Hommage
The lyrical, the ironic, and the uncompromising!
This afternoon's program is a tribute – a dedication – to music's ability to connect people, eras, and expressions. The encounter between woodwinds, horns, and strings creates a rare and rich palette of colors – an octet sound that can be both intimate and almost symphonic in its breadth. When two works written for the same ensemble are juxtaposed, a fascinating dialogue is created across 170 years, between Schubert's luminous romanticism and Gubaidulina's deeply existential musical language.
The concert opens with Franz Schubert's brilliant Octet in F major, one of his most ambitious chamber works. The music is rich, expansive, and full of an almost symphonic warmth – a tribute to the community between performers and to the lyrical exuberance that characterizes the composer's mature years.
After the evening's first interlude, we take a musical detour – but not a particularly strange one. Kurt Weill stands at the center of tradition and at the same time far outside it, with his melodic idiosyncrasies, quirky waltzes, and unwavering humanistic attitude. Embrik Snerte himself says:
"I have always had a soft spot for Kurt Weill and his Threepenny Opera – both for his melodic and harmonic uniqueness, but also for his tireless defense of the small, the weak, the poor, and the outcasts of society. This humanistic attitude permeates Brecht's texts, which deal with impossible love, unhappy love, love in poverty, unbridled sexuality, and the hypocrisy of power. But first and foremost, this is music I love to play, with both schwung and edge and ‘warts and all’. I put this waltz suite together for a concert in 2009, and I have played it at weddings, funerals and parties. Sometimes you just want a good melody!”
Finally, we turn to the centerpiece of the concert: Sofia Gubaidulina's Hommage à T. S. Eliot. The piece, which takes on new relevance this year following the composer's passing in 2025, is a deeply personal reflection on time, faith, and the inner journey of human beings. It is written for the same instrumentation as Schubert's octet, but here a completely different space opens up. Where Schubert's music seeks the melodic and classical, Gubaidulina wanders into great contrasts between light and dark, silence and explosion. The nerve of the work springs from T. S. Eliot's reflections on time, faith, and inner transformation—a musical meditation on human quest and vulnerability.
Throughout the concert, Sigurd Sverdrup Sandmo leads the audience with warm and lively input – and so the words also become part of the evening's dedication: to the music, to the composers, and to us who listen.
Practical information:
- Door open 30 minutes prior to event start
- Parking available at Valdres Folkemuseum
Foto: Reuters / Getty Images
