CATAMORPHOSIS

For orchestra
Duration 20 min.
Instrumentation: 2+afl.2+ca.2+bcl.2+cbn / 4.0.2+btbn.1+btba / 4perc / hp.pf / str(16.16.12.12.8)

Listen to CATAMORPHOSIS on Bandcamp / Spotify / Apple Music

For upcoming performances, please click here

Commissioned by the Stiftung Berliner Philharmoniker, New York Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Iceland Symphony Orchestra

“It’s a tremendous score”
Kirill Petrenko (full DCH interview here)

Premiered by the Berliner Philharmoniker, conducted by Kirill Petrenko, on Jan 29 2021 - the performance is available in the Berlin Philharmonic Digital Concert Hall (excerpt below)

CATAMORPHOSIS received the 2021 Ivors Composer Award (“Large Scale Composition”)

The UK premiere of CATAMORPHOSIS was among The Guardian’s “Classical Highlights of 2022”

The work is nominated for the 2024 Fondation Prince Pierre de Monaco Music Composition Prize

Previous performances include:

Orchestras - Berlin Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, Orchestra of the Royal Opera House (multiple), Iceland Symphony Orchestra (multiple), Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Tampere Philharmonic, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra, Philharmonisches Orchester Freiburg

Conductors - Kirill Petrenko, Santtu-Matias Rouvali, Ludovic Morlot (multiple), Alan Gilbert, Koen Kessels, Eva Ollikainen, Nicholas Collon, Otto Tausk, Alexander Shelley, André de Ridder, Matthew Halls

Selected reviews:

“[Thorvaldsdottir’s] music often has the feel of transcriptions from nature; like Messiaen notating bird songs, she seems to translate the sounds of tectonic and cosmic forces for the concert hall. Similarly immense, “Catamorphosis” at first appears like more of the same before developing into one of her most intensely felt scores to date.” - Joshua Barone, New York Times, Jan 2023

“Among Thorvaldsdottir’s many virtues, her ability to create organic forms unique to themselves and that satisfy their own logic, and her skill at orchestration, are most prominent. Catamorphosis displays this to the fullest.” - George Grella, New York Classical Review, Jan 2023

“From the initial percussion, harp and piano hues in the first bars of Origin to the whispers at the end of Evaporation, Thorvaldsdottir draws a transformative arch… [her] woven textures, as brought forward by Rouvali and his players, were something to constantly marvel at.” - Edward Sava-Segal, Bachtrack, Jan 2023

“[CATAMORPHOSIS] received its first performance during lockdown last year in a streamed concert by the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Kirill Petrenko. Even heard in that compromised way, it seemed a remarkable achievement, a Sibelius-like evocation of the fragility of nature and its impending destruction; experienced live, with the CBSO conducted by Ludovic Morlot unfolding it so expertly, it was even more remarkable. What seemed so impressive this time around was the structural integrity of Thorvaldsdottir’s scheme across the 20-minute span. Each new section grows inevitably from what precedes it, with her technique of building upon long-held bass pedal notes producing strikingly varied results – dense string clusters, woodwind ripples or shreds of consoling melody, and, about two-thirds of the way through, a repeated falling figure that is utterly simple, yet inexpressibly sad.” - Andrew Clements, The Guardian, June 2022

“[Thorvaldsdottir] has carved her own corner in contemporary music by creating symphonic works of sustained brilliance and considerable power from the steady collision, growth and mutation of precisely imagined sounds and textures, and even some conventional chords ... Despite the giddy variety of shapes and colours, Thorvaldsdottir’s tight control over her material never slackened... Morlot and his forces gave a spectacular rendition of a work that fully deserves an extended life.” - Geoff Brown, The Times, June 2022

“Thorvaldsdottir’s impressive new work was detailed and powerful ... Lasting around 20 minutes, it’s a single movement of restrained power, a continuum of shifting, colliding layers of sound, which are minutely detailed in the score yet manage to seem simultaneously massive and delicate as they move from dense chromaticism to moments of almost lucid tonality ... this scrupulously prepared and wonderfully performed premiere showed that it’s a piece that stands entirely on its own feet, creating an utterly convincing musical world.” - Andrew Clements, The Guardian, Feb 2021

“Das prekäre Gleichgewicht zwischen Zerbrechlichkeit und zerstörender Kraft übersetzt [Thorvaldsdottir in CATAMORPHOSIS] in den ständigen Wechsel von luftigen Klängen und schweren Akzenten. Die Holz- und Blechbläser der Berliner Philharmoniker produzierten virtuos beinah unhörbare Luftklänge. Sehr hohe Geigentöne säuselten über tiefen Kontrabässen (die Partitur schreibt den Gebrauch von fünfsaitigen Instrumenten, mit einem Kontra C vor). Die vier Schlagzeuger strichen mit Schuhbürsten über die Felle ihrer großen Trommeln. ... entstand so eine vielschichtige Sphärenmusik ... Immer wieder neue, gerade noch unhörbare Klänge brachen aus dem Orchestertutti hervor und verlöschten wieder in ihm. Chefdirigent Kirill Petrenko … dirigierte sein groß besetztes Orchester mit Sorgfalt und Augenmaß. Es machte ihm aber auch sichtlich Spaß, dieses Kaleidoskop von zerbrechlichen Farben in immer wieder neue Bahnen zu lenken.” - Michael Klier, Bachtrack, Feb 2021

“[CATAMORPHOSIS] has the same existential dimension [as Strauss's Metamorphosen], a feeling of dread, destruction and lyrical fragments of grinding climate grief glimmering against a darkness as black as lava. The mass in Thorvaldsdottir's cluster chords, orchestration as heavy as lead ... wind sounds and string glissandi create the physical sensation of being crushed under a giant glacier. Strauss wrote his chamber music masterpiece Metamorphosen during the last months of World War II, as an In memoriam of the darkest chapter of our time to date: Nazism. ... Thorvaldsdottir, one of the foremost symphonists of our time, is grappling with a more elusive enemy: the climate crisis, the catastrophe that is transforming the earth and ourselves, and threatening to cut the fragile threads that hold everything together. Her aesthetic is both brutal and tender...“ - Sofia Nyblom, Dagens Nyheter, Feb 2021

Program notes:
The core inspiration behind CATAMORPHOSIS is the fragile relationship we have to our planet. The aura of the piece is characterized by the orbiting vortex of emotions and the intensity that comes with the fact that if things do not change it is going to be too late, risking utter destruction – catastrophe. The core of the work revolves around a distinct sense of urgency, driven by the shift and pull between various polar forces – power and fragility, hope and despair, preservation and destruction.

The relationship between inspiration and the pure musical feeling and methods, for me, tends to shift at a certain point in the creative process of every work. The core inspiration provides the initial energy and structural elements to a piece and then the music starts to breathe on its own and expand. In CATAMORPHOSIS this point in the process became more apparent and tangible as it aligned with an event that has had such dramatic impact on our lives and reality. The notion of emergency was already integrated into the music and to counterbalance that a sense of hope and belief. The meditative state of being needed to gain focus in order to sustain and maintain the globally important elements in life also became increasingly important and provided another layer to the inspiration.

CATAMORPHOSIS is quite a dramatic piece, but it is also full of hope – perhaps somewhere between the natural and the unnatural, between utopia and dystopia, we can gain perspective and find balance within and with the world around us.

Berlin Philharmonic Digital Concert Hall - interview
Wise Music Classical - Q&A ahead of the world premiere