About my ‘Autumn Music’ and ‘Universal Prayer’

Although my compositions are extremely diverse in character, I approach each new one in the same manner. I feel somewhat like an architect, tackling my work in three stages, always in the same order: first the purpose, or reason for which the work is composed; then the architectural structure; then the material of which it is to be built. The purpose of writing my ‘Autumn Music’ was to compose a work in memory of a friend, who, after a long, incurable illness, experienced her last autumn in 1960. Writing this work, I was responding to the end of a suffering human life, and to the season of autumn, with all its manifestations in nature. I made a choice of certain instruments which I found most suitable to express my ideas and feelings. These are: three flutes, three clarinets, a selection of pitched and unpitched percussion, piano, harp, violas, violoncelli and double basses—so in this small orchestra, I have excluded brass instruments and violins. I had two reasons for not using violins—firstly the colouristic factor, because I wished to emphasize the lower register of strings—and secondly, my wish to achieve a transparency of sound, allowing the woodwinds to be rather prominent.