ultima oslo contemporary music festival ultima 25

a 25 year celebration 1991–2015 ultima oslo contemporary music festival

a 25 year celebration 1991–2015

Ultima 25 This book is published with support from A 25 Year Celebration Fritt Ord and Norsk Komponistforening (The Norwegian Society of Composers) Editor-in-chief Lars Petter Hagen His Royal Highness Crown Prince Haakon Editor is the patron of Ultima Rob Young Find us online Contributors www.ultima.no Rolf Wallin Richard Steinitz Ultima’s members Hege Imerslund BIT20 Ensemble Hugo Lauritz Jenssen Black Box Teater Helmut Lachenmann Den Norske Opera & Ballett Nicholas H. Møllerhaug Det Norske Kammerorkester Hilde Holbæk-Hanssen Det Norske Solistkor Kåre Kolberg Henie Onstad kunstsenter Rob Young Institutt for musikkvitenskap, UiO Kringkastingsorkestret, NRK Henrik Beck (photos, rostrum camera) Kunsthøgskolen i Oslo NICEM Thanks to Elisabeth Høiberg, Rune Kongsro, Norges musikkhøgskole Laila Meyrick/Velour, Ann Iren Ødeby, Norsk Komponistforening Lisbeth Risnes / National Library of Norway NOTAM and all other photographers who have nyMusikk ­contributed to this book’s visual content Oslo Domkor Oslo-Filharmonien Design Oslo Sinfonietta og Cikada NODE Berlin Oslo www.nodeoslo.com

ISBN 978-82-303-3003-6

Published by Ultima c/o Sentralen, PB 183 Sentrum, 0102 Oslo, Norway Email: [email protected]

Print Printon Trükikoda, Estonia

Ultima is supported by

3 Ultima 25 Introduction

A commitment towards change and the means to live up to it. Ever since its infancy, Ultima has been an opposition and institution, avant-garde and traditional, local as well as international, light- hearted and iron-fisted, beloved and despised. Few, if any, musical festivals can look back on the same kind of diversity and breadth in musical genres throughout 25 years. Those of us who work with contemporary music usually aren’t fond of anniversaries. We tend to look ahead. But after a quarter 25 Years of Ultima Oslo century, there must be time for a peek over the shoulder. At the ISCM in 1990, I had just turned 15, and I was more into contemporary music than most kids my age. I had signed up for a course in compo- sition at the Norwegian Academy of Music (Norges Musikkhøg- Contemporary Music Festival skole), where we were taught to make music with cassette recorders, and attended concerts at night. Since then, I have attended each and every Ultima Festival, and I’ve come to discover a plethora of music I didn’t know I liked (as well as some music I didn’t know I — An Album wouldn’t like), my ingrained conception of art and music has been turned upside-down, I’ve become both enthusiastic and annoyed, and I’ve laughed and cried my way through nearly every concert venue in Oslo. Thanks are due to so many people. Seventeen institutions ­constitute the Ultima organization, and each year they contribute with resources and know-how that provide the means for an top-tier international festival. Their contributions are invaluable. But they are not alone. In the midst of Ultima’s history there is a bunch of wonder­ ful people. Hard-working people who know how to think outside the box, talented, sensitive and strong people, knowledgeable, funny Lars Petter Hagen The ISCM World Music Days were held in Oslo in 1990, and were and critical, all at once. Be it the performers and composers­ from 2015 a major success. It was the first time they had been arranged in all over the world, producers, managers, volunteers, writers or an Norway since Ny Musikk and Pauline Hall had hosted them in 1953. enthusiastic audience, each of them make up Ultima’s backbone. Since then, Norwegian music had been through a tremendous These people invest hours and hours of work to fulfill their dreams ­progression. The professional level was so high that it garnered atten- and musical ambitions, in most cases without any monetary tion worldwide. Audiences from Norway and abroad were met return or glamour. with a fresh conception of music by Oslo’s contemporary music scene. It is a true privilege to work in such an environment. As I’ve been It was to become known as “The Nordic Sound” — a brash, fearless thumbing through the festival programmes from the last 25 years, approach both to music and tradition. I have been struck by an insight: More than anything else, Ultima has The Ultima Festival was a child of the positive experiences of been a celebration of the individual, of humanity in all its nuances. that year. The festival was inaugurated in 1991 under the composer John ­Persen’s leadership, and it has since been held every year. Everybody seems to chip in when it comes to this arrangement, which is both a shared effort and a celebration of contemporary music. Throughout these 25 years, the festival in a small city called Oslo has grown to become one of the major venues for modern music. Ultima is the result of creative energy and hard work by several thousand people. Ever restless, John Persen set the standard for the rest to follow. This book does not make any attempt to cover Ultima’s complete history to this day. It’s more of an album, a declaration of love to an entire arena of human endeavour. It is not a systematic recount of the number of premieres nor any other statistics. All of this ­simply wouldn’t fit. We have attempted to evoke some of the Ultima spirit and to give an impression both of the thoughts that drove the festival through its phases and the way they were made manifest. The world has gone through some fundamental changes in the course of these 25 years, and a festival determined to present new musical ideas and movements has to take that into account. Even though much has changed since its inception in 1991, there is something that has been the Ultima hallmark since its early days:

4 5 Ultima 25 Introduction

the festival’s accompanying brochures in a series of special editions. The festival was therefore guided from its beginnings by an enquiring spirit of communication and dissemination. Communication and openness are important factors in a culture which supports its arts largely through state funding. A recurring theme, in the newspaper coverage since the early 90s, is less on the music content itself, more on the economical and administrative challenges to the festival and its sponsorships. First there is reportage about Ultima’s extraordinary partnership with the Fina oil company; when that is over and the public money starts to come in, questions Opening the box: are continually raised about whether Ultima justifies its own expense, which leads to inevitable arguments about the value of contem­ porary music. It’s a journalistic cliche to single out the most extreme excesses or follies of an avant garde movement in order to claim Inside the Ultima archives that its entirety is stupid and worthless, and the Norwegian media are no different in that respect. But there have been plenty of ­sympathetic voices too: journalists working to inspire public curiosity in the idea of contemporary music, with Ultima — by the end of the century, one of Europe’s largest and most significant modern music events — as the hook. Still, it is surprising to see how hard pressed the organisation has been to justify itself year after year. It’s perhaps only in the second decade of this century that public willingness to take modern music for granted has become more acceptable. As for its visual profile, Ultima began in the age of paste-up and matured during the rise of desktop publishing and digital design. Therefore its image has changed dramatically over the years as tech- nology and design aesthetics have become increasingly sophisticated. Rob Young To stand in front of the stack of archive boxes, piled neatly and dis- From the hand-drawn glass of vin rouge illustrating an article 2015 creetly in a storage area of the Ultima festival office, is to face up on French musique concrète in 1993 to the moiré flags intruding on to a quarter century of music history. Lifting the lids from the plastic classic Nordic iconography in 2014, this archive also acts as a containers reveals a collection of programme catalogues from mini-history of changing graphic styles and priorities. every year, posters, flyers and pocket sized event guides. There are Over 25 years, it’s clear a great deal of energy and resources impressively spiral-bound collections of media coverage, photo­ have been spent on generating the material that now lives in copied and logged by cuttings agencies, and original clippings. the Ultima archives. It has never been a sideline or an afterthought, In more recent years, the coverage shifts to web based content, and but an integral part of the festival’s work: it’s about getting mes- here we find A4 sheets printed off from newspaper sites and blogs. sages across, recognising that music, as in the other arts, does not In addition there are annual reports, the later ones properly colour always speak entirely for itself, but often requires explanation, printed and typeset with photo galleries. There appears to have contexualisation, visualisation, in order to be fully appreciated. been little systematic photographic documentation before 2003, Whatever anyone thinks of modern music, it’s impossible to deny but after that there are several CDs with a mass of unsorted digital that Ultima works hard every year to make it appear as accessible as images. Apart from all this, there are various examples of long-­ possible without dampening its seriousness, its power and impact. extinct storage media: syquests and zip disks, even floppies, which At certain times it acknowledges that it can even be fun, too. for now must preserve their mysterious secrets a little longer. All of The selection in this book celebrates Ultima’s twenty-fifth year by this is the visible trace left behind by a festival that is continually highlighting pages, images and articles from the archives that zooming onward into the future. together tell something about the story of Ultima over its entire life One impressive element of Ultima is that right from the beginning, span. It’s not the complete history, but an attempt to give the publication of printed matter has been prioritised, and each year impression of the scope and ambitions of such a festival, its changing has carried an accompanying magazine, going beyond the mere fortunes and the pressures upon it. In doing so, we can perceive listing of events, but featuring essays and thinkpieces, interviews the way modern music itself has begun to change over those years: and illustrations relating to the music. This reflects wider developments its image, the way it is received, the shift in relationships between in the discourse around contemporary and avant garde music. composers, performers and audiences, and the kind of spaces it Less and less the exclusive privilege of music cognoscenti, new music can be heard in. is now more popularised and discussed in international magazines Meanwhile, the strongest traces Ultima has left are sonic ones, like The Wire, successful books such as Alex Ross’s The Rest is that will remain in the memories of the thousands who have attended Noise, and countless magazines, newspapers, blogs and websites. its myriad events over the past twenty-five years. Norway’s own Ballade.no, formerly a print magazine, remains committed to discussing and critiquing music, and in Ultima’s earliest years, it was Ballade which produced, commissioned and published

