Jesper Koch: Jabberwocky - Flemming Viðar Valmundsson

From my BMus exam at The Royal Danish Academy of Music 10.6.2020
Program notes:

Jesper Koch (1967 - )

Jesper started his compositional journey at the age of 11 and debuted from Det Jyske Musikkonservatorium after studying with Hans Abrahamsen, Ib Nørholm, and Karl Aage Rasmussen. He has studied with Andy Pape, Olav Anton Thommesen and Colin Matthews as well. He showed immediate promise early on, as he was awarded the Carl Nielsen Grant for Composers in 1988 and won 1st prize at ROSTRUM in Paris in the category of composers under 30 for his piece “Ice-Breaking” in Paris, 1992.
He has been a popular composer in Denmark, being commissioned by the Odense Symphony orchestra, Danish National Symphony Orchestra (DR), Copenhagen Philharmonic and Aalborg Symphony Orchestra, as well as being appointed composer-in-residence for the South Jutland Symphony Orchestra.
His works are carefully conceived with a sure sense of form and structure, where all superfluous formulations have been peeled away so that the idea appears as the overall unifying factor.
The ability to elucidate musical structures from different angles and the coloristically aware interplay of harmony and instrumentation demonstrate a compositional scope with a convincing inner logic.
Many have noted Jesper’s imaginative storytelling talent and humorous elements. But the humour is combined with a rigorous aesthetic that makes Koch careful in his choice of resources. Perhaps that is precisely why his stories are so distinctly outlined. "Modernism with atmospheric images" could be the heading for Koch's music.

Jabberwocky (1995)

Whilst on her curious excursion in the looking-glass world, a world where everything is opposite as if it were viewed through a looking glass, Alice (who famously fell down a rabbit hole and entered Wonderland) stumbles upon a book which she has a hard time reading. Once she realizes that the text is reversed and thinks to use a looking glass to decipher what’s written, she reads an epic none-sensical poem of the heroic boy who fought and slayed the Jabberwock.
Now in the real world, Lewis Carroll’s poem “Jabberwocky”, found in his book “Through the Looking-Glass”, has become one of the most celebrated poems of its kind in the world. Despite his jargon and wordsmithery, the adventure, mystique, fantasy, and idea, are all crystal clear. The structure and logic, cloaked by the nonsense, manage to deliver the danger, the frights, the fights, the conquering and the definite victory of the boy over the beast.

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