Saravus

The composition SARAVUS was commissioned for the 60th anniversary of the Saarland Music Association and is dedicated to the St. Wendel Symphonic Wind Orchestra and its conductor and my esteemed colleague and friend Mr. Stefan Barth.
 
The term SARAVUS comes from Latin and means SAAR in German. What is meant is the river of the same name, which finds its home both in France and in Germany.
This work is a free adaptation of the melody composed in 1921 by the Saarbrücken music teacher Karl Hogrebe, which forms the basis of the Saarland song (or Saarlied) and represents the official hymn of the Saarland. The basis for the composition SARAVUS (Saaravus) are the first eight bars of the Hogreb melody, which are first presented in unison in the clarinets at the beginning of the composition and then undergo more and more complex transformations .
 
The term metamorphosis, which comes from Greek, means transformation, concretized to music, a transformation of a musical theme. This arises out of itself within a musical "flow" and without wanting to follow any programmatic content. The work thus presents absolute music and draws its musical inspiration from the underlying thematic material and the corresponding compositional continuation and processing.
 
I hope to be able to convey to the performers the joy in playing that I felt while working on the work.
 
Thiemo Kraas
Gütersloh, October 2015