6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Ultima 25 Royal patrons

20 21 Ultima 25 Festival directors John Persen 1991– 93 Åse Hedstrøm 1994– 98 Geir Johnson 1999–2008 Luca Francesconi & Poing 2011 Lars Petter Hagen 2009– 10 & 2012– present

22 23 Ultima 25 Festival directors John Persen 1991–93

John Persen says that the international press ‘The programme of Ultima 93 covers a wide ­during last year’s ISCM World Music Days spectrum of styles and genres and bursts musical revealed Norway to be a land of music. Ultima barriers and genre conventions… wants to do its bit to cement that impression. The ideas behind a work of art cannot be ‘Foreign newspapers wrote that the 1980s were communicated in a vacum, and for this reason you, Finland’s music decade, while they have launched the audience, are the most important to participate Norway as a musical centre in the 1990s. in the festival. Many of the works/concerts are Ultima is aiming to become one of the world’s easy to understand, immediate and entertaining, leading festivals,’ says Persen. while others will no doubt appear remote and, at worst, pure nonsense. Many composers are (1991) asked why they write such ‘difficult’ music, and not something that the ‘man in the street’ can under- stand. They could be asked in return: Why not ask a high jumper to jump a little lower, so that the ‘man in the street’ can jump as high?’

(1993)

24 25 Ultima 25 Festival directors

26 27 Ultima 25 Festival directors Åse Hedstrøm 1994–98

‘This year’s festival is on a back burner, just an ‘Our ability to meet the unknown can only be expanded weekend festival featuring around acquired through exposure. As in meeting new cul- a third of the total concerts there were last year. tures or within a constructive dialogue concerning That’s not viable as far as I’m concerned, so we the truly creative elements of contemporary art. have two choices: either we wind down after four Modernism and electroacoustic music have years of operations, or we press on in the spirit spawned entirely new techniques and concepts, and scope represented by John Persen’s leadership, and strict professional prerequisites concerning and which has contributed to building up the creation and performance place contemporary flagship for Nordic contemporary music which music in a position to explore entirely new worlds Ultima has become.’ of sound in both a refined and reflective manner.’

(1994) (1997)

‘Artists are inspired by elements from all points of ‘As an international festival of contemporary music, the globe and all the epochs down through the Ultima must be a forum for the latest and most ages. Comprehensive forms of expression are born original in the field. We must actively encourage within the synthesis of music, dance, the plastic new modes of experiencing music and indeed arts and the written word. A multi-cultural, multi-­ new ways of participating in its performance. faceted artistic sphere has developed, with modern A product of the city, Ultima must itself create new technology having provided artists with an entirely arenas, and thereby become as it were an artistic new, rich and strange world to explore. Ultima reflection of our urban reality.’ provides a potential platform for precisely these forms, and conspires to stimulate co-­operation (1998) between a wide variety of artistic forms… Through quality the intention is to provide the public with what they wish to experience, but also that which they are unaware they long for — Boundaries will be violated within those regions called Ultima in Latin.’

(1996)

28 29 Ultima 25 Festival directors

30 31 Ultima 25 Festival directors

32 33 Ultima 25 Festival directors Geir Johnson 1999–2008

‘A festival is an expedition, new and unfamiliar ‘Who owns the world?’ asked Brecht provocatively ‘… Through mythology change is conveyed; via ‘While Ultima is considered by some as a bastion territory through which each concertgoer must seventy years ago. Today we know that the an- old images new ones are created, which provides for radical, almost uniform musical expression, make his or her own way.’ swer to this simple question depends partly on who a framework for our understanding of the world our project has been more concerned with pre- it is that holds the key to interpreting the world. in which we live. We must take the time, however, senting an ever broader range of expression and (2001) Artists have created their own key to interpretation, to analyse these images. There is no time. The fact variety of tradition within the festival’s profile. incompatible with the key held by social econo- that we live in a state of transition between a Sometimes this comes across, other times it does mists, politicians or journalists. It is the unpredict- largely analogue sound culture and a digital one not; behind the selection of works on the pro- ‘It is said that art does not arise from a vacuum, able nature of art which makes it ‘un-ownable’­ is just one superficial example of these changes, gramme lies nonetheless an ambition to find music that all true art has its fundament in human and through which its freedom is defended time in a phase in which our very existence is changing, which has the power to make a statement in ­experience, or has an audience in which it creates and again — no matter how often it comes and our first law might be formulated thus: Our ­relation to our time. Whether or not these works a sense of familiarity, in order to function. Thus under attack.’ age has become a state of continuous transition. were written in 2008 is therefore of secondary one path to experience leads through the door to The programme for Ultima 2007 is character- importance. It has nonetheless often proved to be the concert hall. Yet for a creative artist this is (2002) ised by this sense of transition. We are in transit the case that Ultima is a unique arena for the just one of the consequences — and not even a towards something else. In a formal sense we newest musical developments — a situation we are desired one — of creating. For it is in the creative can underline this fact by pointing out that this is pleased to observe, since it shows that artists process itself that the artist is most alone, left to ‘Much has changed in our music life during the the last Ultima without the new opera house, ­consider the festival to be valuable and attractive. her own accumulated knowledge, understanding last 20–30 years, and Norwegian contemporary and without a national arena for contemporary However ‘great’ or ‘important’ a festival of of technique, ability to make good judgements, music has undergone tremendous growth and dance. But in reality it is about something deeper: contemporary art might become, I believe one and staying power. One of the things that alienates renewal. Sometimes one is struck, however, by It is about the role that art can play in an era should always bear in mind that there music audiences from new music is that they do not the way in which this music is met with a lack in which the demands for original and far-reaching always be an element of guerrilla, in the sense understand these conditions, or the results. So we of curiosity. The new music is sometimes treated social solutions are becoming ever greater. that the festival should dare to make room for will attempt to raise the question — which paths to as an unwelcome refugee in its native land. The old question about the role of art as a form oppositional voices, for that which makes us experience does an artist take in the creative ­Certain media are more interested in giving space of perception and understanding is relevant uncomfortable, for that which is rejected — either process? Which paths to experience can an audi- to artists who wish to expose their rear in the once again. for being too traditional or too experimental. ence take to become aware of this process nation’s leading newspapers with reference to free- Art is essentially a mythological form which From a historical point of view it is important to of realisation? dom of speech than giving a qualified response never disappears, but which is recreated every recognise how works which today are part of Is art based on intuitive experience, or is it a to quieter and more complex artistic statements. time an important work is performed. The philos- the repertoire, were once considered oppositional.’ consequence of historically accumulated know­ Marginalisation, however, does not have to be opher Ernest Bloch describes art as the Utopia ledge? Is the creative process towards a new work a tragedy. It can also create a free space at the of hope: Art carries within itself the seeds of the (2008) of art something which is begun afresh each time, edge of the public eye… We hope to encourage new order, of that social structure which mankind or does there exist a historically informed learning discussion and debate about the nature of music: until now has not succeeded in achieving. process? There is no single, conclusive answer What can it tell us about the society we live in, Mankind’s dreams are many. Icarus’s dream to these questions, or perhaps each work of art how does it correspond with our own lives and has been realised mechanically, but the Icarus provides its own individual answer.’ aesthetic preferences?’ myth is not about learning to fly by oneself; it is about solving impossible tasks, daring to fly (2005) (2007) straight at the sun. And then we must ask ourselves which role we play in the myth: Are we Daedalus warning Icarus, or are we the flyer himself, daring to rise towards the sun, and diving into the ocean when our wings melt?’

(2007)

34 35 Ultima 25 Festival directors

36 37 Ultima 25 Festival directors Luca Francesconi & Poing 2011

‘Much of our daily life, our understanding of culture and society, is based on the assumption that we know who we are. We see ourselves with a start- ing point in how we are portrayed in literature and art throughout history. But we also claim that it will always be hard to describe our own time, difficult to see ourselves from the outside. During Ultima you will be able to hear and see many attempts and approaches… Has evolution altered our kind to something which, seen from the near future, comes across as alien and frightening, without ourselves noticing it? Have we been mutated into monsters with the help of our digital reality?’

