Selected Works
In tiny drops of random tones,
it comes, distilling
the thunderclouds of inner storms,
the fog of feelings.
ORCHESTRAL WORKS
All the Power and Glory
for voice and orchestra
ALL THE POWER AND GLORY
for voice and orchestra
Taja Astar, 2023
Text: Anna Astar
Durata: 10:00 min
About the piece
All the Power and Glory is an antiwar piece. In it, we reflect on things that are common and potentially uniting for people on Earth, and why they always choose to be divided and hostile to each other, in fact, even using these common things, such as longing for creativity and the transcendental, to justify the aggression they channel towards each other.
The accompaniment to the song is built on numerous original motives that are composed in different folk traditions. They intertwine to create an organic flow, where the shoots of creativity from various times, continents and peoples co-exist in perfect harmony. This “song of countless voices” is the eternal, universal language that might have been the treasure, cherished by all, and the ground for mutual understanding.
The title of the piece refers to the New Testament (Luke 4:6), to the Jesus’ temptation by Satan. While the text in general, as the idea behind the piece, is secular, it metaphorically blames people for claiming authority over the world that existed long before them. For blindly pursuing dominance over their peers through war and violence. For choosing the fleeting “glory” – paid by endless suffering and death – instead of a sustainable and flourishing co-existence.
The work is intertextual on many layers. So, it does not only make multiple references to folk music, but also two of the authors’ own pieces that are, in turn, reflections on fundamental topics. One of them is a plaintive lament, tragically inspired by the war in Ukraine.
all the power and glory
you have sought
since your hordes were roving
in the woods of your nascent world
from the beginning of time
you've been feeding the earth
your pains and your joys
wherever you set your foot
a song of countless voices grows
voices as longing as yours
up to the sky it ascends
from the seeds of tears as sharp as yours
from the seeds of sweat as hot as yours
straight to your heart it speaks
and still you seek
all the power and glory elsewhere
all the power and glory
you write with your whips
on the naked shoulders
with the blood that's as red as yours
all the power and glory
you inscribe on the swords
that you raise to bury
in the bodies as soft as yours
a song of countless voices grows
straight to your heart it speaks
and still you seek
all the power and glory elsewhere
The Checkered Flag Villanelle
for piano and orchestra
THE CHECKERED FLAG VILLANELLE
for piano with orchestra
Taja Astar, 2022, 2024
Durata: ~ 8:30
About the piece
This piece is an exploration into new ways of uniting poetry and music. The work correlates with the topics dealt with in a villanelle by Anna Astar, and strives to reflect in the composition structure this traditional poetry form characterized by a complex pattern of rhyming and refrains.
The concept of the piece plays also with the imagery of the poem, where the checkered flag, with its combination of black and white colors, is perceived both as a symbol of victory in racing and as the checkerboard where a game of chess is being played.
The musical texture of the toccata is based on two motifs, one of which is played on the black keys, the other on the white keys, with the hands alternating, when one hand touches rather only the black or the white keys.
The piano part might be played as written or improvised live.
The Checkered Flag by Anna Astar
It's sport: you're playing white, I'm playing black
and always seem to move one step behind.
The game's about who takes the checkered flag.
We race across the board and down the track.
Fate on the piano sets the tempo high,
his right hand playing white, left playing black.
Two lines now clash, now kiss, now throttle back.
Hands changed, this time it's I who's playing white,
but I don't care about the checkered flag.
I move and watch the patterns interact,
their smart confusion capturing my mind -
all mixed: who's playing white, who's playing black…
And suddenly, our ways that zig and zag
from light to night, then back, get justified
and fill the matrix of the checkered flag.
And you, my darling. When you start to lag,
I slow my pace, to tango by your side.
You'll see: one playing white, the other black,
it takes us both to weave the checkered flag.
Perpetuum Mementum
for symphony orchestra
PERPETUUM MEMENTUM
for symphony orchestra
Taja Astar, 2020
Durata: ~ 7:30
About the piece
I find it most fascinating how different forms and works of art interact and intertwine together, giving birth to new inspiration and new works of art, bringing on the momentum of creativity, when words and images become music, and music becomes words, images and music again, and so perpetually.
My personal way to composition went through four major experiences, all of which were operatic performances - from different times and different places. It is remarkable that the four operas - Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Boris Godunov, Eugene Onegin and Don Carlos - were all based on literary works: a verse novel and three plays. In this journey, which I shared with my wife Anna, there was a special moment of musical elation that Anna tried to express in a poem. And now it is very symbolic for me to bring the words back into music, and dedicate my first complete symphonic score to the memory of that single moment.
Taking the first impulse from that point, I try to absorb it in my composition and go beyond, to a more general experience of touching art. For me, a contact with art is always an emotional disturbance, an act of intrusion, sometimes violent, sometimes sedative, annoying, intoxicating or ecstatic. It can give you a feeling of joy mixed with pain, a nearly religious sense of awe, or a merry dizziness, as though you have been dancing with elves in the forest. All these sensations I have tried to convey in this short piece of music.
