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The Nordic Ingredient Münsteraner Schriften zur zeitgenössischen Musik 4 Michael Custodis, Arnulf Mattes (eds.) The Nordic Ingredient European Nationalisms and Norwegian Music since 1905 Münsteraner Schrift en zur zeitgenössischen Musik Herausgegeben von Michael Custodis Band 4 © Waxmann Verlag GmbH. For private use only. Michael Custodis, Arnulf Mattes (eds.) Th e Nordic Ingredient European Nationalisms and Norwegian Music since 1905 Waxmann 2019 Münster x New York © Waxmann Verlag GmbH. For private use only. Th e publication was supported by the Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft , des Grieg Research Centres and the Westfälischen Wilhelms-Universität Münster. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Th e Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografi e; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de Münsteraner Schrift en zur zeitgenössischen Musik, Volume 4 Print-ISBN 978-3-8309-3896-5 E-Book-ISBN 978-3-8309-8896-0 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Waxmann Verlag GmbH, 2019 Steinfurter Straße 555, 48159 Münster www.waxmann.com [email protected] Cover design: Pleßmann Design, Ascheberg Cover picture: © Vashishtha Jogi – unsplash.com Typesetting: Stoddart Satz- und Layoutservice, Münster © Waxmann Verlag GmbH. For private use only. Contents Th e “Nordic Ingredient” – Introduction ...................................................................................... 7 Ina Rupprecht Manifesting the National Idea: Edvard Grieg or How His Biographers Saw Him ...................................................................................................11 Andreas Bußmann Expressing “Nordic” Greatness: Wagnerism in Norway 1905–1945 ...................................................................................................................21 Ingrid Loe Landmark (neé Dalaker) Ideas on National Music in Interwar Norway ...........................................................................35 Arnulf Mattes “Monumentalism” in Norway’s Music 1930–1945 ....................................................................55 Michael Custodis Master or Puppet? Cultural Politics in Occupied Norway under GW Müller, Gulbrand Lunde and Rolf Fuglesang ....................................................................69 Friedrich Geiger Harald Sæverud’s Kjempeviseslåtten – A Typical Resistance Composition? .........................81 Arvid O. Vollsnes Rebuilding Norwegian Music From Valevåg to Tanglewood and Darmstadt ...........................................................................93 Michael Custodis “Nordisk” – “Aryan” – “Identitär”. Music for the New Right .................................................103 Arnulf Mattes No Escape from Politics? On Grieg’s Aft erlife in Norwegian Memory Culture .................................................................................................115 Boris Previšić Resistance to Totalitarianism: Th e Polyphony of Literature and Music ...................................................................................129 Index of Names ............................................................................................................................137 © Waxmann Verlag GmbH. For private use only. © Waxmann Verlag GmbH. For private use only. The “Nordic Ingredient” – Introduction Th e overall idea of these proceedings is to clarify how the “Nordic ingredient” in Nor- wegian music history aft er 1905 refl ected or refused nationalistic images. As academ- ically distanced as the formula of a “Nordic ingredient” might seem, it is present in everyday communication, in specifi c branding of values and achievements in sports, design and politics, and in political theories among which the “Nordic Model” of a so- cial democratic welfare state may be the most prominent. Norway’s redefi nition as an independent nation state in 1905, coinciding with Edvard Grieg’s death two years later symbolizes the underlying musical-political synergies: In the same manner that Nor- wegian composers had to step out of their great idol’s footsteps and fi nd their own voice, between European modernism and national traditions, the Norwegian people also had to stand on their own feet. Th e dream of an independent state, honoring their individual national character, now had to be legitimized by pioneering social achieve- ments, such as the general right to vote for men and women. Th e leading social demo- cratic government had to unite all political factions, and envision political projects that could defi ne a progressive future for Norway. Th e German occupation by the self-proclaimed “Nordic” Herrenmenschen un- sheathed the dark, brutal and ugly connotations of the “Nordic” narrative, and left a legacy of contradictions for post-war