Ubique (2023) is a large-scale work for flute – doubling on the bass and contrabass instruments – with piano, two cellos and pre-recorded electronic sounds (what would have been tape in the 1950s and ’60s, now held digitally on a laptop or similar). It was written for flautist Claire Chase, who is currently halfway through an enormous project, Density 2036, commissioning a new repertoire of works for her instrument to mark the upcoming centenary of Edgard Varèse’s Density 21.5 (1936).

Thorvaldsdottir’s Ubique is one of three cycles written for the project (the others are Liza Lim’s Sexy Magic and Marcus Balter’s Pan); most of the other contributions are smaller in scale – albeit not matching Varèse’s brevity and concentration. Thorvaldsdottir’s title means ‘everywhere’ and the composer comments in the very brief booklet note that the music was ‘inspired by the notion of being everywhere at the same time, an enveloping omnipresence, while simultaneously focusing on details within the density of each particle’. (There is, therefore, no connection to Kipling’s poem of the same name, nor the mottos of several military regiments.)

The 11 pieces bear no descriptive titles, play continuously, and vary wildly in length from between 39 seconds (Part VII) to over 10 minutes (Part II). In form, it feels like a chamber concerto, with the flautist primus inter pares, but pianist Cory Smythe has some notable brief solos. The ‘humbling vastness’ and ‘feeling of expanse’ that Andrew Mellor noted of Thorvaldsdottir’s orchestral works in his Contemporary Composer profile (1/19) recur here but as the work proceeds the ‘enveloping omnipresence’ overwhelms the whole. Despite the refined palette of sonorities, the music lacks the primeval power one hears in the works of her compatriot Bára Gísladóttir – for example ÓS (6/23), COR or Hringla. Chase and her colleagues manifestly believe in the work and perform it with commendable skill, and while Sono Luminus’s sound is excellent I must confess I found the whole a touch unsatisfying.