Floof (Songs of a Homeostatic Homer)

1982 (10 minutes)

Composed for: Solo voice(s) and up to 6 players

First performed: Anu Komsi, soprano, Toimii Ensemble, cond. Esa-Pekka Salonen, Helsinki, 27 August 1988

Instrumentation: solo soprano + cl(cbcl)/perc/pf.syn/vc

Salonen: ‘Once, when I was reading The Cyberiad by the Polish sci-fi writer Stanislaw Lem, and in particular the story of the attempt by a man called Trurl to invent a poetry machine, I was reminded of the Toimii Ensemble. (The Toimii Ensemble is a group set up by Magnus Lindberg, Anssi Karttunen, and myself to form a laboratory of musical ideas - the wilder the better.) I decided to combine a coloratura soprano with five instrumentalists (clarinet t /double bass clarinet, cello, piano, synthesizer, and percussion), all amplified in order to create a timbre that relates to pop music, while the composition techniques and the syntax of the musical language belong very clearly to the mainstream post-serial avant-garde. (Which, incidentally, happens to be my aesthetical and ideological home still.)

The Homeostatic Homer is learning to be a poet; onomatopoeia becomes poetry. At the same time, the musical language evolves from primitive gestures towards more complex expression. The ultimate product of the electro-troubadour, a love poem within the realm of tensor algebra, is set to a dodecaphonic rap music. Floof is dedicated to the members of the Toimii Ensemble: to the restless souls with whom I share some of my strangest musical experiences.’
© Esa-Pekka Salonen

Kimmo Korhonen: ’The dearest contrast to suave elegance in Salonen's music is broad humour. One of its most irresistible and striking manifestations is Floof (Songs of a Homeostatic Homer) for soprano and chamber ensemble. The distinguished annual UNESCO composer rostrum in Paris voted it the winning work in 1992. The text is from The Cyberiad by Stanislaw Lem.

Floof is rhythmic and energetic, often brittle and consciously coarse, with none of the elegance of, say, Mimo II. The soprano soloist must be not just a virtuoso but also wild enough - and perhaps slightly insane enough - to plunge into the absurd world of the work.’

Published by: Chester Music Limited

Copyright: Kimmo Korhonen 1999 (tranlated by Jaakko M?ntyj?rvi)

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