Gemæltan

The world première of Gemæltan took place on 29. September 2022 at Harpa/Elborg concert hall in Reykjavík, performed by Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir and the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Eva Ollikainen. Gemæltan has been nominated for the Icelandic Music Awards 2023 - Composition of the Year.

Programme note by Andri Snær Magnason:

We are living the most rapid change of Earth’s forces that a single generation has experienced. Glaciers, that before moved at geological speed of centuries and millennia, are now vanishing in a lifetime of a single human being. Nature has left geological speed and moves at human speed.

Now we are living in times where leaders of the world meet and discuss how they will observe rising sea level in the next 100 years with melting and vanishing of glaciers. As if that was a normal natural process. Cesar, Ramses II, Alexander the Great and Napoleon, none of them thought they could lift the oceans of the world. Moses split the Red Sea and that was an accomplishment, but that was nothing compared with lifting entire oceans of the world by melting most of the glaciers.

We are living in a new era, a new paradigm of understanding, a new geological era, the Anthropocene, but it feels like we don't comprehend it. We see the facts, the brain takes in the data, but still, it is as if what is happening is not really understood. A scientist told me that he could gather data and measurements, but he would not really understand his findings until others understood them. Understanding is not an individual act; it is a collective culture. If we look at the history of paradigm shifts, we can see that the real shift does not happen until the new ideas are embedded in culture. In stories, in poetry, music, film or visual art.

I thought at first it was odd to make music about a melting glacier. How do you do that? It might be obvious how to capture a melting glacier in words and pictures, but how do you capture a melting glacier with classical instruments?

 The work Gemæltan began when Veronique found an old map of the area of Síðujökull and compared it with a modern one. The change was alarming. The intention behind Gemæltan is to create awareness of climate change by an abstract representation of the vanishing landscape and the glacial afterglow, with a title and a programme note leading the audience to active listening. The approach is almost scientific; the piece is shaped by climate change. By going through texts and gathering data and information on the location, the behaviour of glaciers and their impact on landscape and ecology. By examining graphs and maps and extracting information to create the time progression of the piece. It then evolved to the idea of writing a cello concerto — with all the possibilities of creating a dialogue between a soloist and an orchestra.

The structure of the work consists of two surges and two quiescent phases - the last being the rapid retreat which leads to the disappearance of the glacier. The composer translates the gathered information by associating them to music parameters, and by defining the role of the soloist and the orchestra. She imagines details of the glaciers as motifs, colours, living materials, textures, and it affects the way she perceives the orchestration. As an example, the water accumulating under the glacier, moving rocks and matter, influenced how the piece shifts from one instrument to the other - intending to create a natural flow and a sense of wholeness.

Surge #1: The cellist is representing the behaviour of the glacier. She creates events which make the orchestra react. This moment is to describe the enormous mass and volume of the glacier moving forward as a unity.

Quiescent phase #1: Retreat: Since the movement forward has stopped, this new phase is represented by a sensation of stillness and a decrease in energy. Even though the glacier is retreating, its inner power is growing for the next surge.

Surge #2: The cellist is gradually passing from the quiescent phase motif (harmonics) to the surge motif (double stops), leading to the cadenza. Which will, gradually "wake-up" the orchestra and lead to a movement of unity (climax).

Quiescent phase #2: Retreat: The landscape is being transformed by the incredibly fast retreat of the glacier. It will lead to its complete disappearance. It is pictured with the drastic changes of colours by the cellist and the orchestra. The contours of the land are lost, and a different landscape emerges. The mood is shifting; the energy is fading, and the volume of the glacier is changing.

The end: The orchestra which represented the glacier has gone - its mass has dissolved. The soloist is now alone, and she expresses the glacier’s reminiscence by using fragments, colours and textures of the previous motifs. There is less and less material left, and the sound is gradually losing its quality and fading into nothingness.

Earth has left geological speed and is changing to human speed. We seem to react at geological speed. Cellist Gunnar Kvaran told me that the violin speaks to the head, it is clever and fast, while the cello speaks to the heart. We are living times of urgency, where we have new data that needs to speak to the heart. The cello might be the perfect medium to speed up the paradigm shift and the call to action.

Andri Snær Magnason, 2020