Elsku Borga mín

Vanescere, for solo viola and chamber orchestra (2021)
Written for Þórunn Ósk Marinósdóttir
World premiere: 6. March 2022 with Kammersveit Reykjavíkur, Þórunn Ósk Marinósdóttir and Mirian Khukhunaishvilli at Harpa/Norðurljós (IS)
Myrkir Músíkdagar / Dark Music Days Festival
Recorded by Páll Sveinn Guðmundsson

Programme note:
Veronique Vaka has made it her mission to translate nature’s processes into sound. The viola concerto Vanescere follows her luminous orchestral work Lendh, nominated for the Nordic Council Music Prize, and. zooms-in on principles explored in the cello concerto Gemæltan.

Like Gemæltan, Vasnescere takes as its subject the area around the Sólheimajökull glacier in Iceland. Using geographical and geological analyses, Vaka traced the steady erosion of the glacier over the year from September 2020 and was alarmed at the rapid rate of the ice cap’s retreat. Vasnescere is an abstract representation of the harvested data that underlines the speed of the glacier’s destruction, compressing actual time into musical time. In its direct reaction to the science, the work presents the starkest possible musical depiction of the impact of climate change on the Icelandic landscape. 

In translating her statistical and photographical data into musical notation, Vaka works in two principle ways. One is the establishment of a temporal grid that compresses the 12 month change in the glacier’s appearance into the course of the concerto’s duration. We hear the glacier’s changing shape in movements by degrees: the shifting of one note in a chord, the twisting or contracting of a texture. Within this, the narrating solo viola steps out of the strict time-lapse to focus or reflect on individual events and gestures.

But the harvested data also controls the music’s surface colour, affecting shifts in instrumentation, volume and general expression. A crevice or waterfall might be imagined as a trill or a glissando; a melodic motif might represent ‘calving’ – a piece of ice breaking off as the glacier’s state alters under pressure. Ultimately, elements of the orchestra lose their ability to sustain a quality of sound altogether – the starkest warning yet of the effects of climate change on Vaka’s generation of Icelanders.
-Andrew Mellor, 2022

Vanescere, for solo viola and chamber orchestra (2021)

Veronique Vaka, born in 1986, is a composer based in Iceland. She studied classical cello performance at Vincent-d’Indy, continued her studies in electro acoustic composition at the University of Montreal and completed a Master's degree in music composition from the Iceland University of the Arts. Her orchestral work Lendh has been nominated for The Icelandic Music Awards 2020 - Composition of the year, and for the Nordic Council Music Prize 2020.

"Lendh, an extraordinary canvas with an umbilical connection to the landscape of the place. […] emerging into a luminous, subtle, carefully formed and exquisitely detailed piece that floats as one ever-transforming entity, pulsating with micro-pressures and glistening details, unfolding organically with spectral-level colour-matching. Pedal notes on lur-like brass are pulled gently and microtonally out of line - the world seen at its most precarious and extreme. Lendh is a marvel.” -Gramophone Editor’s Choice

Veronique Vaka works have been performed by: The Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Sinfóníuhljómsveit Áhugamanna's Orchestra, Ensemble Paramirabo, Duo Harpverk, Ensemble Synaesthesis, Ensemble Adapter, Elektra Ensemble, Caput Ensemble, The Reykjavík Chamber Orchestra, Feima, Siggi String Quartet, Ensemble Dasein, Nordic Affect, Opus XX Orchestra, Feima, Sarah Parkin -soprano, Michael Taylor -countertenor, Una Sveinbjarnardóttir, Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir, Þórunn Ósk Marinósdóttir and Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir. Veronique Vaka composed a Violin Concerto, Sceadu (2019), a Cello Concerto, Gemæltan (2020) and a Viola Concerto, Vanescere (2021). Her works have been performed during Tertulia Chamber Music (2023), Chamber Music Festival on Valentia Island (2022), Myrkir Músíkdagar/ Dark Music Days (2018-19-20-22), Tónlistarhátíð Rásar 1 (2020), Kammermúsíkklúbburinn (2020), and Sumartónleikar í Skálholti (2018). 

Among upcoming projects are INMOST, an orchestral work written for the Finnish conductor Eva Ollikainen, and NEIGE ÉTERNELLE, a series of five pieces for solo violoncello written for Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir.

Vanescere, for solo viola and chamber orchestra (2021)

Veronique Vaka

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