Lars Petter Hagen
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LARS PETTER HAGEN ROLF GUPTA, CONDUCTOR GJERMUND LARSEN, HARDANGER FIDDLE OSLO PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA Norske arkiver (2005) Kunstnerens fortvilelse foran de antikke fragmenters storhet (2010) Tveitt-fragmenter (2006) Sørgemarsj over Edvard Grieg (2007) To Zeitblom (2011) Lars Petter Hagen Auferstanden aus Ruinen by Björn Gottstein Norwegian Archives – for chamber orchestra and electronics 17:59 1 I Det norske som natur (Norwegian-ness as Nature) 06:12 Some years ago I was organizing a radio least I didn't think so. I started stammering 2 II 6 Salmer (Six Hymns) 03:33 talk. The talk was to be about the idea of and realized how insecure I was with 3 III Hørespill om melankoli (A Play About Melancholy) 01:15 the music studio in its broadest possible respect to the idea of nationalism in Lars 4 IV St Tomas stille (St. Thomas Tuning) 03:09 scope: from Lee Scratch Perry to IRCAM so Petter Hagen's Norske arkiver. 5 V Sørgemarsjer (Funeral Marches) 03:48 to say. I chose some tracks to play and discuss with my interlocutor and came There was another incident. I had left the 6 The Artist's Despair Before the Grandeur of Ancient Ruins 11:51 across a piece by a young composer from concert hall a bit early and was waiting – for symphony orchestra Norway. The piece had been premiered in outside after the premiere of To Zeitblom, Donaueschingen in 2005 and one of its again in Donaueschingen, this time in 2011. I 7 Tveitt-Fragments 06:23 remarkable features was, that the orchestra was trying to make a whole of the piece, – for string orchestra on stage was confronted with the recording understanding how its tragic and its of an older orchestra coming out of humorous side were connected. The 8 Funeral March over Edvard Grieg 09:23 loudspeakers thus playing with the humour being that of incident and – for chamber group and off-stage symphony orchestra difference between the sound of the live misunderstanding, of the composer trying situation and the sound of a recording. The to account for his piece onstage almost in a 9 To Zeitblom 19:21 composition involved some Norwegian standup way while the translator starts to – Concerto for Hardanger fiddle and symphony orchestra folklore and the idea of “Norwegianism”. But deviate from the composer's personal my conversational partner for the talk account, turning the story of the envious turned the suggestion down. I remember young man into words of Theodor W. him saying that he didn't like the Adorno. The tragedy of the piece is of Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra nationalism that underlies piece. And I course that of being a composer in the 21st Rolf Gupta, conductor remember how I started to explain that yes century. While thinking, a colleague came Gjermund Larsen, Hardanger fiddle and no, there was in fact an idea of the idea up to me and started complaining that the of nationalism, but that it was not meant in Musiktage had become a platform for a patriotic or chauvinistic way or that at comedians and attention seekers. Of course 02 03 Norske arkiver (2005) Kunstnerens fortvilelse foran de antikke fragmenters storhet (2010) Tveitt-fragmenter (2006) Sørgemarsj over Edvard Grieg (2007) To Zeitblom (2011) Lars Petter Hagen Auferstanden aus Ruinen by Björn Gottstein Norwegian Archives – for chamber orchestra and electronics 17:59 1 I Det norske som natur (Norwegian-ness as Nature) 06:12 Some years ago I was organizing a radio least I didn't think so. I started stammering 2 II 6 Salmer (Six Hymns) 03:33 talk. The talk was to be about the idea of and realized how insecure I was with 3 III Hørespill om melankoli (A Play About Melancholy) 01:15 the music studio in its broadest possible respect to the idea of nationalism in Lars 4 IV St Tomas stille (St. Thomas Tuning) 03:09 scope: from Lee Scratch Perry to IRCAM so Petter Hagen's Norske arkiver. 5 V Sørgemarsjer (Funeral Marches) 03:48 to say. I chose some tracks to play and discuss with my interlocutor and came There was another incident. I had left the 6 The Artist's Despair Before the Grandeur of Ancient Ruins 11:51 across a piece by a young composer from concert hall a bit early and was waiting – for symphony orchestra Norway. The piece had been premiered in outside after the premiere of To Zeitblom, Donaueschingen in 2005 and one of its again in Donaueschingen, this time in 2011. I 7 Tveitt-Fragments 06:23 remarkable features was, that the orchestra was trying to make a whole of the piece, – for string orchestra on stage was confronted with the recording understanding how its tragic and its of an older orchestra coming out of humorous side were connected. The 8 Funeral March over Edvard