From Beethoven
to Steampunk

For this chamber music concert, the musicians of the Norwegian National Opera Orchestra have chosen three works with a special role attributed to wind players.

Steampunk without steam

When Carnegie Hall commissioned a work by David Bruce based on Beethoven’s instrument composition in his Septet in E-flat Major, the result was Steampunk, as Bruce felt that the sound of the horn and bassoon had associations with the steampunk world. Steampunk was originally a type of science fiction based on steam-powered technology from the 1800s. Nowadays, the concept also includes design, fashion and subculture.

In addition to Beethoven’s seven instruments, Bruce added an oboe and describes the results as follows: “It seemed like a line-up from a steampunk cartoon. To stretch the analogy a little further than I probably should, you could see classical music itself as a kind of steampunk music. The sound may not be steam-powered, but it is produced by muscles and breath alone.”

Read more about the Steampunk work here.

Beethoven’s fierce horn

Little is known about Beethoven’s Sextet for Horns and String Quartet. The work is believed to have been written around the year 1795, but not published until many years later. The horn parts are especially challenging – and we can only imagine what it was like to be a musician in Beethoven’s time. Back then, horns did not have valves, but consisted of only a curved tube with relatively unstable acoustic properties. The pitch tended to vary, especially with minor changes to the player’s facial muscles and lips.

Decadent Prokofiev

Prokofiev wrote his Quintet in G Minor in 1924 while living in Paris and still uncompromisingly modernistic in his style. The quintet is an adaptation of the ballet Trapèze and ranges from delightful, almost lyrical sounds to steely dissonance and challenging rhythmic elements. The two wind instruments steal most of the attention, but the contrabass also gets its place in the spotlight.

David Bruce (born in 1970) has written both orchestral works and operas, including the youth opera Nothing, which was performed here in autumn 2023.