(Joint statement, 2011)

38 39 Ultima 25 Festival directors Lars Petter Hagen 2009–10 & 2012–present

‘According to the African Ubuntu philosophy, ‘The DIY attitude in music is often linked to punk ‘I am intrigued by all forms of music that somehow of audience groups is a great challenge. The ‘You are who you are because of others.’ Music is and other subcultural forms of expression, and to have a bit of a curious, exploring attitude, that feedback so far shows that we at least do some- strengthened through its dependency on its environ- art movements like Futurism, Dadaism and Fluxus. experiment with its own boundaries and inhibit an thing right, though we constantly work towards ment. This perspective is the starting point for the At the moment, it looks like this attitude is finding ‘unfinishedness’. For a festival like Ultima, building improving ourselves. Narrowing the range is theme of this year’s Ultima. Reflections on identity, its way back into the traditionally more academic any absolute boundaries between art and popular definitely not the answer. the function of music in a digitised, globalised field of contemporary music, maybe as a result culture and using a traditional, institutional defi­ A festival with ambitions to present brand new and individualised world; reflections on tradition of technological developments freeing the pro- nition of quality as backdrop for the programme and unknown music necessarily needs to take and modernity, on borders and infinity. The Ultima duction and distribution of music from institutional would be feigned. Challenging conventions and some chances to present projects with outcomes Festival is a forum for ideas in music across disci- and/or commercial middlemen and opening seeking new connections and relations that might that are difficult to survey or control. ­Precisely plinary boundaries. We are a meeting place, an up the definition of quality in an interesting way… occur in new contexts is far more interesting. this risk, this gamble, creates an interesting festival arena for dialogue.’ The complex reality of Oslo’s music scene at Many theories have been created and plenty for contemporary art. This is our lot: doomed the moment, combined with the high quality of the of opinions formed on contemporary art and to being perpetually annoying.’ (2014) results and open musical attitudes make the city music. What are the works of art supposed to the object of international attention. The pro- mean? Who are they really made for? Should (2009) gramme for this year tries to reflect this. You could they please or provoke? All I know for sure is say it is about rules or maybe the lack of them. that there are no simple answers. However, one It is about challenging tradition and convention so factor motivates me more than anything — the the music can develop even further, and continue certainty that art has the ability to uncover to move us.’ ­different shades of all things. In all times, people have to the best of their (2010) abilities tried to cope with the general absence of meaning, the irreversibility of time and the finite nature of man. Melancholy has a cultural history of its own. In his book Det indre mørke (The Dark- ness Within), Espen Hammer regards melancholy as a reaction to the extreme rationality of society today and the happy superficiality it demands of people. Melancholy is a ‘reflected attitude to life’ and ‘an active response to something’, he argues. This kind of attitude has to be regarded as funda- mentally optimistic, as it implies a profound belief in the fact that things, despite all, can get better. Our goal is to reach as many people as possi- ble with contemporary music. In my opinion, Ultima is a festival containing something cutting-­ edge for everyone. Our greatest challenge is to target new audience groups. According to a music critic from the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, as festival director I should answer the question ‘Who is contemporary music for?’ This is nonsense. Contemporary music is for everyone, but our goal is not to make everyone enjoy everything. The practice of the artists defines what contemporary music is — I don’t. Communicating with the ever increasing amount

40 41 Ultima 25 Festival directors

42 43 44 45 Ultima 25 Selected writings

What Has Happened ?

Text: Rolf Wallin 1991

The international press returned home visibly become familiar with performing music by the fore- impressed after the World Music Days in Oslo last most composers of our time. A successful series year. Most impressive was that tiny Norway had of festivals presenting Cage, Xenakis, Messiaen relied on its own resources to perform most of and Lutoslawski have been important milestones. the music chosen by the international jury. Many One should be cautious when comparing music critics who have suffered through the struggle and sports, but in both areas one talks about psy- with difficult scores by local musicians at previous chological barriers. To run 100 metres in less ISCM festivals feared the worst. Instead, they than ten seconds was regarded as impossible until experienced one of the highest standards of inter- the first person accomplished it. pretation in the history of the World Music Days. After that, everyone did it. The Xenakis festival Jens Brincker, one of the leading Nordic connois- had much of the same effect on the music life in seurs of contemporary music, writes in his article Oslo. Norwegian musicians are no longer reluctant on the festival in the Copenhagen newspaper to play music they would have regarded as un­­ ­Berlingske Tidende: ‘An ISCM festival in the 1970s playable fifteen years ago; on the contrary, they would have been embarrassing for Norwegian are thrilled by challenges that are not represented music life and exposed a standard where, with few in the traditional repertoire. Sometimes one actu- exceptions, one had to trust that in the best case ally can speak of ‘Better late than never’. This the notes were right when modern music was awakening of the Sleeping Beauty has given played.’ Later in the article he underlines that such many Norwegian performances of contemporary regretful conditions are history. But he goes further music a stronger vitality and enthusiasm than than that. He believes in ‘Norway as a dynamo what is common in countries with long modernist in the following decades of Nordic and possibly traditions, where competent interpretations are also European music life’! often dulled by routine. Ensembles such as Oslo Sinfonietta and Cikada have a great potential What kind of magic has changed Norwegian as ambassadors for Norwegian culture, as they performance standards and contemporary music can demonstrate that Norway is not only smoked so drastically in fifteen years? One of the most salmon and Grieg, but also computer technology, important considerations is that we have finally modern design and music that points towards become open to international contemporary the future. music in Norway, so that our musicians have

46 47 Ultima 25 Nordic sounds

48 49 Ultima 25 Nordic sounds

50 51 Ultima 25 Selected writings

like Avanti (Finland) and Cikada (Norway) are abrasiveness in its fusion of timbre and texture; less than a decade old but have already become but there’s also a sense of fun, of colourful display important international ambassadors, at home and sheer enjoyment. I like the physicality with and abroad, for Nordic composers. There has which composers engage with their sonic material been, ever since the war, an increase in productive — not overly hung-up with intellectual systems — cultural contacts: for instance the involvement intelligent yes, but guided by the ear as much as of Ligeti in the Stockholm Royal Higher School for the mind. Fantastic shapes are created out of an Music in the sixties and, more recently, the flow ingenious variety of components. There’s a highly of Scandinavian composers to Paris, often at the developed interest in timbre as a sort of sound invitation of IRCAM. Such migration has been magma. The unmistakable family identity imprinted useful for the cosmopolitan reputation of these on every Lego piece has a parallel in the kinship major cities but also essential, I would suggest, that appears to exist between Scandinavian The Nordic Sound for the maturing of the composers themselves. ­composers; something indefinable perhaps, but ­Commuting between a musical metropolis and the which, at its most basic, has to do with a particular home base constantly exchanges and stimulates breed of inventiveness, humour and clarity of ideas and nurtures indigenous activity. For this thought. But who, in describing that fundamental reason, now that the Finns are about to establish key to the system, could adequately convey the their own Centre for Art and Computer Technology endless variety of structures it has produced? in the city of Espoo in collaboration with its Paris- In Nordic music the landscape itself still has ian model IRCAM, one wonders whether it would the power to impart a kind of transparency, not be better for the Finns to continue to work in the sparseness of population, an immediacy to the Paris and to persuade the French to go to Espoo. relationship between Man and matter. Nor does Insularity has its strengths but also dangers! Nordic music seem to have fallen prey to the Indeed, comparatively frequent visits by many excesses of a nostalgic neo-romanticism. Its own Text: Richard Steinitz leading world composers to the Scandinavian generative spirit gives it a wholly more engaging, 1992 countries have served to stimulate activity and younger flair and a real sense of adventure. contributed to the development of ideas. Cage, for ­Composers these days commonly control both one, has been on several occasions; he would structure and material with the aid of computers, One of the things to savour about new music in the Scandinavian countries have seen an explosion appear to have influenced Magne Hegdal, whose a practice which inevitably gives objectivity to the 1990s is the upsurge of activity that has swept of new energy that has brought them to the music interestingly mediates between order and much of their work. Such clear-cut distinctions through the Scandinavian countries. This new ­centre of attention. chance. In 1989, Stockholm honoured Schnittke between the musical sound of the Scandinavian ­creative energy has been germinating for several In any case, the public has become more with the first comprehensive festival of his music countries are a lot harder to perceive, particularly years; now suddenly everybody is taking note interested in what is happening on the fringes of anywhere. And in the last decade or so Nordic since synthesis and stylistic pluralism are every- of it. Scandinavian music may be a hybrid but its Europe. We are even prepared to entertain new music festivals have sprung up such as Aarhus, where in the air. Newness per se is now well different branches are sprouting up with fresh the notion that a small country like Iceland may which shone brightly in the early 1980s and is behind us; there’s a widespread revival in harmonic confidence at a time when some of the old tendrils have — as it evidently does — a contemporary now host to an important new computer music sensitivity which must make some senior com­ of central Europe have grown long and lanky, musical culture of its own. This new-found curiosity ­festival; the Helsinki Biennale, and the youngest posers, for whom it has always been important, if not to say rather moth-eaten and mildewy. may be partly due to the fact that central Europe and most precocious festival, Ultima, launched to feel that fashion has caught up with them. Added By contrast, there’s a vigour and purpose about has itself become less dominant and patronising. coincide with the ISCM World Music Days in 1990. to this, I have to say that it’s decidedly incautious Scandinavian music, a genuinely fresh direction. What, in retrospect, appears to have been over-­ At this public debut, the Norwegians impressed for an outside observer to attempt to categorise; Speaking as director of another contemporary arrogant and intolerant post-war attitudes which everyone by the skill and efficiency with which any labelling is going to be less than the truth, music festival, I confess that ‘Nordic Music’ as a proclaimed the laws of Darmstadt and integral they temporarily adopted an ungainly international even when applied by those who know their brief definable concept seems to me relatively new, not serialism as the only way forward, have faded animal, with their excellent musical resources better than I do. Nevertheless, in the quest for one that I seriously thought to be programmable into the past. Partly, it is also due to the crumbling and high standards of programme planning and that elusive Nordic spirit, I’ll take the risk! ten years ago. That’s not to forget the deep tradi- of old political barriers, the fusing together of performance. Oslo has extremely fine musicians, To this listener, at least, the Danes appear to tions going back to Grieg or Berwald. Nor could the whole land mass, which has made newly a friendly spirit, and a new cultural awareness; it have found the most distinct identity. They were one fail to admire those outstanding senior con- possible an informed interest in its extremities. has gracious venues and is an attractive city — all among the first to go to the international courses temporary personalities like Arne Nordheim and But the real change is that Scandinavian new good attributes for a festival. Its only disadvantage in new music at Darmstadt, which commenced in Per Nørgård whose work has long been performed music has acquired a clear profile and composers is that, at least for the visitor, it is so expensive. the summer of 1946 and which had such a potent worldwide; but they seemed, essentially, to be have achieved better recognition in their own And so what is this ‘Nordic Sound’? Dare one influence on postwar music worldwide. For Per individual creative voices rather than representa- countries. The institutions of Nordic music, particu- even attempt a generic label for something so Nørgård the encounter with the European avant tives of a bigger and broader phenomenon. To a larly some of its music schools, are relatively new ­diffuse? The nearest I can attempt, if not too trite, garde in the 1960s resulted in a radical reorienta- certain extent the more northern Nordic peoples and make more likely the emergence of groups of is an analogy: Nordic music, you might say, is a tion, breaking ‘the universe of Nordic tempera- have experienced, understandably, a sense of composers and performers whose individual sort of Lego-culture that has grown up from being ment’ of which he had previously been an ardent ­isolation; Danish composers having been the first ­talents are stimulated and enhanced by each other. an occasional plaything into a complex system advocate and instigating an experimental plural- to establish themselves in the perception of the The Finnish ‘collective’ Toimii, founded by Magnus of interrelationships, in which the play ethic and ism shared by many other Danish composers. world at large as an important new school. But Lindberg and Esa-Pekka Salonen, is such an serious engineering are intriguingly combined. ­Significantly, it was Nørgård’s turning towards things have changed and, in the last few years, example. Other outstanding performing groups Certainly, there’s toughness in Nordic music, an a hierarchical harmonic and proportional system

