Kaija Saariaho

Lonh

Kaija Saariaho 's Lonh, scored for Soprano Voice and Electronics, was commissioned by the Wien Modern Festival and premiered on the 20th October 1996. The title  Lonh, meaning far away or distant, is derived from the old Provençal language, in which this piece is performed. The text itself, a poem about distant love, popular among the medieval scholars and poets, is attributed to the medieval troubadour Jaufré Rudel. Formally, the piece loosely follows the form of the poem, and is thus divided into nine sections. Some of the symmetrical and repeating aspects are found in the solo soprano part, which as such uses rather freely the elements for the original text, so that the resulting text is rather a collage based on Rudel's song.