Returnal

Duration:

10'

"The living need light, the dead need music". The quote is from a Vietnamese Buddhist funeral ritual, where different forms of music are used to prepare the soul of the newly deceased for reincarnation. Funeral music is an important part of Vietnamese cultural heritage and tradition, that along with many rites across the world is about to disappear. I'm fascinated by how music in this ritual is used as a tool for the living to communicate with the soul of the deceased, creating a link between lived life and new lives yet to come.

The ritual has been a point of departure for me in a series of pieces written in 2022-2023, starting with Earthward, Ever Circling for string trio, continuing with Twirling, Revolving for mixed ensemble with woodwinds and strings, and ending with Returnal for string orchestra. In the three different pieces, I've used my imagination to fantasize further upon the ritual. In Earthward, Ever Circling I imagine a circular motion between an earthly life, represented by the lower registers of the strings, and a heavenly state, in the strings' higher registers, and the piece is a constant interplay and push-and-pull between the two stages. In Twirling, Revolving I apply a narrower view, where I imagine one soul's hectic and swirling route from the earthly life to the afterlife, or the state in between lives.

In Returnal I continue the idea of reincarnation, where I'm imagining the soul's process of searching for and finding a body to settle in for the next earthly life. In the piece we can hear phraselike states and shimmering chords, which never fully settle down. There's a constant gliding movement between the instrument groups, where one group stretches towards the other instruments, and the lines and initiatives created by one group are succeeded by another group. We can hear chords and passages behaving in different manners; they can be still, hesitant and waiting, they can be glimmering or trembling, or they can be transformed into longer passages with more movement, stretching from light to dark and vice versa. The piece unravels a search where different musical states of being are tested out and held onto as a way of trying on different possible lives, before, in the end, the ensemble finally settles down and lands.