Perpetuum Mementum by Anna Astar
I was awake, I had a dream, as though an angel
sang to me
a voice from ever glacial heights, or from
where earth is hot, all seemed to fade
time closed the eyes and
heeded too
entranced
with seconds
oozing
numbly down, down
drowning in the air like gleamy crystals
echoing the sound
revolving round, round in an insufferable dance
I was in daze
my feet forgot the ground
I felt the pulse invade
my chest, my womb, my all too worldly mind
pierce through the skin with
effervescent light and
tear the veins
engulfing me in
rapture to the
edge of
delirious agony
awed
anguishing
ashamed of being so human
why couldn't I dissolve...
Fragments
for symphony orchestra
FRAGMENTS
for symphony orchestra
Taja Astar, 2022
Durata: ~ 10:30
About the piece
The piece is an orchestra suite based on the material for my future opera that strives to marry a cosmic odyssey with an inverted story of Don Juan, and thus builds a bridge between remote epochs and cultures. Part II, Adagio sbronzato ("Hangover adagio"), and Part III, Scherzo volgare, contain references to the Mozart and Da Ponte’s opera intricately interwoven into the musical fabric, and I invite the listeners to decipher them. The stylistically contrasting Part I, Allegro epico, is in a way a parody on the genre of so called “epic music.” It plays with melodic lines written on the following lyrics by my wife Anna Astar:
Where in the universe does time land
when it drifts away from us?..
Maybe there's a place where all ways end
and all ends wait... But what then?
We are made of stars…
Home Alone. Kids in a Blitz
cantata for voice and orchestra
HOME ALONE. KIDS IN A BLITZ
cantata for voice and chamber orchestra
Taja Astar, 2023
Text: Anna Astar
Durata: ~ 17:00
About the piece
I grew up, thinking that war is the most terrible thing that can happen in the world. My mother told me how, during World War II, she, as a kid of four, stayed at home together with her two sisters, 2 and 6, when their mother left for work. The children, constantly hungry and cold, would try to entertain themselves with talk and play, and at the time of air-raids, they started to sing as loud as possible to try and drown out the terrifying sounds of the siren and of the bombs falling down. They could not go to the shelter because their mother locked them up, thinking that home was somehow safer for the kids, and there was no one to leave them with. Scariest of all was when one of them said, “ What if our mama gets killed…” Then, all three of them began crying hysterically.
The world has never really existed without military conflicts, but the beginning of the full-scale war in Ukraine in 2022 felt for me somehow as the beginning of a frightening new era. The horrible events in Israel last October have put yet another bloody conflict on the timeline of our history. Children in Ukraine, in Israel, in Gaza are listening, once again, like all those decades before, to the sounds of shooting, shelling, and bombing. Once again, children witness scenes and images that no one should ever see. Once again, children lose their parents and get experiences that no one should ever get. Yet another generation is growing up with the word “enemy” on their lips, perpetuating the cursed circle of xenophobia and violence.
The piece is a collaborative work with my wife and librettist Anna Astar, and is an abridged version of what is planned to become a mono-opera. In “Home Alone,” we contemplate on war, as it might be seen through the eyes of the innocent ones. To write the text, Anna turned to my mother’s stories, as well as to the war diaries of Ukrainian children, and other published diaries and memoirs of those who were children during a wartime: in England, in Denmark, in Germany, in Bosnia and Herzegovina… The resulting libretto draws upon the imagery and the scenes recurring in these pieces of memory. At the heart of the narration is a child’s voice that struggles to fight the feelings of fear, hunger, and loneliness. It is a young child of six or seven, who has been left alone in an empty house, when an air-raid starts.
The music of the piece is intentionally simplistic and mostly tonal, to support the aesthetics of children’s music. With a child as the narrator, the work is, both in the text and music, somehow referencing other compositions written from this perspective, such as Mussorgsky’s song cycle “The Nursery” and Bernstein’s “I Hate Music.” But while alluding to the sub-genre in a certain way, the piece also challenges it. In such compositions, the adult author/composer tends to recreate an innocent and mostly idealistic world of childhood. While sympathizing with the child narrator, the author/composer does not usually see the child as much more than a cute talking doll that is occasionally capable of coming up with surprisingly fresh and deep thoughts amid the otherwise nonsense wordiness. “Home Alone” is putting the child narrator, both textually and musically, into dire circumstances of war and hunger, making the child face and contemplate a far-from-idealistic world of killing and dying. Here, the protagonist also remains a simple child, whose mind always tries to find a way of escape, but this figure does not invite a condescending laughter from the performer or the listener. The title, “Home Alone,” obviously, is a reference to the famous film franchise – an allusion, juxtaposing the self-indulging world of consumerism and entertainment with the life of terror and need that some children are forced to live in.
