LIBBY LARSEN (*1950)
Born in Wilmington, Delaware, Libby is one of America’s most prolific and most performed living composers. She received commissions by major artists, ensembles, and orchestras around the world – her music as hardly no other music has been praised for its dynamic, deeply inspired, and vigorous contemporary American spirit. Larsen has a special affinity for the sound and the rhythm of language, both in music and in literature, which is reflected in the diversity of her compositions. She has created a catalogue of works spanning from orchestra, dance, choir, opera, chamber music and solo pieces.
In 2004 she composed Slow Structures, a new piece for the Meininger-Trio. It is based upon textsmalls by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Tomas Transtromer, and Robert Bly.
“I live in Minnesota at the Canadian border to America, where a frozen, somehow surreal reality inspires the numerous authors, painters, dancers and composers who live here. We know the rhythm and the flow of the water in all its ways – as well as the people know who live in cold nordic climates. Living with the snow gives a deep, mystic understanding regarding the impact of time on man. [...] „The piece examines the slow formation of frozen form. The music begins with the force of a blizzard, slightly fierce, virtuosic in its gestures, and given form by the impetus of the force of nature. Then, the musical motives begin to settle in relationship to each other, slowly creating a structure which is both recognizable and unrecognizable. Within the structure, the musical gestures of the opening express themselves in new ways in which we recognize them only by what we can no longer audibly perceive. Finally, the slow structure in which the musical elements have been operating begin to loosen, melt as it were, creating a hypnotic atmosphere – much like the hypnotic effect of the drip of a melting icicle.“ Libby Larsen, Januar 2004
„She’s the only English-speaking composer since Benjamin Britten who matches great verse with fine music so intelligently and expressively“. David Patrick Stern, USA Today