52 53 Ultima 25 Selected writings and to the inspiration of nature that brought with IRCAM, it has moved dramatically into the international acclaim. But by that time the next forefront. As in Sweden, there are a bewildering generation, led by Hans Abrahamsen, Karl Aage number of composers writing with amazing ­Rasmussen, Poul Ruders and Bent Sørensen ­confidence and panache, considering the relatively were moulding to their own personalities aspects unreceptive environment they must have encoun- of systems music and the ‘new simplicity’ in music; tered until only a few years ago. If vocal lyricism that of bold colours and intriguing polyrhythmic seems a more Swedish characteristic, instrumental textures in which simple ideas are used in elaborate, architecture appears more Norwegian — but whose yet clear and objective structures. The brightness forceful structures are glistening and radiant of such music, with its refreshingly unexpected with strong musical images; rarely do they seem twists and contrasts seems — if anything does — to facelessly abstract. In this domain, the work typify the Danish sound. of Rolf Wallin and Cecilie Ore stands out for its In Finland, after that important, consummate energy, complexity and sophistication. elder statesman Erik Bergman, it is the work of the much younger composers Kaija Saariaho When the Ultima festival commenced in 1990 [sic], and Magnus Lindberg that continues to command ready to chime the hours, as it were, of the last widespread attention. Both have been markedly decade of the twentieth century, its partnership influenced by the investigations into harmony, with the World Music Days held that year in Oslo ­timbre and sonority by Gerard Grisey and Tristan ensured a thoroughly international programme. Murail in France. Both have lived in Paris for In future years it will be important to maintain and extended periods and worked at IRCAM. Through develop such openness by also extending itself their use of computers, both have created a com- beyond the boundaries of Europe. Meanwhile, pelling blend of timbral subtlety and gestural in this, its third year, Ultima rightfully proclaims its ­volatility. Yet they are very different personalities. essentially Scandinavian identity. Here, then, in Kaija Saariaho (who had to struggle to be a welcoming and delightful setting, is an excellent accepted in Finland as a woman composer) has opportunity to experience the vitality and breadth tended towards works of rich textural activity of Nordic music at the cutting edge. but with a single vision, an initial explosion, per- haps, generating a vast diminuendo. Magnus Lindberg at first took the public by storm with music of almost strident expression, a dazzling play of mass and colours. Latterly, his ideas, although no less wild and extravagant, have become more indulgent and opulent, the extraordinarily rich, broad sweep of his music being accomplished through exciting, skilful transitions impeccably paced. Here is a fascinating mix of analytical calculation and intuitive daring that makes Lindberg an admired leader of his generation. Viewed from the outside, no such interna- tionally outstanding young personalities seem to have emerged in Sweden, extremely lively though the musical scene has undoubtedly been for many years, with its impressive amateur choral traditions, its lead in electronic music and its eclectic attitude to style and expression. The bal- ance between constructivist attitudes (as repre- sented earlier in the post-war era by Bo Nilsson) and strong feeling is deep rooted. Norway cannot boast such an active musical background, although the benign personality of Arne Nordheim presiding over the scene since the 1960s has clearly been a positive influence. Now, through the energies of such people as Geir Johnson, President of Ny Musikk, John Persen, Director of Ultima, and younger composers like Asbjørn Schaathun, founder of the Oslo Sinfonietta and another composer having forged close links

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64 65 Ultima 25 Selected writings

Myth, Music and Moneybags

Text: Hege Imerslund Translation: David Siebert 1992

Myths are more than Greek Gods and never found, the myth never confirmed. It could tales of Creation be said that Ultima Thule moved and broke the Myths are born of fear and ignorance bounds of its own definition. And, for the moment, Myths are still being born, even today there is nothing that indicates that there is an outer limit for human understanding or creativity. Contemporary music is, perhaps to a greater Nor has the Ultima Festival any plans on reaching extent than any other art form, myth-spun. Do not the outer limits of its activities, far from it, the confuse myths with fairytales and legends, a ­festival accepts the responsibility, and the duty, to myth is no form of fantasy. As opposed to adven- burst the bounds and never accept fixed ideas ture stories, myths become reality, with the pur- on the nature of music and how it should sound. pose of confusing and blurring our view of the world. In this way we avoid being confronted with our own prejudices, and in this way we become Time Will Show… cut off from all experiences that could stimulate development, creativity and innovation. Myths Few people today have any problem in accepting have been spun since the dawn of ages, and will an important composer as Edvard Grieg — nor continue to be so. to appreciate his work highly. Our opinions of his And, just as continually and necessarily, the music today do not reflect the fact that in his struggle against the myths will be fought by new day he was a controversial and much-discussed generations. This process is well documented in composer. It always takes time to create an all types of activity and in all cultures. atmosphere of acceptance for innovation and ex­periment, and this no doubt explains why all worthy innovation shows its quality first after The Myth of Ultima Thule time has shown if it has quality. When Alexander Graham Bell invented an apparatus that made The name Ultima reflects the idea of Ultima Thule, it possible to communicate with people who the End of the World, the outer limit of all human were not in earshot, it is said that he met the activity. A mystical idea, in other words, that serves ­following reaction from the first people to whom as an explanation of where the human mind he demonstrated his new invention: ‘It’s amusing, could no longer grasp reality. Ultima Thule was but will hardly have any practical use.’