VOCAL TEXT (by Anna Astar)
The house is so big when mama's gone.
She went to the shop, left me alone.
She said, be brave, behave yourself,
I go to the shop, to get some bread.
Now you're the big boss when I am gone.
And if you get afraid, just sing that song.
Sunny day, sunny joy!
Take your cap and run outside!
Little girls and little boys, sing a-la and sing a-lai!
But I am not afraid! I am not a little kiddie,
and soon I'll grow even bigger!
Last night, I dreamed a birthday cake.
It was big as a mountain, wide as a lake!
Mama will come back soon,
hope she'll bring some bread…
Maybe, we will go for a walk in the park.
There are yellow flowers on the trees,
they are sweet, sweet like sweets,
so nice to eat!
The leaves are not as good,
the bark is even worse!
It's bitter and hard. To eat the bark,
I guess, one should be a horse!
The horse has a funny voice!
It is a little like the siren, but funny.
I don't fear horses.
I don't fear anymore
any monsters under the bed,
any bogeys behind the bathrooms door...
I'm too big for that!
Hope she will bring some bread…
But I am not afraid!
Only that thing called an "air-raid"...
Mama says the enemies
throw bombs from the sky,
big bombs from the sky.
But that old lady we met once,
she said it is God, he punishes us
for the sins we did.
I think, God's got giant elephant feet.
He stomps them hard on the ground,
so everything shakes beneath.
He speaks in squeaks, he speaks in howls,
he speaks in angry hiss…
I know, he kills... even kids.
Only the naughty kids, that is… or not?
What if he wants to punish me?
Sunny day, sunny joy!
Take your cap and run outside!
Little girls and little boys...
Where is my mama? What if mama...
What if my mama... gets killed?
Dear God, dear God! You are great, you are kind!
Please, please, dear God, do not let mama die!
Let my mama come back,
let my mama come back!
When you tread on the ground,
please, don't step on her, I beg!
If mama was at home, we'd go
to the shelter down the road.
Before, I would go to the shelter on my own,
but now, I am not let out alone.
They say, children get caught and eaten.
Does it mean that kids are also made of meat, then?
Like cows, like pigs, like lambs,
like dogs, like cats… like rats…
Now mama locks me when she leaves.
She says she can find me here, at least...
Dear God, dear God! You are great, you are kind!
Please, please, dear God, do not let me die!
A Bridge Suspended
for string orchestra
A BRIDGE SUSPENDED
for string orchestra
Taja Astar, 2022
Durata: ~ 5:300
About the piece
This piece is trying to convey the feeling of fear, strained nerves and emotional suspension to the edge of panic that people can experience in a situation of anxiety and uncertainty, like the one we have been facing during the ongoing corona pandemic. In the beginning of the pandemic, I, like many other people, found myself completely ungrounded and unbalanced emotionally and felt as though everything had lost any meaning and continuity, as though life was just a rope bridge, the end of which you cannot see and which can break down any second without warning.
The work’s title refers to the poem by Anna Astar
A Bridge Suspended
by Anna Astar
I thought a road.
An open end, an open sky -
above and everywhere.
Now I find I'm on a bridge
suspended in the air.
A bridge,
a tight entanglement of knots
that sway, sway, sway
A one-way lane
from where I'm not
to where I'm not again.
New Year Fanfare
for symphony orchestra
NEW YEAR FANFARE
for symphony orchestra
Taja Astar, 2019, 2024
Durata: ~ 4:30
About the piece
The piece is a gleeful fanfare, full of joy and hope. It celebrates the holiday that is universal and cheerful for most people on Earth, regardless any differences. The composition fits perfectly as an opening or closing piece for a seasonal concert.
The work is an orchestra arrangement of the choir piece New Year Is Coming Around from 2019 by Taja Astar, so some melodies in the orchestration “sing” the following wishful words by Anna Astar:
New Year is coming around!
New Year is coming around!
He is turning to me,
he is turning to me his face!
I so want to see him,
so want to see him smile!
All the way down the line,
through the days,
through the nights,
I so want him,
so want him to be,
so want him to be kind
to you and me!
New Year is coming around,
New Year is coming around!
May he be kind and smile!
Walls and Waves
for symphony orchestra
WALLS AND WAVES
for symphony orchestra
Taja Astar, 2022, 2024
Durata: ~ 10:00
About the piece
The piece is my reaction to the social turbulence that we witness in the world right now: the ongoing terrible wars, the corrosion of political systems and demolishing of democracies, people’s seemingly ebbing ability for empathy and common sense – globally… The list can be continued.
