Viikinsaari is an island located in the lake Pyhäjärvi belonging to the City of Tampere, Finland. The island is a popular nature resort and an outdoor recreation area, attracting visitors all year round. In the summertime there is a boat connection to the island from the Laukontori harbour. In winter, the island can be reached by walking or skiing. The western part is a nature reserve, but there are also swimming shores, playgrounds, a small chapel, a fireplace for roasting sausages, a restaurant, a footpath through the nature reserve and a dance pavilion on the island. (Wikipedia)
Viikinsaari is the name of a movie that does not exist. A love story, a drama in which water plays a key role: the lake, the sound of the rain, a flood … An encounter in a extreme situation. But a situation that the players don’t know. To watch how something can be born while all around disappears. And viceversa (Spoiler?)
It’s a music poem and an imagination exercise for me and the listener.
The realization of an idea that I’ve been going around: create a soundtrack from three or four ideas, from an imagined story. There are no “real” images; it’s the listener who must to put it with a little help of the sound. So intimate, so universal.
Viikinsaari is small pieces for piano. And it’s water. It’s the piano that calls the shots through melodies and rhythms inspired by the sounds of water, their ways, their reflections … With string and wind arrangements that sound like whispers at times and other times explode in the ears leaving the piano in the background, like waves. A space for melancholy and contemplation.
Influences: Nyman & Sakamoto, a weekend in Tampere, leaky faucets, the first cold days of fall, lakes, images with cold colours, Chopin preludes, wet clothes near the fireplace, broken umbrellas in a dustbin, Satie & Debussy, Tom Wait’s Asylum Years…
I was reviewing some old works, “Bunk” specifically. Among all music composed at that time for that project, I found this song. Well, there was a starting idea, a sample. I never got to finish it without being disappointed with the result. So it never saw the light, until now.
