The Magazine of NOMUS, the NORDIC MUSIC COMMITTEE
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No. 4, December 2006 The magazine of NOMUS, the NORDIC MUSIC COMMITTEE No. 4, December 2006 Nomus, the Nordic Music Committee, is the Dear Reader, composer, and argues that he should be played subcommittee of the The magazine of NOMUS, and recorded. Nordic Council of Ministers the NORDIC MUSIC COMMITTEE he issue of Nordic Sounds you are holding for musical matters, and Tin your hand is the last issue of the Nordic jazz is enjoying a good deal of attention one of several Nordic magazine. As a result of structural changes in the outside world. The American author subcommittees, institutions and steering groups. Anders Beyer in the cultural area in the Nordic Council Stuart Nicholson has written a book entitled Editor of Ministers, all the arts committees are Scandinavian Jazz and the Global Explosion. Nomus consists of one being closed down, including the NOMUS In this issue Nicholson writes about his delegate from each of the committee, which is responsible for publishing experiences of Nordic jazz and jazz musicians. five Nordic countries and this magazine. In future you will be able to observers from the three get information about Nordic music from an Often we see Nordic artists who hesitate to areas with home rule. Its 4 The Concerto Man Internet portal that will be established in the step on to the international stage. One reason members are nominated by by Martin Anderson course of 2007. for this is the risk of comparisons with the each country’s Ministry of great international stars. This attitude is an Cultural Affairs. Kalevi Aho's Clarinet Concerto Here and now, though, we are happy to be expression of a distinctively Nordic mentality The Committee meets able to bring you new information about where artists do not care to take centre three or four times a Nordic music. With increasing interest our stage. In connection with a book about Carl year and its activities are 6 A novel approach to music with live electronics British correspondent Guy Rickards has been Nielsen one scholar has called it the “bit- administered through a by Lamberto Coccioli writing his way through articles about Nordic player syndrome”. People would rather see General Secretariat, located women composers. He has found so many themselves as minor than main characters. in Stockholm. About Integra and its work exciting names that the articles have become In our day it is important to dare to match voluminous and have filled spread prolifically oneself with the best, for the simple reason Nomus is financed by an over several issues. Rickards continues in this that there is nothing to fear: Nordic creators annual grant in the budget 10 Nordic Women Composers of the Nordic Council of issue, and he had hoped to be able to finish and performers can easily stay the course by Guy Rickards Ministers. the series with a concluding chapter on Danish abroad. And the network that international composers. That chapter must be put on hold. activity entails benefits one’s further career. For further information on Part 4, Iceland Nordic composers, research centres and Nomus, its activities and Our London-based critic, Martin Anderson, ensembles are involved in an EU-supported publications, please contact: has followed the Finnish composer Kalevi project that works with electro-acoustic music. Nomus’ general secretariat, 18 Scandinavian Jazz and the Global Jazz Explosion Aho for many years. One of composer’s The head of the project, Lamberto Coccioli, Nybrokajen 11, SE-111 48 by Stuart Nicholson the latest works, the clarinet concerto, talks about the European project in this issue. Stockholm, Sweden, was premiered in London earlier this year. phone +46-8-407 7 0, What is “real jazz” of today? Is jazz dead? Anderson attended the premiere, and in The dark nights are over us now in the North, fax +46-8-407 7 21, E-mail: [email protected]g this issue he offers a guided tour of Aho’s and we are already beginning to long for the new work, as well as information about the light that the New Year must bring. From here, Nomus members 20 New opera by Faroese Composer composer’s output in a publication from Aho’s our warmest thanks to our many loyal readers 005-006: by Hilary Finch publisher, Fennica Gehrman, in Helsinki. all over the world, who have subscribed to Denmark Delegate: Nordic Sounds and thus gained insight into Irene Becker The Madman's Garden by Sunleif Rasmussen Rickards and Anderson