Karin Rehnqvist

Universe

A short and accessible work that nevertheless captures an entire cosmos of ideas and elements of contemporary vocal music!

The internationally renowned Swedish composer and conductor Karin Rehnqvist undertook some research before beginning work on her composition Universe. Wanting to know how many stars and galaxies are in our universe, she came across estimates by renowned astronomers: 200 billion trillion stars and 2 trillion galaxies. Such dizzying numbers are simply beyond our human comprehension.

Universe begins with a swelling opening chord, which directs our gaze into the sky. Then Rehnqvist portrays this dizzy sense of awe by means of tumbling glissandi, rhythmic off-beats that disrupt the meter, secondary clusters stacked on top of each other, and babbling speech. Eschewing major/minor tonality, she instead makes use of pentatonic series and different tonal centers. This work is ideal for ambitious amateur choirs, as the pentatonic series are easy to memorize while the skillful voice leading makes it easy to correctly pitch the clusters. A great piece for anyone wanting an accessible and realizable introduction to contemporary vocal music and advanced performance techniques!