Symfoni Nr. 2 - Snapshot Symphony

Niels Marthinsen's Symphony No. 2 - Snapshot Symphony (2009).

1st movement Fiesta Mexicana: fortissimo accelerando (ca. 6 minutes)

2nd movement Arabian Nights: adagio intensivo e furioso (ca. 11 minutes)

3rd movement Great Fireworks in China: giocoso esplosivo emarcatissimo (ca. 8 minutes)

Programme note

I’ve never been to Mexico and Arabia, or to China. But I love the way those countries sound in Hollywood movies andinpop culture generally: When Clint Eastwood rides south of the border, when Disney’s Alladin or Mulan takes me far east, when arabic pop music roars past me out of the open windows of a car... and bull fighter music, andthe sound of acrobatic beat-em-up’s in John Woo’s Hong Kong karate movies – and so on: powerful images splashed all over my eye balls and ear drums.

My recollections of this ethnic-pop-film-music hasturned itself into a symphony. And I don’t even have to just remember what I have heard: A few internet clicks gives me access to incredible sound libraries containing live-and-kicking ethnic music from my three favoritecountries, just waiting to be put together in new combinations and energize my personal imagery.

 The symphony is like a huge slide show – musical snapshots from my travels in the western popculture versions of three exotic locations: Mexico, Arabia, and China – original and popular melodies welded together by my personal musical language and associations. I use all the effects of modern pling-plong-music plus afew of my own inventions to create a spectacular contemporary orchestral sound sporting a bee hive of melodies from either East or West, played simultaneously, in different keys and differents tempos at once while kept firmly inplace by