have both devoted Nordic music and musical life. To all of you Deputy: Inger Allan much time and energy to rescuing good music in the north, south, east and west, across Faroes Observer: from undeserved obscurity. On the occasion religions, skin colours and geographical Andrea Heindriksdóttir 22 New Releases – CD Reviews by Guy Rickards of the tenth anniversary of the death of Vagn boundaries, we wish you an active, auspicious Greenland Observer: Holmboe, Rickards presents a portrait of the and peaceful 2007. Juaaka Lyberth Finland Delegate: Alarik Repo Deputy: Leena Hirvonen Åland Observer: Kjell Frisk Iceland Delegate: Þorgerður Ingólfsdóttir Nordic Sounds Please contact Nordic Sounds Editor: Anders Beyer Editorial Committee: Deputy: 00 Strandvejen if you change your address. Selma Guðmundsdóttir DK-070 Snekkersten Translator: James Manley Odd Sneeggen (S) Norway Delegate: Phone: +45 3324 448 Articles in Nordic Sounds do Publisher (with legal responsibility Tomas Lauvland Pettersen (N) Bjørn Kruse Fax: +45 3324 446 not necessarily express the views in accordance with Danish press re- Árni Heimir Ingólfsson (ICL) (chairman) s Cold r E-mail: nor[email protected]g of Nomus. gulations): Bo Rydberg, Nomus Aarne Toivonen (FIN) Deputy: Gro Sandvik www.nordicsounds.org Graphic design: Soundvenue ApS Bodil Høgh (DK) Sweden Delegate: ation: Ande Nordic Sounds is published by The editor accepts no responsibility Kerstin Nerbe r Illust Nomus (Nordic Music Committee) for unsolicited manuscripts, photo Printed in Denmark 006 by Nordic Sounds No. 4/ 006 (deputy chairman) r four times a year. graphs, and drawings. Centertryk A/S ISSN 008-94 Deputy: Lars Nilsson Cove (2005) and clarinet (2005). I have yet to catch up with owes its existence to Fröst: he was awarded a Borletti- all of these works, since Aho is composing them more Buitoni Trust award in 2003 and spent it commissioning The Concerto Man quickly than BIS can add them to its complete Aho Aho to write the piece; Aho has responded with a score recording project, but the two I have encountered that will take its place in the thinly populated ranks of – the Flute Concerto (recorded on BIS-CD-1499 – cf. the world’s major clarinet concertos. The newest of Finnish composer Kalevi Aho’s series of concertos – the Clarinet Concerto Nordic Sounds, May 2005) and the newest of them – was premiered in London earlier this year. Martin Anderson went to hear it. all, the Clarinet Concerto – reveal a new quality to Seeing the Clarinet Concerto in perspective among Aho’s Aho’s musical language. Its initial constituent elements output as a whole has been made immeasurably easier by Martin Anderson – inherited from a wide range of composers, among thanks to a 96-page publication from his publishers, them Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Mahler and Bruckner Fennica Gehrman in Helsinki: Kalevi Aho: Orchestral – had long since melded together to form a sound that Works (ISBN 952-5489-01-9), which allocates a page t seems most people who come into contact with outings for Vänskä’s radical view of the cycle – in could only be Aho, but the Flute Concerto, despite a or so to each piece, with introductory texts by Edward Kalevi Aho (b. 1949) have an improbable tale to tell the Kallio Church. It was for the carillon of this very devilishly difficult solo part, is informed by a warmth, Jurkowski and Aho himself and adds a generous Iabout him. The first one I heard – long before I had church that, in 1912, Sibelius composed the chimes, a gentle strength, in the harmony which is strikingly selection of colour photographs and excerpts from the met Aho himself – came from my dear friend, the late his Melody for the Bells of Kallio Church, Op. 65b (they original; it’s almost as if Aho has attained some kind of scores. The discographical details (the covers of the BIS Einar Englund, who was Aho’s orchestration professor still ring out from the bell-tower every day), which he personal nirvana. CDs are reproduced) are supplemented by a 70-minute at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. Einar had asked later arranged as a piano piece. The final encore of the CD of eighteen extracts and a complete list of works. his twenty-year-old student if he composed, but the three concerts was Aho’s orchestration of that gorgeous The Clarinet Concerto – premiered by Martin Fröst Happy the composer whose publisher gives him this question was shrugged aside, and so he assumed not miniature, not quite four minutes long.