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There are few today who would question the his generosity — several thousand years ago — was measures, fiscal regulations. As of today, there is all who want, and dare, to participate in a historic value of telecommunication. Virgil. Whether Maecenas required recompense very attractive taxation relief on sponsorship process that could be called ‘selection of tomor- Good art has always broken its bounds — this, is unknown, but he must be said to have acquired funds, enabling the net outlay by the sponsor to row’s classics’. And Ultima — and other comparable in itself, a well-used definition of art. The same immortality. Nor is it charity when the government, be reduced considerably. workshops — give both public and associates an applies to all creative activity, from technical or others in the public sector, make their priorities We are not so naive as to believe that sponsor­ unique chance to be the first step in this process. innovation to the plastic arts — and music. Some and choices from the pile of more or less well-­ ship of culture springs from artistic interest have always allowed themselves to become pro- formulated applications for financial aid. The gov- among the companies. A company cannot, by voked when claims that the impossible is possible ernment claims its recompense, and supervision definition, be interested in art. Certainly, the The World Comes to Norway have been forwarded, as it shakes the foundations of how the funding is used, not just after the money Marketing Director could be personally interested, — and Vice Versa of our fundamental worldview, and the security is used, but also in the form of an exact budget. and sponsorship requires a certain knowledge that the familiar gives. Those inquisitive souls, for This is commonly accepted. Now that the private of the branch that one chooses to endow with There are inside contemporary music, as in other whom the unknown does not constitute a threat, sector has increasingly discovered culture as a marketing funds. It must not be forgotten that the established artistic directions, different styles but instead a possibility for development, will never part of the sponsorship market, warning and critical target of any company is earning money — not and genres — some already established, some be in the majority. There are, however, enough voices are heard from many directions. Censor- to give it away, or involve itself in the politics of already abandoned, and some not yet formulated. of them to fill concert auditoriums, and, through ship, accession to sponsors’ demands for pro- culture. Any form of sponsorship is a result of the Contemporary music, too, writes itself in, or out of, their engagement, to put the future firmly on gramme change and increased commercialisation, consideration of the possibilities for return on existing tradition. The intention of Ultima is to the agenda. are words that are used in connection with the the investment, and part of a marketing strategy. present a broad spectrum of differing epochs and vistas of business sector money in cultural bank But those who work with art and culture in a styles. An important subsidiary aim for Ultima is accounts. The criticism is levelled as though: combination of private and public funding, know to act as a catalyser for Norwegian music’s further Myth and Reality (or: ‘Rumours of a) This is something completely new, and that their professional qualities of cooperation international efforts. It is obvious that contem­ My Death Are Greatly Exaggerated’) b) The sponsor will call the tune for the writer, count for their business partner, and that they are porary music is a field where Norwegian names painter, composer — or dancer. treated accordingly. are ‘competitive’, to use a commercial term. The The confirmation of the myth of contemporary If we regard the Ultima Festival as an example Norwegian Opera can be used as an example; music, and of Ultima, would be the total absence of a cultural activity that receives support from it is, at the time of writing, invited to perform of an audience, and the concomitant total the private sector — and by this comes into the Forum for Surprise abroad not to play Verdi or Wagner — but rather absence of financial support for the work in putting definition ‘fortunate’, in this case by the oil com- to play Arne Nordheim’s The Tempest, and Antonio this ambitious project together. The festival project pany Fina Exploration Norway — one will see that What, then, does Ultima offer that is worthy of Bibalo’s Macbeth. Both of these critically acc­ is based on a totally unique — in the Norwegian­ this cooperation has an untraditional nature, support and experience? Peculiar sounds sys- laimed performances fill houses — and both are experience — cooperation. The Ultima foundation compared to established wisdom. The deal is clear: temised. Hypermodern technique. improvisation, highly modern. The Ultima Festival is, on the other consists of the most professional and prestigious Ultima receives a certain amount, and in return, musical theatre and performance. All Norwegians hand, an important reason that Cikada, a young music organisers and organisations, among them the festival must keep its part of the bargain. have heard of Arne Nordheim, all have heard Norwegian chamber ensemble which solely plays the Norwegian Opera, the Oslo Philharmonic, The contract contains not one clause concerning the expression ‘pling-plong’ used about contempo- contemporary music, has been invited to tour and the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation. The the content of the festival programme. The returns rary music. This is all part of the myth. This myth, Mexico, the USA and Italy after the international festival also has a number of associates within by Ultima are, mainly, suggested by Ultima itself, too, is about to be exploded. It could be said that music scene became, during last year’s festival, both the public and private sectors — Fina Explo- after a careful consideration of the availabilities. contemporary music is beginning to become con- aware of the quality of this ensemble. The Cikada ration Norway, for instance, who, by providing It is, actually, the very fact that Ultima has temporary in the right sense of the word. It is no breakthrough is one of several examples of posi- financial and material resources for the festival, undergone a careful self-analysis, that forms the longer necessarily being played in evening dress, tive synergic effects that occur in the wake of an make an arrangement of this size possible. basis of the constructive cooperation with Fina. on the traditional concert platform. Why should effort like Ultima. Even so, it is the music, at the What makes participation in this sort of co­ The point is not that the coins of the business avant garde music use one-sided classical limits for moment it is made, that is most important. operation attractive? It can impossibly be economic sector clink more attractively in the coffers of the music? The Ultima Festival wishes to take the And what it does to each and every listener. considerations; contemporary music is a narrow culture than those of the government, but rather consequences of the increasing interest for our own part of the musical spectrum and will, seen realis- that, as it functions today, the business sector is century’s composers, and the increasing interest tically, always continue to be ‘unprofitable’ seen a more attractive partner than the State. The State in crossing boundaries and breaking out of ‘boxes’ through the eyes of an accountant. If all innovation can find this deplorable, but that is very much that the younger generation shows. By taking in society were immediately accepted, it would the fault of the State itself. Can the cultural sector ­serious music out of its usual precincts by, for probably be a sign that something was wrong — be blamed because it seeks associates who are example, arranging five late night concerts at the with art itself. more flexible, and who take more individual Rocke­feller Music Hall, this positive trend will be consideration than the government? The point is strengthened — and some of the prejudices hope- that the business sector often makes far fewer fully strangled, in the course of the eight days that Sponsors: Philanthropists stipulations than the State, and therefore affects the festival lasts. Ultima should be a forum for or Business Partners? the artistic content far less. surprise. An eight day overdose of innovation, and If this is how it should be, and whether the a workshop for composers and performers as Economic support, or other forms of contribution ­private sector is qualified to define art — that is well as audiences. The word overdose refers to the to artistic activity by individuals, business, or public an­other question, and a political discussion. fact that not all the works that are performed will sources is old news. One of the first patrons All in all it is the politicians who determine who remain as milestones and classics in music history. must have been the generous Roman, Maecenas, shall sit on the moneybags — if funding shall Nor is it the intention that the audience will under- who was well known for his support of the worthy come from departmental budgets or as contribu- stand and like all that they see and hear. The needy, and one of those who benefitted from tions from private sources — by, amongst other word workshop is, by definition, an invitation to

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70 71 Ultima 25 Sponsorship with a human touch

