SONGS BETWEEN LIGHT AND DARKNESS\/ L\u00e1vlagat gaskal \u010duovgga ja seavdnjadasa
\u2013 for two reciters, soprano, alto saxophone, clarinet in Bb (also b.cl) and piano. 16′
Texts: Gunnar Ekel\u00f6f, Karin Rehnqvist, Sandro Key-\u00c5berg
Translation in Sami: Mirja P\u00e4ivi\u00f6
Reciters speak in Sami, soprano sing in Swedish<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Movements (English titles, for Swedish\/Sapmi, see the score)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I once was asked, \u201cWhat defines the North? What is nothernness?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLight, Dark, and Love,\u201d came my spontaneous reply. \u201cThat\u2019s what the North is to me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Up here, summer and winter are periods when we live in concentrated light or darkness. Spring and fall are times of transition, and we are always aware of our exact position on the annual scale of light to dark. \u201cIt\u2019ll be lighter again soon,\u201d we say encouragingly to one another when December is darkest. \u201cWe\u2019ll be moving in the other direction soon.\u201d When summer comes, we glory in the bright evenings, the bright nights, but we know it won\u2019t be long before darkness descends again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although I grew up in the south of Sweden, for my entire adult life I have been interested in the north. For twenty years we had a cabin up in \u00c5ngermanland. That gave me new perspectives. Every summer I go hiking in the northern mountains, and in 1999 I had the opportunity to join a research expedition to the Canadian Arctic. For a month, I lived on an icebreaker vessel. I had to get used to seeing the world map as circumpolar, with the North Pole at its centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Light, Dark, and Love. What else is the North?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/a>Well, in the far north multilingualism is very marked. Many lands and cultures come together here. Sweden, Norway, and Finland all meet at a point called Treriksr\u00f6set. The Sapmi region, traditionally inhabited by the Sami people, stretches across the entire Arctic area of the Scandinavian countries, from Norway in the west to the Kola Peninsula of Russia in the east. Here, people speak not only Sami, but also Kven and Me\u00e4nkieli.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thus a piece for the ARcTic ensemble took shape that uses poems by Swedish poets, sung in Swedish, but translated into and recited in Sami. A piece about light, dark, and love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2013 Karin Rehnqvist, 3 February, 2022<\/em> Composed for the ARcTic Sustain Ensemble and Berit Norbakken.\u00a0<\/em> Texts in English translation, for understanding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. \u2013 Gunnar Ekel\u00f6f, <\/em> 2. \u2013 Karin Rehnqvist, <\/em> 3. \u2013 Sandro Key-\u00c5berg, <\/em> SONGS BETWEEN LIGHT AND DARKNESS\/ L\u00e1vlagat gaskal \u010duovgga ja seavdnjadasa \u2013 for two reciters, soprano, alto saxophone, clarinet in Bb (also b.cl) and piano. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2252,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-misc","category-programme-notes"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p79arM-JN","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4296,"url":"https:\/\/karin-rehnqvist.se\/eng\/autumn-2026\/","url_meta":{"origin":2839,"position":0},"title":"Autumn 2026","author":"Kulturpartikeln","date":"October 5, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Upcoming performances during the autumn and winter.","rel":"","context":"In "Latest"","block_context":{"text":"Latest","link":"https:\/\/karin-rehnqvist.se\/eng\/category\/latest\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/karin-rehnqvist.se\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/bakgr_abstr_kalendarium25namnteckn_2.jpg?fit=1200%2C643&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/karin-rehnqvist.se\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/bakgr_abstr_kalendarium25namnteckn_2.jpg?fit=1200%2C643&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/karin-rehnqvist.se\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/bakgr_abstr_kalendarium25namnteckn_2.jpg?fit=1200%2C643&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/karin-rehnqvist.se\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/bakgr_abstr_kalendarium25namnteckn_2.jpg?fit=1200%2C643&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/karin-rehnqvist.se\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/bakgr_abstr_kalendarium25namnteckn_2.jpg?fit=1200%2C643&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/karin-rehnqvist.se\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/programme-note_cirkel_2A.png?fit=576%2C358&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/karin-rehnqvist.se\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/karin-rehnqvist.se\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/karin-rehnqvist.se\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karin-rehnqvist.se\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karin-rehnqvist.se\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2839"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/karin-rehnqvist.se\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2839\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3202,"href":"https:\/\/karin-rehnqvist.se\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2839\/revisions\/3202"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karin-rehnqvist.se\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/karin-rehnqvist.se\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karin-rehnqvist.se\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karin-rehnqvist.se\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Commissioned by the ensemble as part of Art VAPO \u2013 True North, artistic research at The Arctic University of Norway (UiT), the Music Conservator, Troms\u00f8
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
Neither the moon nor the sun nor the stars\/ gave me light\/ The darkness gave me light\/ And the light of love in me\/ through whose body its rays beam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
translated by Linda Schenck<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
The moon floats silent in the night,
the clear sky is shimmering with stars,
shimmering over hill and water,
shimmering over you and me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
translated by Robin Blanton<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Where darkness was you are
and you bear light upon your shoulders,
where grief was you are
and joy shines yellow
as the dandelion at your heels,
where death was you are
and this is life,
yes, tremendous life
that I drink from the cup of your hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
translated by Robin Blanton<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"