Northern Lights

flute, bass clar. in B flat (B flat clarinet, soprano saxophone [opt.]) and guitar

The Northern Lights, or aurora borealis, have fascinated people for countless generations and stories trying to explain their mysterious appearance have found their way into mythology and folklore. In Norse mythology the northern lights were thought to be reflections from the shields and armour of the Valkrior (maidens who take dead warriors to Valhalla).

In Finland, the name for the aurora borealis, Revontulet, translates as “fox fires”. The name comes from an ancient Finnish fable, in which the lights were caused by a magical fox sweeping his tail across the snow, spraying it up into the sky. The music begins with Echoes of Silence – a timeless meditation that places the listener in a vast open space.

Stephen Goss © 2011

 

“Rendered here in woodwind tones and acoustic guitar, the ambient landscape compositions of Stephen Goss exist in the grey area where ECM chamber-jazz and HatHut minimalism shades into Windham Hill new-ageism. It’s utterly captivating: the four-part suite Northern Lights hangs like East Coast fog, clarinet and flute in sparse, unhurried collusion akin to a meditative Feldman work.”

Andy Gill, The Independent