Mathongo Amnandi

Afrikanische Suite Nr. 24

Für Blockflötenquintett ATTBK

First movement: Free as a bird
Second movement: Dream Stories
Third Movement: Blue Earth
Fourth Movement: Awakening

Mathongo Amnandi is from Xhosa, one of the 12 languages of South Africa. It means Sweet Dreams. This whole piece is about dreaming. The first movement—Free as a Bird—is about a common dream in which you can fly, looking down on villages, towns, landscapes, and seas from above, doing somersaults, and moving freely in the air. Musically, this is my usual African style, in which I use only major chords and the major scale, composing with just seven notes, but with many changes in meter, and irregular metrics. This is always very inspiring for me, and it gives the music a lot of drive.  
Dream Stories, the second movement, is about a special family ritual from my childhood: On Sunday mornings, my family would meet in my parents’ bedroom, and everyone would tell his or her dream of the night before. It was always a special, peaceful, funny, and cozy time, which I enjoyed very much. Here you can hear everyone telling their dreams. Musically this is one of the first pieces in which I use jazz harmonies, and, with everyone telling a story, the piece resembles a jazz band, with every player improvising on a theme.  
Blue Earth is about the dream of being an astronaut, flying through space and watching our earth, the blue planet. It’s also a kind of prayer and meditation. Musically it consists of twelve variations on the first four bars, only interrupted by one three-bar bridge.  
A suite about dreams has to end with – the awakening! The end of every dream. In this case, you awaken into the busy-bee atmosphere of a family preparing a celebration. Musically I use one of my favorite rhythmical patterns, the EWE rhythm from Ghana.  
I wish to thank Seldom Sene, the fantastic recorder quintet from Amsterdam, who commissioned the piece and recorded it on December 16 last year in Amsterdam for their CD Not a Single Road, which will appear in September 2019. I also wish to thank the brilliant sound engineer Andrea Friggi. It was such a pleasure working for and with you all!  

Here is the wonderful Live-Video of the last movement AWAKENING:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7zlcqRDBtY

And here your hear the first movement FREE AS A BIRD:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y34-d4duq6U

Enjoy listening!

number of pages: 
24
Price: 
24,90 Euro