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from sponsorships, see how it affects their How many Fina employees actually attend Ultima ­profile, measure the number of lines of news- concerts voluntarily, without sideways glances at paper copy, or seconds of TV coverage. unwritten career rules? In other organisations, you berg: Sell more margarine! play golf with your boss to climb the ladder. n There’s no measuring the effect of supporting So, are Xenakis, Ligeti and Arne Nordheim what Ultima, it just can’t be done, except in joy, it’s all about at Fina? experiences, and good feelings. Don’t forget that our company doesn’t have any customers n Both employees and management need artistic in Norway. But we do need a certain amount and intellectual experiences, and never under- Norway’s strangest of publicity and goodwill. We do. estimate their capacity for good art and culture. b And we prefer not to use the words ‘sponsor’ We want to be challenged. The number of Fina or ‘sponsorship’. employees interested in Ultima is rising. b I think it has something to do with team spirit. sponsorship? We put a lot of effort in to involve our staff. Have there been any international responses to There’s an educational side to it as well. your association with Ultima? n In the autumn of 1991, Ultima held a chamber concert here at our place. ‘OK, so what does n I presented a keynote address on Ultima and John have in store for us this time? Hand Fina at a large convention about culture and ­grenades or sawing through grand pianos?’ business in Stockholm. Companies like Volvo, But it was a devilishly smart programme. ABB, Ericsson and Nokia were in attendance, Contemporary music doesn’t only consist of but our involvement with Ultima was the only cats squealing, Sibelius’s romances are con- oddity! Multinational corporations are wary temporary! The musicians explained that Text: Hugo Lauritz Jenssen of sponsoring anything that may be perceived Stockhausen didn’t work with a metre in the 1996 as controversial; they don’t want to be associ- traditional sense, but electronic pulses. So, ated with risky or complicated things. Contro- ­several of our co-workers were able to count versy makes them worried — but we haven’t the exact number of pulses. There were 27. The search for offshore fossil fuels and truly ambi- betrays the love affair with Ultima. The tall ceramic been scared by it. I believe our competitors tious, cutting edge, avant garde sonic art might stoves (unused) betray a certain stoic grandezza. have taken note of the fact that we’ve done appear to have little in common, except for this one I’m met by a priest who’s only sporadically active certain things differently. Why do you support Ultima? thing: they both demand a deluge of investments as such, and ditto a major. One of them is a Fina b I gave a talk about what demands businesses and ready cash. CEO. The other is a former Fina CEO. I’m confused. should make on their partners in Budapest last n Ultima’s leadership has been thoroughly impres- Where are the economists? Where are the engi- year. What we do is regarded as odd. sive, starting with their very first approach It may not be all about the most profound depths, neers in search of oil? What about roughnecks in 1990. They didn’t ask for any handouts; they but maybe it’s about the outer frontiers of what’s in yellow helmets gazing seismically into Jurassic wanted a dialogue. This has grown to become possible. Neither may the highly unusual pas de and Cretaceous layers? Could these slightly International companies support opera houses, a good mutual relationship. We have been in­­ deux which the Fina oil company has danced with unconventional oil magnates be the the source national theatres and symphony orchestras. vited to voice our opinions throughout the the Ultima Festival since 1991 be due to any of what could rightly be called Norway’s weirdest How does ‘sponsorship’ in a era without artistic whole process, but of course we haven’t had ­honourable obligation felt by international finance, sponsorship deal? patrons work? What obligations does wealth any say in the artistic choices or profile. We’ve nor by any steely-eyed accountant’s dreams of Gisle Nødtvedt is an ordained minister, but he bestow in 1996? been saying that a Belgian ingredient would ‘return on investments’. Not at all. It’s about heartfelt performs ecclesiastical duties ‘only in emergencies’. be nice for the last two years. So we’re happy Emotion in the Time of Late Capitalism. His predecessor Johannes Henrik Berg is still b We have a certain obligation towards cultural to see that the dance performance by Ultima The year is 1959, and outside corporate head- ­vigorously active, attending to Ultima, among other discourse, in particular the part that doesn’t Vez led by Wim Vandekeybus gets to represent quarters, the first Norwegian Fina flag hangs in things. He’s also a member of Oslo’s city council, find support elsewhere. This corporation strives Belgium this year. mid-air below its pole like a C sharp. Via its sub- representing Høyre, the conservative party, in the to make a return on investments, and we’re b This partnership makes demands on both parties. sidiary Fina Exploration Norway S.C.A., the culture and education committee. The pair of certainly not averse to that. But while patrons in Ultima doesn’t just come by to collect money! Petro­Fina consortium, Belgium’s largest company, them amiably compete for their turn to speak. previous ages made certain demands and Ultima’s management, the musicians and our is dipping its toes into the briny North Sea, and had their own preferences, this is not something guests are put in contact with each other. thus into what is about to become the Norwegian Here’s an excerpt: we adhere to. If Ultima wants to put on some- We’ve been able to reach out to groups that oil adventure, beginning with stakes in the Ekofisk thing that’s critical of the oil industry, the otherwise wouldn’t want to get in touch with and Tommeliten oilfields. It’s hard to fathom that How many licenses to drill has the Ultima ­festival is free to do that. Anything Ultima puts international business. the Belgians extracted 52.8 million barrels of oil sponsor­ship earned you? on is fine by us. the previous year. That amounts to more than n Fina is one of the largest taxpayers in Norwe- 5.5 billion Norwegian kroner. nødtvedt: I’ve been very candid about the fact gian history; since 1975, we’ve contributed You often stress that Ultima and Fina are ‘equal So we’re not talking about any old Belgian that we’re involved with Ultima for reasons more than 50 billion kroner in taxes, so we partners’. Surely this is just a buzzword? In chocolate stand here. There’s a businesslike hush that differ from what someone else might have. have a relatively good conscience. We feel ­economic terms,you’re the elephant to Ultima’s inside the old white building. No ambient sound- This is an emotional issue. Other companies we’re doing our part. mosquito. scape on discreetly concealed loudspeakers will look to maximise the profits they make

74 75 Ultima 25 Selected writings n Well, I have tried to abuse my sponsor status n And anyway, we can’t be Ultima’s bedrock, once in a blasphemous way. I really wanted we can just sprinkle some extra funding over to play with a big percussion ensemble, as an Ultima to create room for something out of extra or soloist with just one drum beat! They the ordinary. haven’t let me so far… b This is frosting on the cake, topping off the b When we pick composers for our poster series — budget, so to speak. which we’re very proud of — it’s to show that those who are considered great by today’s standards weren’t necessarily accepted by their You’re on the lookout for more sponsors. Why is contemporaries. Ultima wanted Satie one year. that? Don’t you want Ultima for yourself? But who’s Satie? So it was Wagner instead. Now it’s Mahler, from what I understand. n We’d like to have other companies by our side. n But he was accepted by an enlightened public We don’t have an ‘exclusive’ deal with Ultima, in his lifetime, wasn’t he? and we don’t want to stand in anybody’s way. b Høyre’s constituents! We’ve been in talks with one particular firm n The emotional level is important in this collab- we’d love to join us. Next year, maybe. oration. In an elegant way, Ultima has grasped b As long as it’s not another oil company! But that sponsorship is akin to joy. We, who bring we’re really into ‘the cause’! the money into the equation, are taken seri- ously by these people. And the Ultima people have shown more than just due diligence in Your best Ultima moments? contractual matters, both formally and in terms of the system they have established. n The night concert behind the city hall! The solo- ist playing an angle grinder on a huge slab of metal. It reminded me of the early Beatles How consciously do you work on your sponsor period. The guys bought guitars and used strategy, would you like Fina to be synonymous ­refitted Tandberg Sølvsuper amps. They were with Ultima — or the other way round? always late for their gigs, since the cabling took so much time. There was a certain ritual b We dared to take on contemporary music. pertaining to cables and soundchecks and That was a conscious decision. amplifiers. n Big national companies often support national b There was a lot of stuff I thought would be just art institutions. But we see no point in com­ absolute nonsense. And the Swedish saxo- peting for sponsorship of Nationaltheatret — phone orchestra ought to be using deodorants. the Norwegian national theatre. We’ve made The finest moment was Xenakis in the university waves even within PetroFina, to the extent that hall two years ago. the corporate chief information executive will n It’s really exciting to see the intense joy shared attend this year’s Ultima festival. The company by composer and performer. Most composers has spent considerable amounts on architecture are dead, but not at the Ultima festivals, where in Belgium. they’re often the most enchanted person present!

What has PetroFina’s reaction to the Ultima ­sponsorship been like? Would Fina sponsor an opera on a decommis- sioned oil platform? n [cautiously]: There have been some indications that this has been controversial. b As a politician on the city council, I’d have to say that the planned opera building belongs in the old Vestbanen train station! How much have you spent on Ultima? n Let’s move it to the Ekofisk field in the North Sea! Well, one way or the other, it’s certainly b A few million. an audacious thought! n Yes, it adds up to several million. We don’t like discussing these figures in public.

Why is that? b There is a certain competition in the sponsor- ship market.

