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About this Piece


Composed: 1962    
Length: c. 15 minutes

Atli Ingólfsson studied guitar and composition at the Reykjavík College of Music and published a book of poetry, before continuing his composition studies at the Milan Conservatory. He also studied with Franco Donatoni in Italy and with Gérard Grisey in Paris. His music has been widely performed and broadcast in Europe, with commissions from the Swedish Concert Institute, the Berlin Biennale, Caput Ensemble, the Kroumata Percussion Ensemble, Les Percussions de Strasbourg, and the Venice Biennale, among others.

Object of Terror was written on commission from the Caput Ensemble and Reykjavík 2000, where it was premiered. The composer has written the following note about the work:

“The idea of musical material has gradually been dissolving in my works. At present we may say that the harmonic and rhythmic basis which generate the events lay deep under the surface, mostly unpronounced, but a distorted, elusive, or compressed image of them permeates the surface. The most important thing is the evolution itself, how the foreground changes without any time reaching a secure affirmation of themes, chords, or rhythmical ideas. The form is quite foreseeable, unavoidable, and from that point of view this is among my most simple pieces. This is done so as the form will not bear any message in itself, but points all the attention to the metamorphosis itself, to the color and fragrance of time that passes, to the relation of creation and destruction which has long interested me.”