Grieg 09:23 loudspeakers thus playing with the humour being that of incident and – for chamber group and off-stage symphony orchestra difference between the sound of the live misunderstanding, of the composer trying situation and the sound of a recording. The to account for his piece onstage almost in a 9 To Zeitblom 19:21 composition involved some Norwegian standup way while the translator starts to – Concerto for Hardanger fiddle and symphony orchestra folklore and the idea of “Norwegianism”. But deviate from the composer's personal my conversational partner for the talk account, turning the story of the envious turned the suggestion down. I remember young man into words of Theodor W. him saying that he didn't like the Adorno. The tragedy of the piece is of Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra nationalism that underlies piece. And I course that of being a composer in the 21st Rolf Gupta, conductor remember how I started to explain that yes century. While thinking, a colleague came Gjermund Larsen, Hardanger fiddle and no, there was in fact an idea of the idea up to me and started complaining that the of nationalism, but that it was not meant in Musiktage had become a platform for a patriotic or chauvinistic way or that at comedians and attention seekers. Of course 02 03 the piece had been about the artist himself. on the other. Hagen would probably not house burned down in 1970 and with it a musical identity, but it is also a funeral He had taken the liberty of putting himself publish a book arguing that the Nordic allegedly 300 unpublished manuscripts, and march about a funeral march, thus creating on stage where his modest place should music lies at the root of Western civilization, artefacts of the grand narrative of Western an abstraction that is closer to the idea of have been a seat among the audience. But but in his music there are attempts to show civilization, showing prominent features of vanitas and the ephemere in the fine arts was that really the point: seeking attention? that his musical thinking cannot free itself "great art", defying history like ruins and than it is to Norwegian woods. His take-off from the Nordic stereotype. The use of open antique fragments. But this pompous on Gustav Mahler in Kunstnerens fortvilelse What then is Lars Petter Hagen's music fourth and fifth in the harmonic writing, the pathos has obviously become ridiculous. is not an arrangement or a transcription or about? Is it about music? Is it about use of open strings and natural harmonics, The despair in the face of antique greatness even a paraphrase of the original, but an Norway? Or is it only about himself? When the microtonal deviation of intervals that Johann Heinrich Füssli depicted in 1780 appropriation that leaves Mahler far behind. looking at Norway's contemporary music insinuating a non-alienated, natural cannot be authentically felt in the 21st The question of the meaning of the past, the life in 2013 from abroad an irritation harmonic space – these are in fact already century. If the person in Füssli's picture, his consequences of knowing one's history, the becomes apparent. When looking at works ideologized categories of music. The head down in despair, were actually Lars composer's clumsy attempt to connect to not only by Lars Petter Hagen but also by instrumentation is always aiming at a cristal Petter Hagen, it could only be a parody of folk traditions and nature – all of this in the Trond Reinholdtsen or Øyvind Torvund with and clear timbre, as if provoking the phrase admiration and perplexity. end leads to a music of its own. It becomes their self-involvement and their refusal to of the ‘snow-filled candy’ once used to clear when one emphasizes the liberating have their music function properly in the describes Edvard Grieg's music. Members of the band Kraftwerk once moments in these compositions. There is concert hall, there seems to be a strong Interestingly enough, these effects are not recounted that when they started thinking the electronic sound box that the composer opposition to the normality of always created by using the Hardanger about the band project, the idea was to employs in To Zeitblom and that leads to an contemporary music life and pieces written fiddle and other folk instruments, but also create a music that would be considered irruption of a rather cheap and scruffy for string quartets based on fractals and by bowing vibraphones and crotales or German by prejudice and cliché: very material into an otherwise perfectly texts by Parmenides. “This used to be playing a drum role pianissimo, which is not technical, precise, inhuman etc. And even smoothed out sound world. And there is the utopian music", a Norwegian composer particularly Norwegian.