Britta Byström

Ten Secret Doors - Suite for Orchestra

Ten Secret Doors - Suite For Orchestra was composed by Swedish composer Britta Byström in 2010. Commissioned by Västeras Sinfonietta, and premiered by VS, conducted by Johannes Gustavsson on April 14, 2011. Programme note: Each of the ten movements in the orchestral suite Ten Secret Doors contains a transformation, a stage-change in sound, meant to give a feeling that the music 'slips away'. In the first movement this transformation is achieved by a sudden orchestral sound change from tutti to solo. There follow changes from muted sound to open sound, from wind section to string section, from bow play to pizzicato play. In the last movement there is a trumpet solo that is first played on stage, then off stage - a transformation from close to distant. I pictured the ending of every movement as the opening, rather than the closing, of a door. In this work there is also a small musical quotation from 'Von fremden Ländern und Menschen' (from Robert Schumann's famous Kinderszenen). This phrase snuck into music as a greeting from another suite characterized by many short movements of flightiness and lightness. (Britta Byström)