The sampled sounds in this recording come from various sources, including concrete 'real world' sounds and instruments played by Louise Alenius herself in the studio.
Composer Biography
Louise Alenius, a Danish composer, artist, and performer, received Denmark's largest cultural prize, the Carl Nielsen and Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen Legat, in 2019.
Composer's Artistic Vision
The experience of solitary confinement taught composer Louise Alenius that a prison replaces human beings with raw, disembodied feelings, which she aimed to capture in the music.
Recording & Production
This recording of Stille slag (Quiet Beats) is a re-edited version of a staged performance, with added studio layers of instruments and sampled sounds to create a 'musical space'.
Composition History
To research the themes of isolation and imprisonment for Stille slag (Quiet Beats), composer Louise Alenius, writer Tanja Diers, and director Tue Biering spent 24 hours in solitary confinement.
Compositional Technique
The texts for Stille slag (Quiet Beats) are sparse and fragmented, while Louise Alenius's music is warmly textured, evoking 17th-century madrigals by composers like Monteverdi or Gesualdo.
Composition History
The work, Stille slag (Quiet Beats), began as an idea to connect with the story of Leonora Christina, a Danish Countess imprisoned for 22 years in the 17th century.
