| Year of Composition: | 2013 |
| Duration: | 20 |
| Instrumentation: | str orch |
Commissioned by the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra
Dedicated to Juha Kangas and Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra on the occasion of its 40th anniversary
Premiere:
22 March 2014, The Snellman Hall, Kokkola (Finland); performers: Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra, conductor Juha Kangas
Programme note:
Was there a butterfly? (2013) was written on the commission of the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra and was dedicated to the conductor Juha Kangas and the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra. The initial musical idea and the working title of the piece was Ostinato. Ostinato, as a constant repetition of musical patterns, connotes a constant return to the same place, the same memory, the same dream – gloomy and plunging. The butterfly flew onto the title only after the completion of the work, yet not accidentally. All through the process of writing it kept fluttering in various shapes, in the corner of the mind. Like a mysterious breath, a shadow of Psyche – in Ancient Greek Psyche, soul, breath and butterfly are referred to by the same word. Or like a symbol of metamorphosis, an idea of a momentary spreading of wings. With regard to this, it would evidently fit to bring up a line from Czesław Miłosz: Why does a butterfly spread the wings for a flight measured by grains of Clepsydra?
Onutė Narbutaitė
