Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (PGH), the composer, is known for his "tearaway invention" and for challenging concert hall conventions, often incorporating absurd or banal elements into his music.
Composer's Artistic Vision
PGH's music often finds its most intense effect in absurdity, such as being stuck in a 'cadential cul-de-sac' or when faced with elements it considers laughably banal or incompatible.
Composer's Artistic Vision
PGH's works Repriser and Rerepriser reflect his 1960s tendency to move away from music that solves problems or journeys to triumph, instead focusing on meaninglessness, inspired by Samuel Beckett.
Composition History
The piece Traffic was inspired by a gift from the Athelas Sinfonietta musicians: a door from a red Skoda, which they expected PGH to use as an instrument.
Compositional Technique
Traffic, a work by PGH, is scored for a large ensemble including traditional instruments alongside unconventional ones like an oil barrel, cowbells, car horns, nuts, and a police whistle.
Composition History
The piece Og was commissioned to mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Danish writer and philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, with its title referring to Kierkegaard's work 'Either Or'.
Composition History
For his Three Songs to Texts from Politiken, PGH chose plain texts from the Danish broadsheet newspaper Politiken, rather than poems, because he felt poems' meanings were already clear.
