Reviews on Sfäärit
Reviews of Sfäärit for harpsichord, portative organ, and transducers, premiered at Pannuhalli, Helsinki, on February 6–8, 2025, in three languages:
Marianna Henriksson (harpsichord) and Petteri Pitko (organ positive)
Tove Djupsjöbacka – “Lågmäld lek med dans och instrument tjusar” (Hufvudstadsbladet, in Swedish)
Auli Särkiö – “Kuukauden kynä: Sfäärit” (Zodiak.fi, in Finnish)
Simon Cummings – “Musica Nova 2025” (5against4 blog, in English)
In Sfäärit [spheres] for harpsichord, organ, and electronics, receiving its first performance, Repečkaitė set up a compelling soundworld balanced between free-wheeling and the sense of something being worked through. Light harpsichord notes and chords were sporadically echoed and accompanied by the organ, in an effective relationship that grew more insistent over time. The three dancers, by contrast, went the other way, ending up collapsed, resting and (i kid you not) smoking.
5against4 © Simon Cummings Musica Nova 2025 (Part 1) February 26, 2025
Here, the possibilities of the meantone tuning are exploited to the fullest. Justina Repečkaitė's Spheres for harpsichord, organ and electronics offers long arcs and vibrating dissonances, and also brings in the dancers – in this work, the music and dance have been created in parallel. <..> The atmosphere is generally quite low key. With the exception of Anna Mustonen's wild jamming at the beginning, only one sequence offers a slightly higher intensity in both movement and music (Repečkaitė).
Who accompanies whom? I sometimes wonder. In many performances, the music tends to have a subordinate role in relation to the dance. Here the relationship is very equal, often it feels more like the dancers are accompanying the music than the other way around.
Excerpt from Hufvudstadsbladet (translated into English)
Tove Djupsjöbacka - “Lågmäld lek med dans och instrument tjusar”
Then, the sacred trembled. A cataclysm: sheets suspended from the ceiling fell, a dancer stepped out for a cigarette break, and attention turned to a haunting painting of a cat staring from a corner, carried in procession like an icon. Did it hold a compass in its paws, that emblem of cosmic architecture and creation?
Auli Särkiö writes on Zodiak.fi – Kuukauden kynä: Sfäärit (translated into English).
