Candles, Snow & Time

for bass flute / piccolo, accordion, cello & guitar. 14’

Video of the above performance

I. Zwiegestalt

II. Mit wechselndem Schlüssel

III. Mit Brief und Uhr

For Paul Celan, poetry was a matter of survival. Like stepping stones over the abyss, his tenuous, yet tenacious existence was sustained by words alone. As he said: “There is nothing in the world for which a poet will give up writing, not even when he is a Jew and the language of his poems is German.”

Candles, Snow & Time is inspired by three of his poems, and is written for an unusual, heterogenous ensemble. Spare, delicate, quiet, but with a certain sharpness, it makes prominent use of the bass flute, especially in the first movement and at the very end. Composed during a long Finnish winter, it carries traces of that spirit.