Martin Stauning’s Concerto for Harp and Orchestra is written for the solo harpist Zachary Hatcher and the Danish National Symphony Orchestra. The concert will be broadcast on DR P2 in P2 Koncerten Friday 21 May at 19:20. Listen here >>
Edition·S spoke with Martin Stauning about the work and his initial ideas for the composition. Here he explained his visualization of the harpist as a puppeteer. “I imagined the harp visually,” he says “If you lay down the harp on one side, you could almost see the soloist as a puppet master, who pulls the strings. And every time he pulls the strings, there will be a reaction from the orchestra. The orchestra becomes his doll.” Watch the full interview here >>
Further on in the process, he imagined the soloist as trapped behind bars. “The strings are actually bars, that the harpist is caught behind,” Martin Stauning explained in an interview with Magasinet Klassisk. “He is trapped – physically trapped. At the end of the concert, he literally pulls and tugs on the strings, but he still can’t get out even though he pulls them like a maniac.”
"It is far more disturbing and "scary" than I was aware of," Martin Stauning says after attending the rehearsals for the concert. "It is like a sound maze that the soloist tries to escape, but every time he turns a corner, instead of finding his way out he goes further and further into it."