The music is built around the imagery found in the poem by my wife Anna Astar, which was the inspiration for the piece. The waves of crises in the changing world. The sea waves, drowning people in their attempt to escape. The walls, physical and symbolic, behind which people try to separate themselves. The crumbling of these walls…
See also Bridges Crumbled in Choral Works
Bridges Crumbled by Anna Astar
You crumble bridges, you take the stones
You crumble bridges, to build up walls
In vain
In vain, you're building walls from these stones
All walls are destined to fall
What looks like rock is made of sand
No wall forever will stand
The wave
It is the wave of time that erodes
The soil from under your toes
No wall can ever stand tall for long
The splash of arms perishing in the waves
The splash of oars willing to get
Away
Can we really get away?
This boat is the only boat we own
You never know who is next to drown
The world is changing again
What looked like rock is made of sand
The only hope is an open hand
For us all
CHAMBER MUSIC
Escape. Some Ways of Living Not
for chamber ensemble
ESCAPE. SOME WAYS OF LIVING NOT
for chamber ensemble (septet)
Taja Astar, 2023
Durata: ~ 15:00
About the piece
The piece was written for Norrbotten Neo.
This piece is my attempt to contemplate on the effect of cognitive dissonance and lack of meaning that forces people to escape reality in some way. The work consists of six main sections flowing seamlessly one after another, of which one, Running, is recurring and serves as a sort of connecting link between the parts. In this way, the composition tells a story of a soul that runs from one “shelter” to another, fleeing the mental and spiritual struggle that is involved in trying to make sense of the world outside and life itself.
Escape is to a great extent an intertextual work, referring to several famous tunes, as follows:
Church and Art: Die Internationale, the famous anthem of the international communist party. Its verse is used in the Church section, and its chorus in the Art section. I integrated the tunes into the musical texture to show how ideology can be hidden everywhere, and how both in religion and art one cannot stay apart from politics and how these both can be used as a weapon.
Drugs: Hector Berlioz’ Rakoczy March. Berlioz was, probably, the first composer who attempted at describing the effect of drugs in his music. In Escape, his music is partly used to make a reference to this well-known picture of an unstable state of mind.
War: Beethoven’s “Ode of Joy” from the Ninth. In the piano part, the motif is played in both hands, alternating with a semitone difference, creating an ugly dissonant sound as an image of a heated conflict, when both sides believe that they are on the right side, which results in a complete chaos.
Death: the Happy Birthday song. Many a belief system consider death as a new beginning. So, why not?
The parts of the work and their character are as follows (based on the poem by Anna Astar):
Some Ways of Living Not
Running ever faster, like from fleas,
in an attempt to flee the gnawing dissonance.
Church. Plunging into the tranquillizing absolute.
Piously, inhibiting, telling a fable of bliss.
Art. Playing the elite. The daintiness.
The gleam, like of a marble goldfish pond.
Drugs. Plucking the neon strings,
walking the fuzzy valleys. Glitchily.
War. With a furious glee. The ears shut.
Blasting away on a trumpet dripping blood.
Bull-mindedly.
Death. Not without sadness. With relief
and solemn plea. With a hope for future.
Ukraina, My Pain
for chamber ensemble
УКРАЇНА, БОЛЬ МОЯ
UKRAЇNA, MY PAIN
for chamber ensemble / piano trio
Anna Astar & Taja Astar, 2022
Durata: ~ 6:30
About the piece
Україна, боль моя - раненые крылья -
в небе синем золотые перья разметались.
Как мне выплакать теперь этот вкус полынный,
как заштопать это небо мертвыми цветами?
Україна, дым полынный над тобой растает,
новым цветом зарастут раны на крыле.
Но мое навеки небо - лоскутами,
и мне не вытащить из горла высохших стеблей.
------------------------
Ukraїna, you my pain - wings in flight - bleeding -
in the skies, in the blue, golden feathers swept.
How to cry the wormwood taste out of my breathing,
how to stitch the broken sky with flowers cut to death?
Ukraїna, it will melt, the bitter wormwood smoke.
Once again, the wounded wings in the height will glow.
But the sky, my blue sky is forever broken,
and I can't take the withered stems out of my throat.
The Scarlet Skies of War
for voice and ensemble
The Scarlet Skies of War
for voice and chamber ensemble
Taja Astar, 2023
Text: Anna Astar
Durata: ~ 7:00
Winner of the “SYN(es)THESIS” Composition Competition 2023
Special Award "Classic FM Radio”
Category 1: Musical composition, inspired by a painting
About the piece
The piece is a reaction to the images of war that our life seems to have been full of since the beginning of the fullscale war in Ukraine. The picture by Drago Dochev, with its bright orange red and sketchy outlines of a hostile landscape, was chosen, for it felt as resonating with the sense of violence, angst and desolation that war brings about. The symbolism that appears to be buried in the image as though invites an attempt not only to translate the colors and abstract graphic images into music, but also transfer art into the dimension of actuality, synthesizing it with the real: the social, the political, the global, and at the same time, with the emotional and deeply personal.
