in between; the first with electronic sounds and the second without. 

Dedicated to Luca Francesconi, Kjetil Myklebust.

Live recording from the world premiere Konserthuset Malmö 6 september 2005.

First performance
Kjetil Myklebust, tuba
composer, electronics
Malmö Symphony Orchestra
Tuomas Olilla-Hannikainen

Sacrificio Uruppf. 6 sept Malmö

When one day I was reading Baudelaire's poem Albatross of the poetry collection Flowers of Evil. While reading it you could see an ocean with a bridge in the horizon.   The poem's first stanzas reads: 

[…] ”Often, to amuse themselves, the men of the crew 
Catch those great birds of the seas, the albatrosses, 
lazy companions of the voyage, who follow 
The ship that slips through bitter gulfs.” […]

Geoffrey Wagner, Selected Poems of Charles Baudelaire (NY: Grove Press, 1974)  
The horn solo have the role of "lead singer without words" and the orchestra "choir" and Obligato-horn players that in part shows up backstage, sit in the orchestra, and then walking out  towards the end of the piece. 



Uruppf. 20160630

Einar Öhman;
Malmö SO;
Marc Soustrot.

Recorded live from the world premiere April 30 2016.

Pont de la mer; morceau de concert

Since childhood I've always loved water and wants to compose series of pieces refering to ocean, sea, lakes, ponds and so forth as a point of reference.
Wave motion is a physical phenomenon that involves a field or a disturbance of a medium propagating in space. It is music that is gradually transformed as the piece goes on. It is like watching a wave that washes over one, a stunning spectacle, and that reflects like a mirror. You can also experience great rapids and streams along the course of the work.
 
From a musical perspective, I have tried to give the work shape based on a harmonic idea where things encounter one another, are reflected and create disturbances in various ways. This leads to a more developmental kind of thinking in the compositional process. Out of this one can clearly distinguish three parts that overlap. The form has a freely ternary form structure of ABA.
 
1. Rhythmic, suggestive exhortation
2. Melodic, mystical middle section
3. Chorale, when the elements above are mixed together
 
The instrumentation used are based from the classical period of Mozart and Beethoven which includes double winds, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani,percussion as glockenspiel, vibraphone, marimba, cymbals, gong and strings. The sounds may give you the impression of the above mentioned composers but without quoting or imitating any piece in a post-modern way sending postcards from the past.
 
Wave-Movements was composed on commission from Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie and is dedicated to the conductor Daniel Raiskin.
 
Benjamin Staern

Wave - Movements Newmix

Muramaris means literally "the herd by the sea". It's an artist's resident (10 km from the town of Visby) in which was built some years after the turn of the 20th century. With its very ascetic frontal and its beautiful interior, you will get a feeling that it is soon going to collapse! The music starts from nothing and is projecting towards different directions in a surrealistic world. You will find also a fireplace made by sandstone and a sculpture portraying "the goddess of love", which is struck by the last sunbeams during midsummer time.
If you touch these items unnecessarily they will break down and vanish like a desert storm.

Performed by Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie and Stefan Solyom conducting, live recording from Die Glocke, Bremen november 27 2007.


Muramaris was composed during summer 2000 in Visby and partially at home in Malmö.


This piece is dedicated to the composer Mattias Svensson, teacher and head master at the Gotland School of Composition.




Muramaris

The title refers to crisis situations, for example in Kosovo during the years of 1998-1999. The first introductory measures express the threat of war in that region. The music is inspired by the shocking warfootage from newsbroadcasts on television and in daily newspapers. You can imagine yourself experiencing the warfare in your own country, the terror and being forced to escape. In the background underlies also folk-musical structures i.e african clave-rhythms (4:3 polyrhythm) as a connection with the crisis in the Kongo-Kinshasa region in which went on at the same time as in Kosovo.
This work was composed to the annual project called "The Composers of Tomorrow 2000"between the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra and the Academy of Music in Malmö. It was judged as "best orchestral work" by the musicians of the orchestra and was performed later on the Young Soloists Concert in the Concert Hall in Helsingborg.
Other important performances could be mentioned like the Young Nordic Music Festival (UNM) in Reykjavik, Iceland and Stockholm New Music 2003.
The Threat of War has been nominated by the Swedish Music Publishers Association (SMFF) Award in the category "The most significant contemporary music work of the year" in 2005.

Published by Gehrmans Musikförlag AB, Stockholm.

The Threat of War

Recorded live from the Stockholm premiere by Swedish Radio P2
4 april 2017, Berwaldhallen, Stockholm.

Filip Draglund; Sveriges Radios Symfoniorkester; Ben Gernon

Surprise: concertino för trumpet och liten orkester

Stefan Solyom, conductor
Norrköping Symphony Orchestra

Recorded live October 12th 2017 at De Geer Hall, Norrköping, Sweden.

Polar Vortex or polar vortices cause dramatic weather events, such as 50 degrees below zero in the US a few years ago, volcanic or meteor outbursts, extreme heat, cold or storms. It is a tonal journey in three sets of weather conditions around the world and are not intended as program music, but that it is "music with inner images."