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through the misuse of tradition, the demand to to infinite and ever new adventures in perception bring art to safety must at once mean to bring art and self-experience. The music of the old masters, to unsafety. This means that in society’s public as also that of composers like Schoenberg, Webern, ­discourse the European concept of art — and within Nono or Boulez, could be examined from this it the concept of music, the concept of beauty — perspective. Concerning the phenomenon of must be brought up for discussion. ‘breaking’: the medium of that breaking in creative It must/should be delimited, in its substance practice is what, since the middle of the last cen- and by definition, from that of entertainment — tury, we refer to as the ‘musical material’, the sound- with all respect, I might add, for I do not question ing reservoir for the shaping of sonic and temporal Spitting into a Crater the latter’s right to exist. Only thus can its indis- spaces, mediated through what I have referred pensable nature become evident as a medium to in the past as the ‘aesthetic apparatus’. This latter of mankind’s recollection of its spiritual capacity, constitutes the totality of that which belongs, in a recollection without which it would stagger to the broadest sense, to the socially and historically its downfall. This seems to me to be what is called developed practice of music-making. The instru- for now. The European concept of art must also ments, the institutions, the conventions of perfor- be set apart from all the non-European forms of mance and notation and the accompanying art by which we allow ourselves to be fascinated ­theories and orders, systems and hierarchies — as something exotic, not least because, beyond but equally the corresponding forms and their mere aesthetic magic, we also sense their rituals of reception. authenticity and rooting in an intact conception of Composing means starting with these found the world as a challenge to our own fundamental components as collectively familiar , and hence loss of the same, though we often try to repress magically charged elements, and reflecting upon, Helmut Lachenmann this aspect and comfortably relish the aesthetic transforming, even eroding or destroying them. (A talk given at the Réseau Varèse magic of the exotic as cultural tourists and, as shifting them from their familiar setting to a new, Public Conference, National Library, creative artists, are frequently guilty of cleverly and indeed newly individuated one: the C major Oslo, ­Friday 24 October 2005) appropriating it: non-European art, the music of triad, familiar since Palestrina, but radically differ- gagaku, of gamelan or of Tibetan monks as fresh ent in its orientation and newly defined through sustenance for a society whose cultural fatigue its changed context in Beethoven’s Fifth Sym- Upon the outbreak of the first world war, when The suppression of freedom and culture in Euro- is a result of its own lack of orientation. I spoke of phony, and once again in Wagner’s Meistersinger, German and Austrian newspapers were busy pean democracies no longer takes the form of out- delimiting. But delimitation does not mean a extending to the ‘cheap C major coin’(Adorno) outdoing one another in their patriotic enthusiasm right fascism. Staring at the mechanisms of turning away, let alone any contempt, but rather in Berg’s Wozzeck. This process of constant rupture for the war, the Austrian publicist Karl Kraus, oppression in partly bygone fascist systems, we a sensitised, perhaps enlightened engagement. of the magical and familiar in the name of an editor of the journal Die Fackel between 1895 are largely blind to those mechanisms of oppres- European culture has always poached in the individuality that gradually emancipates itself, even and 1935, published that legendary article entitled sion operating more or less subtly and crippling domains of foreign cultures. Important works have to the point of conscious self-erasure, has given ‘In dieser grossen Zeit’ (‘In These Great Times’), the spirit in our Western profit- and fun-oriented sprung from this (Mahler, Ravel, Schubert). But rise to the rapid process of stylistic change from in which he not only warned the public, but in fact civilisation. They have not been seen through any- the same condition that applies to dealing with the early monody to Bach, Mozart and Beethoven directly opposed this enthusiasm and propheti- where near enough to counteract what they have fascinations of our own tradition also applies to Schoenberg, serialism, the complexity of the cally foresaw the European catastrophe and the caused: the evidently unstoppable destruction to dealing with those exotic fascinations: their structuralists and the non-music of John Cage. ‘last days of humanity’. When the Nazis came ­perhaps not of mankind, but certainly of humanity. magical energy must not simply be used, but to power in 1933, Kraus remained silent, to the With regard to the increasing erosion of our rather transformed wisely by the creative spirit. horror and disappointment of all like-minded ­culture under the dictatorship of ignorantly But this also means: it must be broken through persons, who had expected another fiery protest. manipulated majority decisions and economically-­ intervention in its given structure. Music, as it has After causing his followers further confusion with based practical constraints, the sole concern of developed its autonomy as art in European cul- a four-page issue of Die Fackel containing nothing those who are vigilant and think responsibly must — tural history — at the expense of its former ritual but a Shakespeare sonnet and its German trans- following the Kraussian dictum — be to bring the bonds — defines itself, or perhaps displays itself in lation — confusion and irritation, not least when he ‘spirit’ — ie ‘art’ — to safety. And as art itself has retrospect, as a magic that has been seized by filed a lawsuit against a newspaper on account evidently become the medium of a false security the human will and its creative energy, and thus of an incorrectly-set comma and printed the com- for a liberally-styled society that wishes to see taken over by the spirit; in this sense it has been ments on his silence published everywhere in its own standardised moral concepts preserved broken, ie, divested of its irresistible irrational a further, substantially longer issue of the journal, within it, as it seems — as a demanding, yet at the dominance and relativised in its collective magic. Kraus presented the public with that over 400- same time rather museum-like variant of the all-­ page article in which he reacted to the outrage suffocating, all-pervasive service sector, that The concept of art, as delimited in this perhaps directed at him with the statement: ‘You are ex­­ industrial factor known as ‘entertainment’ — to have provisional definition, and at once freed of its pecting me to spit into a crater’ and the conclusion become a sort of refuge for those who, as cultural socially standardised self-image, and for all its dis- that there could now be only one concern: ‘to enthusiasts, are capable of no other reaction in cipline infinitely open, should — and this seems bring language to safety’. their paralysis before the threats to human exist- to me to be what is called for now — recognise itself ence they seek to repress than burying their in this sense. Far from becoming academically-­ heads in the sand of a false philharmonic security cemented, it could thus rather become the entrance

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Is That Really a Harpsichord ? Or, La Lontananza: Drawn to the North. A Portrait of Salvatore Sciarrino

Text: Nicholas H. Møllerhaug 2002

Città di Castello, Italy. The town seems to consist During winter Salvatore Sciarrino lives on the top of an unbroken sea of rooftops. Only a few build- floor of his sixteenth-century apartment, which ings rise above the others, all of them about five has two large studies. storeys high. Everything is tinted by the red glow These are the headquarters of Sciarrino’s of the evening sun and the surrounding mountains. world-­embracing activities. In this palace of his A wall built in the middle ages encircles the town, he writes music which is indebted to everything ‘Castle Town’ — for that is what Città di Castello around him — Sciarrino is highly influenced by means. Outside the walls there are forests and hills his surroundings. He refers to them continuously. and frogs and birds. We are in the heart of Italy, At the moment it is the thrushes on the rooftops in Umbria. The frogs will be singing all night. They which lend their nuances to his music. Sciarrino begin to sing as the darkness settles everywhere. reproduces the songs of all twelve of them, includ- A dimly lit room with a rooftop terrace is the only ing his own imaginary bird. ‘You see, thrushes source of light. A bearded man sits bent over a sing when they relax. Instead of going to the desk, working to the amphibian accompaniment. ­cinema, they sing. I think it’s a nice thing to know.’ On the desk lies a huge sheet of paper covered in notes, lines and words. The bearded man utters At night Sciarrino’s pen sings with the frogs, buzzes words which spread out in the room. More words with the insects. He listens to the creaking of follow, accompanied by the sound of an instrument. the veranda; the insects sing to him from the plants The broad-nibbed pen gives shape to the sounds and flowers. Sciarrino himself is singing; each on the sheet of paper. On the walls of the room year he gives voice to new operas the like of which are paintings, pieces of music and greetings, as the world has never heard. He has been called far as one can see. One particular picture consists the renewer of Italian opera, and is currently com- of silhouettes of famous poets; a Burri painting pleting his most recent work. Perhaps it will take showers its substance over the workhorse. Piles of the genre one step further than his previous opera padded envelopes and stacks of CDs from all Macbeth, which was premiered in Germany in over the world. Small handwritten advertisements, June 2001. a lighted sign advertising Pirelli tyres. All these Institutions have queued up to commission objects create a fascinating place of work. new works; one of these new works is the clarinet The walls which embrace the work room have pro- concerto to be performed at the Ultima Festival tected people for over five hundred years. in Oslo. The daytime sounds consist of tramping

90 91 Ultima 25 Selected writings feet, voices, the rattle of cups and glasses and the only one recording of a work I wasn’t too proud of. who has also performed them. Sciarrino himself hiss of espresso machines. All can be heard on I was embarrassed to be playing something I prefers less ‘hyped up’ engagements. He is more the top floor of Sciarrino’s flat, interspersed with didn’t even like myself. As I put on the recording sympathetic to smaller idealistic festivals and chimes from the Byzantine bell tower just a few I realised that he wasn’t such a bad person. ensembles. This is evident in his commission for rooftops away. The roofs create a specific pattern, He was far from egocentric and primadonna-like­ — the Ultima Festival, and in Macbeth, a large-scale undisturbed for centuries. This is where Sciarrino despite the poor recording he showed interest opera which was premiered at a small festival feels most at home. He knows what he is talking in the music. He asked me several questions in in Schwetzingen near Mannheim this summer. about, having been born in the noisy city of front of the audience: ‘How did you make that New York will have to wait. After the premiere in Palermo and growing up in Bologna, another particular sound?’ He asked what instrument it was Schwetzingen it is the turn of Ultima, an event city full of noise. For a number of reasons Sciarrino we were listening to. It was an early work for that Sciarrino has been looking forward to for decided some years ago to leave the city, to harpsichord in Sicilian style. He couldn’t believe a long time. He was fascinated by Norway when move away from the metropolis. To a small town, it was a harpsichord — ‘It doesn’t sound like one!’ he attended the Music Factory festival in Bergen one in the archipelago of towns that make up He showed an increasing interest in my music, a couple of years ago. the region of Umbria. For nearly a thousand years which has meant a great deal to me. And this is ‘What made the deepest impression was the this part of Italy has been a spiritual centre. It was where the wanderer — ‘il camminante’ — comes in. light. The very special, diffuse light at night. This here the religious movement inspired by Francis He thought that the direction I was taking was was in May. The light was there all the time like of Assisi began. In Perugia there was a school of interesting and uniquely personal. And that is a a blanket, even with the mountains surrounding music in the Middle Ages. But the beauty of the very generous view to take from such a great the town. It was as if everything had no colour — region is slowly changing: despite the many composer as Nono. After a while he programmed but when the sun rose, it all exploded! Everything ­picturesque places the countryside is heavily my music along with his own. From this first was infused with light. Another thing I’ve often ­polluted by traffic. meeting in Venice we had been good friends. thought about is the god Apollo. He came from the It was the polluted air that prompted Sciarrino The older he grew, the closer we became. north — Hyperborea, the realm beyond the north- to move up to the mountains — the air in Milan Sciarrino has himself written a work with ern lights. Up in the north Apollo was de­­picted was full of dirt. Sciarrino’s Renaissance house is full ‘La lontananza’ in the title: All’aure in una lon- as a grey swan. It’s wonderful to imagine these of colour. His unexpected interest in art is mani- tananza (1977). Is that simply a coincidence things. It all makes me excited about coming back fested in the many paintings on the walls, wonder­ or is there any connection with La Lontananza to the north. That’s something to look ­forward ful works of art from many different periods. Nostalgica…? to living here in the south of Europe.’ The furniture bears witness to Sciarrino’s good taste; ‘Hmm. Of a kind. “La Lontananza” — “farness” many of the pieces are very old, and some are — isn’t used in modern Italian. Except very rarely. Sciarrino always begins his working day by going also very rare. A number of items have been Only in Italian Baroque literature do we find the for a walk. It is important to him to maintain reproduced in his book Le Forme de la Musica: word used. Yes, there is in fact an indirect link good relations with his neighbours. In the eighties, Sciarrino’s interest in art is not confined to hanging between me and Gigi. Ten, fifteen years before when Sciarrino moved there, he found a town it on the wall; paintings provide an important Gigi wrote La Lontananza I wrote a work with La and a way of life still very much under the influence musical and aesthetic point of reference. The book lontananza in it. I had taken the title from a work of antiquity. This was perfect for Sciarrino after investigates the relationship between various by the Baroque poet Giovanni Battista Marino many years in Milan. There was nobody trying to types of visual form — architectonic, graphic, geo- called All’aure in una lontananza. I know that Gigi elbow their way into the limelight. The atmosphere graphic — and musical form. The book also tells linked his work indirectly with mine. The word is of the place was very relaxed. But all this is of its author’s open approach to his self-taught art only usually found in much old literature.’ changing now. Nonetheless, not one of the inhab- of musical composition. Sciarrino first wanted to itants is in doubt that Sciarrino is a true maestro. be a painter. His shelves are filled with books on Sciarrino’s book Le figure della musica: da They call ‘Ciao maestro!’ to him. Sciarrino himself everything from birds and animals to skyscrapers. ­Beet­hoven a oggi (1998) is his artistic credo. has the impression that the town has changed A framed piece of manuscript paper with hand- It provides a well-written insight into the references a lot in recent years. Many of the oldest inhabitants written music on it bears a dedication from a for his activities. He uses these references to are gone. But Sciarrino’s favourite cafe is still a close friend, the composer Luigi Nono, whose La ­illustrate the relationship between various aesthetic regular port of call on his morning stroll; his coffee lontananza nostalgica utopica futura is dedi- principles. The book is based on a series of lec- appears on the counter — pronto! at the same cated to Salvatore: ‘Il camminante — the wanderer.’ tures Sciarrino gave in Italy. The musical examples time every morning. Sciarrino can hear the hiss and many exemplifying illustrations make this of the espresso machine several blocks away. ‘Luigi Nono, or Gigi among friends, often called me an unusual and absorbing coffee table item. And so it is with Sciarrino’s music. You can the wanderer. Gigi means a lot to me both on a ­Sciarrino spent much time assembling the book; tell from a long way off that it is his — an ocean personal and a musical level. Most importantly as it took him a year to prepare the texts alone. of newly discovered instrumental sounds, an a friend. I’ve never been particularly concerned Now he has little time for philosophising on unusual insight into the craft of instrumentation, with his musical style. We became friends in 1979, music; composing has taken over completely. the hint of recycled music of all periods and by which time he was already quite famous, but Audiences, festival organisers, orchestras and ­genres, from Ellington to Scarlatti, a multitude only a few knew of my music. We were both to ensembles are all demanding more of his music. of sounds like the frogs accompanying Sciarrino’s have works performed at the same concert, I think Leading conductors around the globe want evening. Or as Nono put it: ‘Is that really it was in Venice. Before the concert we were to ­Sciarrino’s music on their programmes — Pierre a harpsichord?’ present and talk about our music, and play some Boulez included. Several of Sciarrino’s piano examples. I was not looking forward to this. I had ­concertos are dedicated to Maurizio Pollini,