An idea connected to the picture was being developed, when another war, in Israel and Gaza, took its terrible start on October 7, 2023, and the mind responded with a renewed reaction of terror and pain. Then, a short poem was written to express the emotions, and the piece became a song, with a lamenting female voice as its soul.
VOCAL TEXT (by Anna Astar)
How can the mind stand all this pain,
how can the eyes
stand seeing the seas of scarlet paint
flooding the skies?
How can the air absorb this blend
of blood and fire,
how can the earth stand so much hell
and keep so quiet?
What Is Love
for voice with accompaniment
WHAT IS LOVE
for voice with accompaniment
Taja Astar & Anna Astar, 2016
Durata: ~ 3:30
What Is Love
by Anna Astar
What is love? Again,
Like an endless file of better ones before me,
I exhaust my brain
As my heart inside is wailing and deforming.
Is it just an itch
From the very birth in nerves and tissues nestling,
Or a kismet which
Is for us by higher alchemy predestined?
A celestial tie
That connects our souls with mystic understanding,
Or a random lie,
Lonely chambers built on grounds frail and sandy?
On the fleeting path,
Should we try and grasp the nebulous and stormy...
No one knows what's love
When your longing heart is melting and deforming.
NONAme
for string quartet
NONAme
for string quartet
Taja Astar, 2023
Durata: ~ 6:00
About the piece
Written for Wirènkvartetten.
The idea for the piece came from a typo, when I wrote "NOName" instead of "No Name" in the first draft of the score. It made me think of the musical interval nona, which carries with it the feeling of tension and sadness, but also tenderness. As if "nona" were a verb, e.g. "nona me tenderly". My wife Anna saw that "noname" was (almost) an anagram of "anemone". She thought that the music fit well with the myth of Adonis and the flower anemone, so she wrote the poem based on the melody of the piece.
Anemone
by Anna Astar
where do you sleep, my love
do you hear me
tell me
what wind holds you in the arms
in the vivid grass
green as life itself
fell the drops of your name
red as death
why did you give your name
for the wind to play
why did you let your flesh
vaporize
where your blood went cold
where my eyes were torn
wild grass will grow
with drops of red
Another Ocean
for chamber ensemble /
percussion with a narrator
For Norrbotten NEO with narrator:
For percussion with narrator:
ANOTHER OCEAN
for chamber ensemble / percussion and a narrator
Taja Astar, 2022
(Pedal notation by Anna Astar)
Durata: ~ 10:00
About the piece
For this piece, I collaborated closely with my wife Anna, who wrote the text to be narrated as part of the composition, as well as recorded the narration. We watched a film about whales once, and got captivated by the story on how they create their songs, weaving short fragments of “melody” into longer phrases and whole complex compositions. Lower frequencies of these songs can reach through the waters as far as over ten thousand miles and are thought to serve, among other things, as whales’ means of finding a mate. The ability to send and receive these signals at such a distance is therefore crucial for their reproduction and survival.
In our time, among other human factors that affect health of our oceans, noise pollution takes not the last place, causing whales’ calls to be interfered with and blocked.
But people not only prevent whales from hearing each other. Despite all our advanced communication technologies that can reach over any distance, so often fail we to hear one another and to be heard in the everyday noise of our lives.
Another Ocean
by Anna Astar
(text for narration)
Whale's voice
against the membrane of the sea,
a song, a cry…
The one I carry inside of me
so alike
the beating longing
to reach for you, ten thousand miles
away,
another ocean.
Whale's voice
It calls
out of the membrane of the soul
but then
trapped in commotion
drowns in the drone of passing ships
the line of message
broken down
ten thousand snippets
nullified
lost in the fishing nets.
Whale's voice
against the membrane of the sea,
a song, a cry…
The one I carry inside of me
so alike.
In Sunset Sky Cerise
for piano quartet
IN SUNSET SKY CERISE
for piano quartet
Anna Astar & Taja Astar, 2021
Durata: ~ 5:00
About the piece
The piece is an instrumental development with variations on a theme from our song with the same title. The following lines are underlying the melody of the piece and define its mood.
In Sunset Sky Cerise
by Anna Astar
…If your silence means goodbye,
I'll become the seagull's cry,
I will paint my soul in sunset sky cerise.
