Flüchtig, für immer

“‘Fleeting, forever’ is only seemingly a paradox in the title of this short quintet. The moment is fleeting, yet it can contain eternity. I have long been preoccupied with such temporal relationships. Titles like ‘...a second, a century...’ or ‘t.i.m.e.’ speak of this. Music can manipulate our perception of time, sometimes even override it. That is precisely what interests me. At the same time, this quintet is a complement to Franz Schubert’s ‘Trout Quintet.’ It adopts its instrumentation and simultaneously comments on it compositionally. But it also captures the atmosphere of a summer gathering of friends, which is already present in Schubert’s work, that summer of 1819 when the quintet was composed, to which it has now lent permanence. Fleetingness and permanence are combined with the mood of summer in a romantic way, just as the poetry of English Romantics has greatly influenced my chamber and orchestral music, and Romantic music has also greatly influenced my two operas.” (Jüri Reinvere)