The piece is composed for Scenatet . The work can only be performed by Scenatet, the voice must be Clara Stengaard Hansen and in addition, the composer must be there. The work is a co-production with Anna Berit Asp Christensen.
The piece is composed for Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik and Klangforum Wien.
The piece is composed for Rafaell Altino and Odense Symphony.
DARK SLEEP is composed for Tuuli Lindeberg and Petri Kumela. It’s the first lullaby piece out of 3 (or 4). Every piece will have its construction from a classical cradle song and composed on a very simple concept. DARK SLEEP is a nightmare monster in a Twin Peaks universe.
The work is a close-to-silent homage to the piano concert genre. A work based on clichés in a silencing universe. The piano functions both as a percussion instrument and as a narrative monster from the past with its big chords in A minor and G Major. The piano concert is in four movements.The work is based on a technique used in some of my previous works. The instrument is already pre-recorded, and the sound of it only comes out by touching the piano keys without pressing them down. It works with a lot of contact microphones that respond to the sound of the pianist’s nails touching the keys. In this piano concerto, the pre-recorded material isn’t fixed in an audio file, but instead another pianist behind the scenes is playing on a midi keyboard to control it live. Only the last movement is fixed because of an extremely important relation in tempo in the material. The work is composed for Rei Nakamura, SWR Symphony Orchestra & Eclat Festival.
If you want the score then contact me.
The piece is written to Scenatet. Chorale blurs the lines between real sound and synthetic reproduction. It presents a conversation between an acoustic guitar and an electric guitar, interrupted at times by ghostly quotes of Bach, making for a surreal experience for the audience.
Almost in G is a small, detailed work, constantly circling about the tonality of G. At the beginning the strings of the piano are completely covered in tape, which is then gradually removed as the piece continues. By the end of the piece, it is possible to play a diatonic scale over eight strings, creating a miniature harp sound. The piece is written to Curious Chamber Players and Bludenzer Tage zeitgemäßer Musik.
The piece is written to Mosaik Ensemble
Four Hyperrealistic Songs for Quintet was composed in 2015 for Defunensemble. The music is an exaggeratedly clichéd piece of contemporary music. The work is based on a technique were the tape (behind every instrument) can only be heard when you play on the instruments. The piece is written to Defunensemble.
The piece is a commission from the Danish National Symphony Orchestra. It’s a double concerto for cello and accordion composed for Toke Møldrup & Bjarke Mogensen.
SEXTET is based on a renaissance love song “N’aurai-je Jamais Mieux” by Robert Morton. I composed a short piece build on the song for Athelas Sinfonietta in 2010 and then I re-composed it for London Sinfonietta in 2014.
Three small movements composed for Scottish Ensemble.
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Cadanza is a rather inconsistent work and therefore difficult to describe. It starts with an arpeggio cliche. The cellist plays a C major that changes the pitch in relation to the tempo (like a turntable). Then it just begins to kick ass quite inconsistent with less and less electronic stuff. The work is composed for Zoë Martlew.
The work Concerto for a Movie Loop is written for orchestra, piano and projection. On the screen Christian Winther Christensen playing the theme from the C minor prelude Op. 3, No. 2 by Rachmaninov is projected. Winther Christensen calls it a “cliche concerto” because he mixes cliches from both new music and the noise aesthetic that, amongst others, is inspired by Helmut Lachenmann. The orchestra continuously plays alongside the pianist in loops that each last a minute or so but are constantly changing, which is also a characteristic of the work’s cliches. Noise elements gradually take over from the regular sounds of the instruments as the piece develops, with the composer placing focus on non-musically created sounds concretised from the sounds of various physical movements in the final section of the work – for example the sound of the composer sitting down on the piano stool.
The piece is composed for Toke Møldrup and Bjarke Mogensen.
This work, composed for orchestra, is one of the more abstract works on Winther Christensen’s work list. A Small Monument for a Symphony is a kind of ghost symphonic work, which has often been seen before in modern music. Winther Christensen uses the ghost metaphor in that a recognisable texture from classical music is used throughout the work – without however being all to obvious. A concrete example is the transition from the 3rd to 4th movement, which refers to the optimistic transition from the 3rd to 4th movement of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony.
Preludes is performed on a piano completely covered in masking tape. The work is part of a greater work, which will end up including 24 preludes. The preludes are composed for Rolf Hind and Rei Nakamura.
C major: For muted piano and max/msp (build on Chopin’s 1st. etudes from op 10.)
C minor: For muted piano and max/msp (build on Bach’s 2 prelude for wohltemperierte clavier)
Db major: For muted piano (build on the opening to Tchaikovsky’s 1st. piano concerto)
C# minor: For muted piano (build on the prelude from Rachmaninoff’s prelude Op. 3, No. 2)
Eb major: For muted piano (build on Brahms’ first intermezzo from op.117)
Eb minor: For muted piano (is a free composing but have some similar stuff to Debussy and Rachmaninov)
F major: For muted piano and video (build on Schumann’s Träumerei from Kinderszenen op. 15)
G minor: For muted piano (build on a theme from Schumann’s Humoreske op. 20)
Nachtmusik [ohne eine aufdringliche Nachtstimmung] comes as a continuation from the piece FESTMUSIK [mit Japanischem geist und Deutschem akzent]. A kind of ironic occasional music. The piece is written at nighttime between November and January 2010-2011. A winter with a lot of silence coming from the dense snow. The tonality is a principal element of the work, especially the G minor chord. The piece is a kind of “sturm und drang” like Mozart’s symphony no. 40. the piece was premiered by Curious Chamber Players in Stockholm 2011.