Blink your eye, and I am gone,
past the calling, past the dawn,
past your door I'll rustle on
with the breeze…
My Door Is Open
for chamber ensemble
MY DOOR IS OPEN
for chamber ensemble
Anna Astar, 2023
Durata: ~ 5:30
About the piece
I dedicate this piece, with love and gratitude, to my wife Taja who encouraged me to compose and always believed in me. While writing, I was thinking about our dear friend who was very far and whom we missed. So, the music is built around a melody, clinging to a simple promise:
My door is open, always open – always – for you…
Ragged Time
for chamber ensemble / piano
RAGGED TIME
for chamber ensemble / solo piano
Taja Astar, 2020
Durata: ~ 4:00
About the piece
“Ragged Time” is based on an abstract poem that expresses the feelings of uncertainty, anxiety and “let-it-be”-mood, when your life is about to change dramatically, and you don't yet know whether this turn makes sense. The text plays with the meanings of words, where A and B stand both for points in space and time and the names of tones, while B also means “to be”; “me” is both "I" and the note “me” (E); C means the note’s name and "to see." There are also non-musical letters U, X, Y, Z with double meanings.
The absurdist music continues the game and develops melodic themes from the poetic phrases: from A to B to C to me to fa, and so on. The piece doesn’t follow the poem’s structure, but rather builds on its imagery, exploring and extending it. Despite the ragtime rhythm, traditionally associated with jolliness and entertainment, the music is intended to express mixed emotions of boldness and craziness, but also anxiety and melancholy from leaving something dear behind.
Ragged Time
by Anna Astar
From A
to B
to C
to next
From me to me
to fa-r
to X
From so and so
from flat, from A
to Y
to go
to Y
to stay
To cease to think
to let it roll
to trill, to sink
to rush, to bolt
To trip on U
and back to flat
with eyelids full
of sharps
of Z
To blink
to C
through stops
through bars
From me to me
so fa-r, so fa-r
It Comes from Tension
for piano duo
IT COMES FROM TENSION
for piano four hands
Taja Astar, 2018
Durata: ~ 4:00
About the piece
Written for Roland Pöntinen and Love Derwinger.
This piece was premiered during the Båstad Chamber Music Festival 2018. I worked on the concept of the piece together with Anna, my wife and lyricist/librettist. For the starting point, we took that year’s main theme of the festival, Varifrån kommer musiken? (Where does music come from?) and collected some ideas on that theme. Then Anna wrote a short formal verse (below), concentrating the concept in poetic form. After that I made an effort to integrate the concept into a piano score.
The concept states that music “comes from tension". Thus, the piece is supposed to feel as tense as
possible. It should make the listener crave for a resolution, a relaxation. To create the effect of tension, I used most common methods of keeping suspension: repeated phrases with a lot of repeated semitones in them, big melodic leaps, fast tempo, a big amount of short notes, avoiding of resolutions. Besides giving the feeling of tension, the piece is considered to picture quite concrete images described in the accompanying text: fog, drops, storms, streams running to open water.
It Comes from Tension
by Anna Astar
Music… what is its source,
Where does it come from,
Eternal flow, embracing force,
To stir and comfort…
In tiny drops of random tones,
It comes, distilling
The thunderclouds of inner storms,
The fog of feelings.
In notes suspended, bead by bead,
On nerves' extension,
It comes from unresolving beat,
From pain, from tension.
Music… the voice of souls,
The lonely islands,
Eternal song, embracing flow,
It comes from silence...
It’s Snow
for piano / voice and piano
IT’S SNOW
for voice with accompaniment / for piano solo
Taja Astar & Anna Astar, 2017
Durata: ~ 5:00
It's Snow
by Anna Astar
Are you far or are you near,
I don't know…
All my wishes, all my fears
Muffled by the early snow
Falling down like frozen tears
Slow, slow, slow…
Are you far or are you near,
I don't know…
As the distance gets unclear
And the quietness tiptoes...
If I ask I'll only hear...
It's snow, snow, snow
Falling through the dusk
Falling from the glow…
I won't ask,
Don't want to know…
I fear to know…
For once, I fear to know…
It's snow, snow, snow, snow
Are you far or are you near,
I don't know…
Strain my nerves and strain my ears
For your steps, for your hello,
For vibrations reaching here
Slow, slow, slow...
Are you far or are you near,
I don't know…
As my soul to you adhered
An eternity ago,
And the future disappeared...
In snow, snow, snow
Dancing in the sky,
Pirouettes and bows...
I won't cry,
Won't let you go…
Can't let you go…
I fear to find it's no…
... snow, snow
Falling through the dusk
Falling from the glow…
I won't ask,
Don't want to know…
I fear to know…
For once, I fear to know…
It's snow, snow, snow...
Sonnet
for solo trombone
SONNET
for solo trombone
Taja Astar, 2016, 2023
Durata: ~ 1:30
About the piece
Trombone, as probably no other instrument, is close to a beautiful male voice and therefore perfect for serenading and singing. The piece “Sonnet” is written in a song form that quite closely follows the Shakespearean sonnet prosody with its iambic pentameter. It can be played as solo or with accompanying sotto voce reciting of the attached poem.
Any dynamics, tempo fluctuations and even phrasing can be freely chosen by the performer.
