Orionzon (A Cosmic Call Unanswered)

Recorded in Helsinki, November 2017. Horn-Mari Tirkkonen Oboe-Hilla Mäkinen Violoncello-Antto Tunkkari Orionzon (A Cosmic Call Unanswered) is a fantasy trio for oboe, horn and violoncello. Orionzon’s musical essence lies in the opening signal, the cosmic call performed by the horn. My aim has been to create a clearly structured, colourful piece that uses material derived from the first three bars of the piece. I wanted to restrict myself to a few musical concepts in order to give the piece a coherent overall sound while challenging myself technically. The idea of using quartal harmony as my main harmonic language originated from my interest in experimenting with the sonic qualities of the perfect fifth and the parallel motion from a fifth to another. There is a certain programmatic aspect to this piece. One could say that Orionzon is an “epic description of a static event” (the recurring cosmic call). The event itself is multifaceted, since the unanswered cosmic call can suggest many kinds of di erent forms of communication: it can be a quite literal one where an alien civilisation is trying to communicate with us here on earth or it can be a call more symbolic in character. For me the symbolic cosmic call is the “force” that calls me to compose music like this. It is something that I feel quite literally but it is still something that I cannot express in words. “To answer the call”, in my case, means to compose. It is quite ironic that this piece, describing the event of an unanswered call is itself an answer to this call. Music to me is a whole cosmos of ideas and opportunities, with emotions and impressions as the driving forces. This is not to say that a composer would not need technique and training to compose coherent yet interesting pieces. Still I feel that a clear source of inspiration and a strong connection with emotions and imagination are essential for me as a composer.This piece represents a combination of both structurally controlled compositional techniques and imaginative programmatic ideas which I have aimed at bringing together in a way most natural for me.