magnus lindberg
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Ur is a German prefix denoting something that is prototypical, primitive, primal. It’s also the name of an ancient Sumerian city.

Well speaking of origins, the origin of Ur is an earlier piece, Kraft, for orchestra and electronics. The two works are very closely linked, aesthetically. In fact, I wanted to create with the five instrumentalists of Ur the illusion of Kraft’s orchestral sonority, the sonic mass of the hundred-and-some musicians on stage that Kraft involved.  

How did you decide on Ur’s instrumentation-clarinet with violin, cello, bass, and piano?

It’s an interesting ensemble, isn’t it? I originally conceived of a more traditional chamber ensemble: flute, clarinet, violin, piano, cello—essentially the Pierrot ensemble. But in this case, that felt too classical. Replacing the flute with the double bass created an imbalance in the ensemble that perfectly matched the work’s nature. Now I’ve spoken so much about classicism, but Ur is a work that is concerned less with balance; it’s a work that leans. Sometimes people call it aggressive, but I don’t think of music as aggressive, not in my vocabulary; I don’t understand what that means. But it’s definitely a sound portrait that is skewed, starting with the presence of the clarinet, which is unlike the string instruments but shares their material. Again, I started with the idea of a small group of instruments suggesting the sound of a large ensemble, so it necessarily pushes the instrumental expression in that sense; it’s a piece for virtuosos, and the electronics lend a kick.  

The homogeneity of the score contrasts with the ensemble, the solo clarinet against the strings and piano.  

I wanted the clarinet to be fully integrated with the other instruments, a kind of chameleon that plays many different roles to simulate the sound of a large ensemble. This is one of my favorite challenges in writing chamber music. Steamboat Bill Junior went even further; I was trying to create the illusion of a full orchestra with just two instruments. They desperately try to do everything in their power to create this brief illusion, and are utterly restricted.  

The sense I have with Ur is that the composition occupies itself with rebalancing this essential imbalance. I don’t want to suggest that your music is schematic, but I’m wondering if this reflects a compositional practice for you, the notion of setting up a situation of imbalance and composing out the asymmetry.  

That’s a very good point. It is something that has always fascinated me. I have a similar sense in the recording studio, too, where I feel that a record should not necessarily replicate the live performance, but interpret it. I like discs, again, that lean in this sense, even literally: being left-handed, I prefer the sound learning to the left. But yes, I find inspiration in learning, inclining, unbalanced starting points.  

Do you use symmetry?

I do use it, particularly in building harmonies: I like symmetrical pitch assemblages, sometimes combined with a purely auditory collection underneath—literally underneath, emphasizing the bass as a distinctive level. One of the most important lessons I learned was from Berio, who remarked that the orchestra remains a hierarchy—soprano, alto, tenor, bass—which, however simple an idea, was provocative for me.

In a way. But I’m not as afraid as Stravinsky was, say, of symmetry. Sometimes symmetry itself is beautiful, of its very nature.