There is also a version with piano.
Sonnet
by Anna Astar
I'm given rules, I have to readjust
My ways, and it's not painful to comply
With all the ten commandments but the last,
For I can't help but covet what's not mine.
Embraces that I hunger for are yours,
As are the lips whose smile I wish to steal.
Your laughter's honey sap for which I thirst,
And at your feet my pride is set to kneel.
For mercy and regard I dare to plead,
A tender look as my desired prize.
I crave your favor, precious signs of heed,
The pink of cheeks, the warmth of stubborn eyes…
Oh, come! Reward my patience with a 'yes',
And I'll pay back with all that I possess...
STAGE WORKS
ParaINphernalia
chamber opera
TRAILER:
PRODUCTION:
PARAINPHERNALIA
chamber opera for four soloists and ensemble
Taja Astar, 2019, 2021
Durata: ~ 1:00:00
About the piece
Parainphernalia is a comic opera, dealing with the phenomena of consumerism and the power of things that, wider, connect to the issues of environment and sustainable economy, as well as identity and personal relationships in the modern society. The work is loosely based on the short story “The Fateful Collar” written in 1910 by Teffi (Russian humorist writer, 1872-1952), which gives it an additional intertextual and spatiotemporal dimension, and a notion of invariability of the human desire to possess (“obsession with possession”), regardless of the time and society.
The title of the opera is based on the word paraphernalia in the sense “accessory items” and “personal belongings,” with the insertion of in as a playful reference to the infernal, devilish influence objects can have over humans.
ROLES
KITTY, a young woman, nice but a bit too superficial, a faithful wife - soprano
HONEST HUSBAND, her loyal husband, a serious young man - baritone
PHONE CASE, the personified essence of any purchasable THING
and, at the same time, the alter-ego of its owner - mezzo
PLAYBOY, a sort of flamboyant thief, may have a specific accent - tenor
SHORT SYNOPSIS
On a mere whim, Kitty buys a new phone case that doesn’t fit her phone and her overall style. Phone Case is the personified essence of Thingism that incites Kitty to take credits and buy not only a new phone, but a lot of new things, which ruins Kitty’s relationship with Honest Husband. Phone Case insists on finding a new house and even a new man. In a bar, Kitty meets PlayBoy, who entices her and then robs her of her phone. After thus getting rid of Phone Case, Kitty reconciles with Honest Husband, only to find that he has also undergone a change.
What Is Love
the musical
TITLE
for
Taja Astar, 202
Durata: ~ :00
About the piece
About info
NEW YEAR ORATORIO
New Year Is Coming Around
TITLE
for
Taja Astar, 202
Durata: ~ :00
About the piece
About info
On New Year’s Eve
TITLE
for
Taja Astar, 202
Durata: ~ :00
About the piece
About info
Saying Goodbye to the Year
TITLE
for
Taja Astar, 202
Durata: ~ :00
About the piece
About info
Golden Bauble
TITLE
for
Taja Astar, 202
Durata: ~ :00
About the piece
About info
CHORAL WORKS
Cranes Coming Home
for SSAATTBB choir a cappella
CRANES COMING HOME
for SSAATTBB choir a cappella
Taja Astar, 2020
Durata: ~ 6:00
Winner of the 4th International HerVoice Composition Competition, USA, 2024
About the piece
This is a song for an advanced SSAATTBB choir.
Looking for inspiration for a new song, we came across information about lake Hornborga in Västergötland, Sweden. Thousands of birds come there in March every year on their way up north, back to their nesting grounds. We read the story of how the lake, and with it an important birds’ habitat, had been nearly lost to drainage in the 1930’s; and how it was brought back to life half a century later. We watched videos of the cranes dancing – majestic and at the same time gracefully childish. It is for a reason that the crane is a symbol of youth and happiness! We listened to their calls, and smiled to our own memories: to those who live in the North, the sight of cranes’ flights in the vernal sky is like a promise of warmth coming back, their call – like a demanding cry of life awakening. And we wanted it all to be contained in our song: the joy of coming home, the joy of welcoming spring, and the merry dance – but also the worry of all migrating creatures about not being able to find home.
VOCAL TEXT (by Anna Astar)
The sky's a piercing call again
Deep in the blue, a flight of cranes
They're coming back
home, home
The North is hatching from its sleep
The drifting skeins like sailing ships
They carry spring
home, home
They crave to dance on their lakes of birth
They call in joy, and the earth
whispers below,
I'm waiting
The sky's a longing call again
I fly up high, I am a crane
I'm seeking my
home, home
I'm friends with every southern wind
They kissed my wings, so I could bring
their love to you
home, home
Wait for me
I will dance for you
Whisper below,
I'm waiting
I Am with You Always
for SATB choir (with acc.)