Festmusik – mit japanischem Geist und deutschem Akzent (2010)
This work, composed for orchestra, was premiered at a festival in Zürich where Christian Winther Christensen was the main composer together with the Norwegian Rolf Wallin and the Frenchman Phillippe Leroux.Festmusik is the tile of a work by Richard Strauss that was commissioned by Japan on the occasion of the emperor’s 2600 birthday and performed in 1941: Festmusik zur Feier des 2600 järigen Bestehens des Kaiserreichs Japan für großes Orchester (Japanischer Festmusik). In the work lie several references to Beethoven – even though the title refers to Strauss. Winther Christensen says of this: “There are passages where the string trio has to play in unison. They try to play the theme from Beethoven’s 9th Symphony “Ode to Joy”, which is extremely difficult since it is placed in an extremely high register so there is hardly place for the bow and fingers. It is so beautiful because while they are singing of being united it is quite impossible to play together.” The use of the Beethoven quotation also functions as a kind of negation of the entire work. When the work was performed in Zürich Winther Christensen received warm reviews, for instance the following: “The promising work of the Dane Christian Winther Christensen is characterized by an ironic-cynical conciseness. His unmistakeable writing is based on peculiar playing techniques and tonal elements. Thus it came as no surprise when he in his new work premiered at the festival “Festmusik – mit japanischem Geist und deutschem Akzent” (2010) quoted not only Richard Strauss but also Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”. Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 16 November 2010.
The work implicates several references to Beethoven. There are passages where the string trio plays unison. They try to play the theme from Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, Ode to Joy, which is difficult since it is placed extremely high register, which means there is hardly space for the bow and fingers. While the Ode to Joy is about being united it is quite impossible to play together. The use of the Beethoven quotation also functions as a kind of negation of the entire work.
There are three versions of Christian Winther Christensen’s Being Apu Sarkar – a mini opera, a version for the performance collective Dygong, of which the composer is a member – and then the Zoom version for prepared piano, percussion (glass) and saxophone. In the opera, Apu Sarkar is being eaten by the protagonist because he wants to be like him – but not to worry: the cannibalism is a symbol of something completely different: meeting people with an open mind.
Tekst kommer senere
Tekst kommer senere.
Tekst kommer senere.
Tekst kommer senere.
tekst kommer senere
A fall from the perfect ground (2004-7), is an extraordinarily delicate piece of music which is perhaps most of all about beautiful musical sounds and sparkling effects composed over the surfaces of the sounds.
The music is in fact not all that easy to get a handle on. What is happening is extremely detailed, and as a whole the music offers a rather unmanageable amount of innovative, impressive, fascinating sounds. The music doesn’t have so many melodies, rhythms or harmonic progressions in the normal sense, nor does the form reveal itself in the course of the first few listenings.
Instead the music proceeds as series of sonorous eruptions; at first very cautious and flickering – almost reserved – then more rhythmically, only to reach a new, almost static low point. The ending, on the other hand, is very striking, with a little, extremely telling clarinet theme, and is in fact quite distinctive in the context. As the only example in the piece the characteristic passage is repeated eight times with complete regularity before the music stops.
The detail has been lovingly cultivated to an extent that makes the music unreadable for the layman. Everywhere Winther Christensen varies the modes of playing and assaults the otherwise normal instruments with new technical ideas. If the acoustic sound was not so distinct and warm-blooded one might be misled into thinking that this was a piece of electronically manipulated music.
Despite all this it must not be thought that this is difficult music. Although one’s mind can easily sense thatA fall from the perfect ground is hard to play and has taken a very long time to compose, the music is sensual and simple with the many beautiful sounds that well forth one after another.
Text by Henrik Friis
Tekst kommer om lidt
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A choir work with text by Maja Lee Langvad.
Alternative version for trumpet instead of Btrb
In Don’t look back it is the melancholy feeling and the display of human decline and weakness that lie latent beneath this modernist gesture. The title expresses a clear, pure message about not being tempted to turn one’s head a last time to look back, but keeping the focus on the now and what is to come. The music, on the other hand, wants to go the other way, and with its clear melancholy descent almost strives for the unattainable and towards the end, which is physically illustrated by the way the trombone must in the end let go of its crook. Thus a contrast arises which tries to tempt the listener to turn towards the past and look at its unattainable beauty, while at the same time its title refuses to do so. With this dialectical relationship between two statements the work demands that the listener make his or her own decision about what the truth may be, if truth is to be found at all in this world.
(Nicolai Worsaae Rasmussen, 2008)
If you want the score please feel free to contact me.
String Quartet no. 1 er komponeret fra 2002 til 2003. Det er det ældste værk af Christian, som stadig opføres. Musikken er meget fragmentarisk, men bag de mange brudstykker af støjlyde gemmer sig et melankolsk tonalt univers fra en svunden tid.
