

Sef Albertz
Like Flames in a Shadow Riddle
Duration: 15'
Solos:
piano
Like Flames in a Shadow Riddle
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Sef Albertz
Like Flames in a Shadow RiddleOrchestration: Für Klavier
Type: Noten
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Work introduction
For Emilia and Anna-Maria, for the luminosity of each gesture...!
HOPEFUL MELANCHOLY
The sounds emerge from the silence “like flames in a shadow riddle”. The music develops step by step from elegiac, contemplative passages to a euphoric dance that reveals Latin American roots. On the way, surprising references to Mozart's Piano Concerto in D minor can be detected, Beethoven's Sonata Op. 31 No. 2 (“The Tempest”) or gestures from his heroic Third Symphony. These elements emerge like a memory, like a game of thoughts. One might ask: Was it there or not...? But it is not so much about recognising something straight away or solving an intellectual challenge, but more about provoking an impulse for reflection.
One thing is evident: the connection to Beethoven is no coincidence. His desire to create sonorous images of nature connects with this composition in a personal context. The surrounding world, one's own environment, is given a metaphorical room in which spontaneous reactions also come to life. Thus, in the second third of the piece, an improvisation appears that additionally emphasises the presence of another subject: Emilia, a ninety-one-year-old Venezuelan girl who, in her simple wisdom, has been transformed into a song.
There is SOMETHING that all the characters involved in this composition have in common: Whether listening to sublime sound monuments of Bach, Mozart or Beethoven, thinking about the magnificence of nature or talking to Emilia - all this leads to a special world of confidence, where even melancholy seems hopeful.
The work also exists in a version for Orchestra (and Piano Obbligato) under the title: The World Through Emilia's Dreams.
Commissioned by pianist Anna-Maria Maak.
The creation of this work was made possible by a grant from the Cultural Heritage Foundation of the Free State of Saxony.
Recorded on Anna-Maria Maak’s concept album ‘In the Secret of the World’ | Label Florentyn Music | Catalogue number: FM-CD 2101)