I AM WITH YOU ALWAYS
for SATB choir with or without accompaniment
Taja Astar, 2021
Durata: ~ 6:00
About the piece
The text for the song is built around two quotations from the Bible, "there is no fear in love" (1 John 4:18) and "I am with you always, yes, to the end of time" (Matthew 28:20). It does not however directly refer to religion, but rather strives to connect different readings of love in a universal message of acceptance and caring.
The song is written with a well-trained vocational SATB choir in mind, and is composed in the stylistic of traditional chorale.
I Am with You Always
by Anna Astar
I am with you always, yes, to the end of time!
Have you ever known love as it is?
Have you seen the world as it sees -
Through the eyes of forgiveness and care…
If you are feeling fright, I am always there.
Have you ever known love as it is?
Have you seen the world as it sees?
Has it whispered all the answers in your ear?
(All the answers on the earth).
Have you heard it cry with your tears?
There is no fear in love,
On the sun, there are no shadows.
My embrace is big, it is warm enough
To enfold and hold everyone you love,
Everything you love...
I will rock your sorrows in my lap,
I will be a pair of wings above your head.
Have you ever known love as it is?
Have you felt its arms round your knees -
In a hold of forgiveness and care…
If you are feeling cold, I am always there.
And I am with you always, yes, to the end of time!
Factory of Love
arr. for SATB choir with soloist
FACTORY OF LOVE
arr. for SATB choir with soloist
Taja Astar & Anna Astar, 2015
Durata: ~ 4:30
Factory of Love
by Anna Astar
Today, I wish I had a bunch of mighty arms
to hug the whole Earth and hold it tender.
I'd put my healing palms
to cure any harms,
a caring shield, a loving shield to render.
And thousand legged to be, I'd wish with all my heart,
to come in time wherever help is needed.
We're all just sighs apart,
our fates with finest art
in the destiny fabric interknitted.
My heart's a little plant, a factory of love,
producing tons of mercy and compassion.
I'd wish to fly above
and spray this funny stuff
to stop forever anger and aggression.
Today, I wish I had a bunch of mighty arms
to hug the whole Earth and hold it tender.
I'd put my healing palms
to cure any harms,
a caring shield to render.
Bridges Crumbled
for SSAATTBB choir and orchestra
BRIDGES CRUMBLED
for SSAATTBB choir with orchestra
Taja Astar, 2020
Durata: ~ 10:00
About the piece
The idea for the piece first occurred to us in January 2020, when we were following the news about the Brexit. The composition got its cheerless inspiration from the depressing images of what once had been a big dream for generations falling apart under the crushing wave of a crisis. People, drowning in the sea in a bid to reach a better place. People, trying to separate themselves behind walls, physical or symbolic. People, willing to find easy solutions to complex problems, unable to find compromises and face the inevitable challenges of the changing world. The consequent events of 2020, the pandemic and connected with it lockdowns and closed borders, the disasters and unrests happening around the world, have made the challenges and the question of interconnectedness and, at the same time, separation of people and of peoples even more acute. The piece is supposed to be a part of a larger work about the walls that separate us and the bridges that connect.
Bridges Crumbled
by Anna Astar
You crumble bridges, you take the stones
You crumble bridges to build up walls
In vain
In vain you're building walls from these stones
All walls are destined to fall
What looks like rock is made of sand
No wall, no wall forever will stand
The wave
It is the wave of time that erodes
The soil from under your toes
No wall can ever stand tall for long
The splash of arms perishing in the waves
The splash of oars willing to get away
Away, away
Can we really get away?
This boat is the only boat we own
You never know who is next to drown
The splash of arms in the waves
Can we get away
May we get away
The world is changing
It is the wave of time
Can we get away from time
The world is changing again
Can we get away
This is the only boat we own
It goes too fast, it goes too slow
There's nowhere to run
Look around, look around
The splash of arms perishing in the waves
The splash of oars willing to get away
It is the wave of time that erodes
The soil from under your toes
What looked like rock is made of sand
The only hope is an open hand
For us all
This is the only boat we own
The open hand
Only boat we own
Don't load it with stones
What looked like rock is made of sand
The only hope is an open hand
For us all
WORKS FOR BIG BAND, CROSSOVER JAZZ AND POP
It’s Yellow and Blue
song for soloist with a band / concert orchestra
TITLE
for
Taja Astar, 202
Durata: ~ :00
About the piece
About info
At the Junction
song for soloist with a band / big band
TITLE
for
Taja Astar, 202
Durata: ~ :00
About the piece
About info
The Jinn
improvisation for jazz band
https://youtu.be/XHNLtXyY0P4
The Jinn
song for soloist with a band
https://youtu.be/3O4WHGwgkFo
My Will-o-the-Wisp
pop song
https://youtu.be/DFpVC76sEVQ
Say Me Welcome to Sweden
pop song
https://youtu.be/U6Klv6G5jVU