The first movement "Frozen City" is described as a city in total frostbite and a lot of snow around it where the sun shines brightly through the window. Now and then we hear the winds that pass by.

The second movement "Northern Lights" has an aurora-like shimmer of the orchestral part using harmonic loops in a meditative state. The heat rises, lava flows up over the landscape in the score it says clearly "like a lava activity" and all the ice begins to melt.

The third movement "Volcanic Eruption" (Finale) is a ritual dance with passion and pagan rites. One hears riffs from percussion that thunders on in the score "Like a pagan dance!". Some elements from previous movements show up, the whole thing spins further and leading to a disco-like finale with trumpets in the lead.

Polar Vortex Symphony

Meditation in colours; world premiere recording 6 October 2018
Lunds domkyrka; Robert Bennesh; Lunds Kammarsolister

Dedicated in memory of Marcus Fjellström

Meditation in Colours B Staern __48k-24b

Writing for the clarinet and bass clarinet also is a challenge but also there are fantastic possibilities available that has affected work on the solo part and orchestration and vice versa. 
The origins of this concerto and its title  refers to "an artists' worried souls in an industrial and harsh dystopian society". The music conveys curiosity, spontaneity, playfulness, violence, hard decisions, hopelessness and ultimately its downfall! There is also a sharp criticism of the closures of well-established company that quickly builds up and eventually dismantled because of its time of decadence.

There is a narrative behind the music but the composer has chosen to tell it in the music rather than literally describing exactly what happens in the musical events but want to give freedom to the listener to imagine the way it sounds and what you get for shows.

First movement Introduction - has a sad and searching character as if you were in a fog. The clarinet is expressed in the score "espressivo con melancolia" (expressive of melancholy) and the orchestra is always restrained by then erupts in a huge roar. Clarinet becomes hysterical, and this leads to a dizzying cadenza with the orchestra's clarinets and which eventually fades the kit.

Live performance from the world premiere 16 February 2012, Karin Dornbusch, Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, Stefan Solyom.

Benjamin Staern

Worried Souls 1. Introduction

Second movement Rhapsody - takes up material from the first movement, which then worked freely with different expressions as well as comic absurdity, tough decisions, disparate emotions, mechanical rhythm "Come un 'Robotnik' (Russian term for automatons). This leads to a "fight" between soloist and orchestra that subsequently leads to a collective "marcia meccanico" (mechanic march) where everyone is forced to work on at a rapid pace and scale.

Worried Souls 2. Rhapsody

Third movement Meditation - starting with a fast collapse to then as a phoenix from the ashes rises from the deep bass-clarinet and reflect back toward the previous events. This builds up to a pounding orchestral interludes. This leads to a short solo cadenza and then to an orchestral ”total chaos” that ends with an almost voiceless coda.

Live performance from the world premiere 16 February 2012, Karin Dornbusch, Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, Stefan Solyom.

Worried Souls 3. Meditation

Lauri Metsvahi; slagverk
Blåsarsymfonikerna
Cathrine Winnes

16 mars 2019, Musikaliska, Stockholm
Svensk musikvår 2019
Uruppförande!

Konnakol Variations - Uruppförande 20190316

Benjamin Staern (b. 1978) started his musical experience with studies in cello, piano and percussion in his youth. Studies in musicology at Lund University and subsequently studied composition at the Malmö Academy of Music during 1998-2005 with Rolf Martinsson, Hans Gefors and Luca Francesconi, and made an early breakthrough, while still a student at the Malmö Academy of Music, with the symphonic work The Threat of War (1999). 

From this point on, Staern has developed a deeply personal style with an output including orchestral and chamber works, solo pieces and electroacoustic music. An interesting aspect of his work as a composer is his unusual ability to associate tones and timbres with different colours and tints. This is a variant of a phenomenon called synaesthesia which is fundamental in his perception and the creation of his music, and which is reflected in his sound world as well as in many of his work titles (Yellow Skies, Colour Wandering etc.) 

Today Staern receives commissions on a regular basis. Looking into the near future, he is commissioned to write a major work for Malmö Symphony Orchestra and song cycle for alto Anna Larsson and Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra. From September 2010 he is composer-in-residence with New European Ensemble for them he composed works from this collaboration such as Tranströmersånger (selected poems from the Sad Gondola - collection by Nobel-prize author and poet Tomas Tranströmer) and Bells and Waves (Chamber Symphony), winner of the SMFF Award 2011 in the category ”most important work in chamber music/smaller ensemble”.

Works by Benjamin Staern is today performed not only by all the major Swedish orchestras but also internationally by orchestras such as the MDR Sinfonieorchester, Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Staern has collaborated with ensembles including New European Ensemble, Sonanza Chamber Ensemble, Ensemble Aspekte and Stockholm Chamber Brass. Soloists include Håkan Hardenberger, Anna Larsson, Johannes Möller, Karin Dornbusch, Carina Vinke, Gitta-Maria Sjöberg, Philippe Cassard and conductors Michael Christie, Daniel Raiskin, Christian Karlsen, Mats Rondin, Mika Eichenholz and Stefan Solyom.

Staern Orkesterverk

Benjamin Staern Composer