Commissioned by Kulturrådet.

Premiered by The Gothenburg Combo, 2018-08-11, Kalvfestivalen

Program note

The Favorite Game (Älsklingsleken) is the first novel by Leonard Cohen (1963). During a certain time of my youth I read all that I could find by Cohen, the novels, poems and a collection of songs called Songs of Leonard Cohen. There were all the magic songs from his first two albums. His own guitar playing was written in tablature. I had never seen that kind of notation before, but it was easy to understand and soon I learned to play Cohen's original guitar parts.

That's why this duo is composed using tablature. It's another way of thinking and working, very close to the instrument. Some of the broken chords are quoted but now they sound different since the guitars are tuned different. 

HS