Other Mystery Variations by:
Jean-Baptiste Barrière
Edmund Campion
Denis Cohen
Gualtiero Dazzi
Pascal Dusapin
Ivan Fedele
Luca Francesconi
Vinko Globokar
Kimmo Hakola
Paavo Heininen
Anders Hillborg
Betsy Jolas
Jouni Kaipainen
Fred Lerdahl
Magnus Lindberg
Martin Matalon
Colin Matthews
Marc Neikrug
Pablo Ortiz
Veli-Matti Puumala
Kaija Saariaho
Esa-Pekka Salonen
Miroslav Srnka
Steven Stucky
Jukka Tiensuu
Tapio Tuomela
Tan Dun
Rolf Wallin
Ryan Wigglesworth
Joji Yuasa
About : Colombi Daydream was written as a fiftieth birthday tribute to the remarkable Finnish cellist, Anssi Karttunen. It is based upon the seventeeth-century Chiacona per basso solo by Giuseppi Colombi (1635 - 1694). It involves iterative patterns, as its model does, but their nature, and the attitude taken towards material and sound, depart in often whimsical ways – a kind of daydreaming – from Colombi’s world. Fives, and of course, the number 50 itself are at work everywhere in this piece.
Review:
Mystery Variations on Giuseppe Colombi's Chiacona
When the Finnish cellist Anssi Karttunen turned 50 in 2010, his wife, Muriel von Braun, and the composer Kaija Saariaho invited 30 composers, whose works Karttunen had played, to write variations on the Chiacona by Giuseppe Colombi, often regarded as the earliest piece composed for the cello. None of the composers knew who else was contributing, and Karttunen committed to performing them all sight unseen. … Gathered together, the miniatures make a comprehensive and enjoyable compendium of contemporary cello techniques, in pieces that may stick close to the theme, or bear little relationship to it all; however they come, though, Karttunen plays them with his usual unflappable mastery.
– Andrew Clements,
The Guardian, Thursday, 21 February 2013