generations. Th e domain of classical music was confronted with this paradox, not being modern enough to join the radical central Eu- ropean avant-garde, while modest modernism was not fashionable enough compared to the easy, accessible alternatives distributed by the record industry and radio sta- tions. In consequence, respected dignifi ed national composers soon lost touch with their traditional national following. Nevertheless, the popular music sector received a signifi cant rise of attention and creativeness as in all the other European countries and built up an international audience by means of explicitly “Nordic” characteristics, af- ter the fi rst post-war generation had laid a solid foundation in jazz, pop and rock mu- sic. As stylistically diff erent as Jan Garbarek, A-ha or Mayhem and Burzum might be, all of them developed successful strategies to respond to the European curiosity for exotic sounds from the North, delivering melodies, atmospheres, stories or a certain “coolness” that were attributed to “Nordic” characteristics. In consequence, the “Nordic ingredient” still proves a) to be a vital factor in gathering attention for music “made in Norway”, similar to the times of Ole Bull and Edvard Grieg, although the sounds might be diff erent; and b) to incorporate both pure aesthetics and explicit ideological opinions that keep overlapping, interacting, contradicting or ignoring each other. Th is volume aims to discuss, and help to understand, the relations between national culture and European infl uences, and between musical autonomy and political dependency. In music, as with any other part of European culture in the 20th century, no artistic and aesthetic development could be described without considering how the political and social developments fundamentally changed all fi elds of modern society. Like any other social group, musicians and their audiences were aff ected by the wars, the scien- tifi c revolutions, and the societal changes. National policies and nationalist ideologies profoundly infl uenced the preconditions of artistic production, reception, and con- © Waxmann Verlag GmbH. For private use only. 8 Th e “Nordic Ingredient” – Introduction sumption, and can be examined in all their diff erent forms and expressions, depending on the country, artist or work one is taking into account. On the other hand, 20th-cen- tury composers, musicians, and their audiences oft en maintained the Romantic ideal of aesthetic autonomy, trying to resist the forces of music’s instrumentalization, com- modifi cation, and politicization. Th us, even under the most severe political conditions, the “non-semantic”, “non-referential” nature of music makes it legitimate to consider music as an “unpolitical” artform. Th is dialectic circle – focusing on the interaction of the spheres of music and poli- tics and studying their contradictions – was the starting point for the Norwegian-Ger- man research project “Nordic Music Politics”. Resistance, Persecution, Collaboration, and Reintegration in Norway’s Music Life, 1930–1960 in 2015. Taking a closer look at text- books on Norwegian music history, one could hardly fi nd any valid information about the dramatic political turnovers during the 1930s and 40s in Europe, and their conse- quences for music in Norway. On the other hand, the numerous international publi- cations that deal with the interwar years, the Th ird Reich and the fate of exiled, perse- cuted and annihilated artists never included Norwegian case studies. Accordingly, the project took up some ambitious tasks: a) to bring the example of Norway (as a mod- el of a Nazi-occupied country) in closer contact with international musicological re- search about Music and Nazism; b) to support the interdisciplinary dialogue of musi- cologists, historians and other disciplines in the humanities; and c) to tackle the lack of research based on archival sources, which show a signifi cant gap between Hans Jørgen Hurum’s legendary book Musikken under okkupasjonen (1946) and the fi rst critical ex- aminations that were carried out by Arvid Vollsnes, Per Vollestad, Lorentz Reitan, Ivar Roger Hansen, Terje Emberland, Hans Fredrik Dahl and others, starting in the early 2000s. With the generous support of the Norwegian National Library in Oslo, the Grieg Research Centre in Bergen, the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität in Münster and the Goethe-Institut Oslo, the project presented its fi rst investigations in 2016, at confe- rences in Manchester, Leipzig and Mainz, as well as in its own seminars in Bergen and Oslo, inviting colleagues such as Bjarte Bruland, Ingrid Loe Landmark, Friedrich Geiger, Tore Helseth, Rolf Hobson, Christhard Hoff mann, Tom Kristiansen, Lorentz Reitan, Sigurd Sandmo, and Arvid Vollsnes for
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