Eivind Buene:

Landscape with Ruins

2006

This piece may be played in three different versions.
As Piano Trio, as Piano Quintet or with an ensemble of nine players. The
following text refers to the version for Piano Trio.

'Landscape with Ruins' is a piano trio where the
traditional relationship between the two strings and the piano is altered: The
strings are treated as one entity, always operating together. The piano, on the
other hand, follows a different trajectory. After the initial outburst, the pianist
creates an open harmonic landscape where the two stringplayers fold out a
series of fragments, moments of rapid gesture and sustained notes. These
string-fragments are gradually eroded and condensed through the course of the
piece, while the piano part is gradually expanding from singular notes, via
chords of increasing density, to flowing streams of sound towards the end. When
the piano has reached this point, the strings becomes the landscape, the same
harmonic field that originally was heard in the piano. And with this change of
perspective, the piece ends.

'Landscape with Ruins' is part of a cycle of chamber
pieces called Possible Cities / Essential Landscapes. The Piano Trio belongs to the second half of the
cycle, which deals with ideas of deconstruction and decay. The title is
borrowed from the Italian writer Italo Calvino. His novel 'Invisible Cities' is
a poetic meditation on construction and decay, on human inginuity and the
inevitable forces of nature.

'Contemplating these essential
landscapes, Kublai reflected on the invisible order that sustain cities, on the
rules that decreed how they rise, take shape and prosper, adapting themselves
to the seasons, and then how they sadden and fall into ruins. At times he
thought he was on the verge of discovering a coherent, harmonious system
underlying the infinite deformities and discords...' (Italo Calvino: Invisible Cities)