Event info

The chamber group Cauda Collective offers you to take a bite of its devil’s food cake, a chamber music feast featuring compositions about the most dangerous creatures of all, the inner demons and the dark sides of humans. However, we usually don’t realise how dark it is until there is light again and so, the demonic pieces will be paired with some of the most ethereal and brightest compositions of the 20th century.

Cauda Collective are:
Hulda Jónsdóttir, violinist
Sigrún Harðardóttir, violinist
Þóra Margrét Sveinsdóttir, violist
Þórdís Gerður Jónsdóttir, cellist
Jane Ade Sutarjo, pianist
Björk Níelsdóttir, soprano
Eva Björg Harðardóttir visual designer

Spiegel im Spiegel, 1978
Arvo Pärt, 1935

Spiegel im Spiegel performed in a new arrangement by Cauda Collective where different instruments and voices take turns playing the melody with the piano, dancing around the space, calling each other from the shadows. Spiegel im Spiegel is a minimalistic and meditative piece that entrances you at first listen and acts, in this case, as the calm before the storm.

Psychomachia, 1987
Þorsteinn Hauksson, 1949

Psychomachia means conflict of the soul/ battle of the spirits, but the work, which is for a dramatic soprano and cello, is based on a poem by Prudentius (348-410 BC). The poem describes the tug of war between virtues and burdens in which the eternal struggle between good and evil is fought.

Nýtt verk, 2020 (world premiere)
Ingibjörg Friðriksdóttir, 1989

Cauda Collective premieres a new composition by Ingibjörg Friðriksdóttir.

Fur Alina, 1976
Arvo Pärt, 1935

This work is considered among one of the most beautiful pieces of music composed in recent years. The performer is instructed to play in a peaceful and inward manner. The music is simple but heartfelt and continues in timelessness as there is no time signature in this composition and dynamics are incredibly soft.

Black Angels, 1971
George Crumb, 1929

Black Angels for Electric String Quartet by George Crumb. The composer composed the work as a lament over war conflicts. It was drafted during The Vietnam War and the 1st movement of the composition Electric Insect draws its title from the noise of an air strike. The title of the work – Black Angels – is often thought to represent fallen angels or brave men who have committed atrocities or unspeakable evil.

This piece is best known for its unusual additions to string quartets, s.a. crystal glasses and various types of percussion, as well as strings of stringed instruments. The work is inspired as well by numerology, as it contains chapters such as Devil’s Songs, Death Dance and Music of God. It is therefore no coincidence that the composer finished the composition on Friday the 13th of March 1970.

Spiegel im Spiegel, 1978
Arvo Pärt, 1935

The piece is played again with different arrangement and therefore, frames the concert and mirrors the mirror that was originally played at the beginning.