Commissioned by Ensemble Borealis

  • ob(ca)/vn.va.vc
  • 17 min

Programme Note

The title and concept behind the piece comes from David Grossmann's novel "see under: love", in which he among other things describes a man who joins a school of salmon on its way through the oceans. He swims, eats and sleeps together with them, and gradually he understands the forces that make this large group of fish swim almost as one body.

One of these forces is a cohesive joining force called ning. In my oboe quartet, the four instruments act very much like fish or birds in a group, sometimes moving fast and close to each other, with one clear direction, then all of a sudden the group dissolves to four separate individuals, finding their own paths within a wider area, but still dependent on one another. ning is the fourth in a series of pieces where I use so called fractal mathematics in the process of composition.

Programme note © 1991 Rolf Wallin

Media

Wallin: ning

Scores

Score sample

Discography