"A mesmerising premiere... The hymn, which floats down like the Music of the Spheres, increases in luminosity, developing a hypnotic effect." Luzerner Zeitung
Instrumentation
1.picc.1.ca.2.1.cbsn – 4.2.2.btbn.0 – timp(=rototoms, 5 tins) – strings (double basses require low C extension)
Availability
Score on special sale, parts for Hire
Programme Notes
Hímnica is a kind of passacaglia, or chaconne, in which a hymnic theme develops in different ways within one adagio tempo. This hymn enabled me to compose this piece during the strange events of 2020 and for me it represents life in all its beauty and ugliness. This is the first time that I have written for orchestral forces of this size - the same orchestra size as Schumann's 4th Symphony. The work contains elements of grotesque humour – traces of a dream-like waltz, for example – but I did not intend to create a pessimistic work. Rather, I hope that it contains beauty and hope. Hímnica begins and ends ‘lontanissimo’, as if its 10-minute span could be a fragment of something larger – or perhaps even something eternal.
Francisco Coll, Lucerne (2021)
Reviews
"A mesmerising premiere... The hymn, which floats down like the Music of the Spheres, increases in luminosity, developing a hypnotic effect. Coll avoids the danger of kitsch by fraying his material, letting it float over abysses and from a single tone increases the intensity to bursting point."
Luzerner Zeitung (Urs Mattenberger), 3 April 2021