Kay Johannsen

Sunrise

Sunrise was composed in August 2016 from a concert improvisation. The work is structured as a great crescendo. Although the title refers to the image of a sunrise, the music was not primarily conceived as program music. In one layer of the composition, motoric groups of motifs increasingly condense, beginning in a high register and constantly changing, whilst in a second layer a calm thematic idea is intensified and expanded in barely noticeable alterations. As well as the seamless crescendo from pianissimo to fortissimo, the work uses precisely-notated registrations of color, especially for parts where the chorale-like theme is written in chords in the middle and low registers. The resulting moments of 'luminescence' are emphasized even more through a harmony with bitonally layered major chords. This work is also available on CD (Carus 83.485).