92 93 Ultima 25 Norwegian composers

94 95 Ultima 25 Norwegian composers

96 97 Ultima 25 Norwegian composers

98 99 Ultima 25 Norwegian composers

100 101 Ultima 25 Norwegian composers

102 103 Ultima 25 Selected writings

104 105 Ultima 25 Selected writings

But for the most part one listens to an inex- twenty-first birthday, so it was only fair that they haustible arsenal of recordings ranging from early should pay for the court case.’ music to contemporary — preferably authentic interpretations of the great masters. Thommessen After this dose of Thommessenian logic we turn has tens of thousands of CDs, LPs and tape reels; to his opera Hermafroditten (The Hermaphrodite). What a Stolen Cello as he talks enthusiastically about the next piece of It was begun in 1970, completed in 1982, and music we’re going to hear he lunges out, appar- performed to great acclaim three years later at the ently at random, and picks up the CD in question. Royal Opera in Sweden, who also performed it When asked how he manages to remember at the Bergen International Festival the same year. Can lead To: where everything is, he says distractedly, ‘My Since then, nobody has seen it. At least now we dear, I live here!’ will have the chance to hear it. Then the listening begins, and this is the point ‘The opera is about sexuality. Each scene pre- where a mere journalist is humbled. Thommessen’s sents a different approach to the subject, treating Olav Anton Thommessen’s attitude to what he hears is intense and sensual; themes of lust, love and sexuality. The final scene when you see his arm and head movements, the is very grotesque, that’s why nobody wants to term ‘musical gesture’ takes on a new meaning. put it on,’ claims Thommessen. th And you are drawn into this way of listening; the ‘I have considered doing what the Czech the- 60 Anniversary sound moves in plastic gestures, powerfully, hypno­ atrical ensemble Laterna Magica did at the tically, forwards, upwards, outwards... and you World Expo in Montreal in 1967: composing an begin to breathe with it. alternative final scene and letting the audience But what can one really write about it? To find vote on whether they want the grotesque ending out, we have put the challenge to Thommessen or the happy one. But I doubt it would help. the day before he is due to talk about his own and I’ve suggested it to the Norwegian National Opera, others’ treatments of earlier composers’ works but they weren’t interested. I thought that since Text: Hilde Holbæk-Hanssen at the Bergen International Festival. they didn’t want an opera on the theme that most 2006 Can you say something about the cello/organ operas are about — love — then I should try the concerto Gjennom Prisme? other big theme, murder. And so I wrote Hertu­ ‘It was a work I just had to write. A boyhood ginnen dør in which there are four murders in forty-­ ‘What is all this?’ asks Olav Anton Thommessen To write about Thommessen is something of dream of writing something really big. A pubertal five minutes. But they didn’t want that one either.’ when we meet him in a hotel lobby in Bergen. a challenge. He is a firework, exploding with explosion! Pitting a large solo instrument against And that is as far as we got. Not exactly an ‘“I have been asked to write about you for Ultima’s knowledge and opinions. Raging furiously one a small one, on either side of a large orchestra, in-depth look at Thommessen’s music, but it programme book and would like to talk to about minute, warm and calm the next. From this point was very fascinating. I took a year and a half off doesn’t really matter. Thommessen’s music has to this. I am to write about you reaching 60 and of view he is the perfect object for an interview, my studies at the Music Academy to do it. I hadn’t be experienced. about your works that are being performed at the but when it comes to his insight into things musical, been commissioned to write it, so it was a bit festival.” How kind!’ it is difficult to match him — not to mention his of a chance to take. And it took more than twenty In honour of Thommessen’s fiftieth birthday, enthusiasm for music. And he is highly critical of years before it was performed in concert, which a collection of his articles entitled Olav Anton what is written about music. was at the Bergen Festival last year.’ Thommessen: Inspirer — Tradition-bearer — Provo- A privileged group of people have ‘lessons’ But you received the Nordic Council Music cateur was published. That was already ten years with Olav Anton Thommessen, individually. It is Prize for the work in 1990? ago! ‘Fifty is something you celebrate, sixty is not possible to converse with more. The sessions, ‘Yes, on the basis of a radio recording made by a form of recognition,’ says Thommessen. And which take place at intervals of a few months, Karsten Andersen and the Oslo Philharmonic with wasn’t around to celebrate his birthday. start at 7:30 pm in the kitchen where the guest is Truls Mørk on cello and Kåre Nordstoga on organ.’ But he won’t be allowed to get off so lightly. served a glass of wine and forbidden to help What was the starting point of the work? Within Ultima’s theme ‘Music and Memory’ he ­prepare the food. Matters sociological, musical ‘I’ve always loved the cello. An incredibly dra- is an obvious contributor, despite the fact that only and personal are eagerly discussed while the host matic instrument! I began playing it myself when one of the three works of his to be performed moves back and forth between fridge and I was eighteen after having stolen a cello from is taken from his many compositions based on pressure-­cooker. After the meal has been con- a fellow student at The Hill School in New York.’ material by deceased predecessors. sumed Thommessen and his guest retire to the Sorry? This year’s programme includes the works famous ‘composer’s attic’ for the evening’s concert-­ ‘I stole it. It was in terrible shape and I put it Gjennom Prisme with the Oslo Philharmonic cum-lecture. All the walls are covered with sound right. Spent a lot of money on having it repaired. Orchestra and Øystein Birkeland (cello); Oslo and film recordings. The DVDs are stored along After that I considered it mine. I won the court case.’ Sinfonietta’s concertante performance of the the ceiling beams. The place is a treasure trove Court case? opera Hermafroditten; and pianist Joachim of musical highlights: opera from the festivals in ‘Yes, the other boy’s parents wanted it back.’ Kjeldsaas Kwetzinsky’’ interpretation of Einge- ­Bayreuth and Salzburg, and film footage of Not really surprising, perhaps? BACHt. This last work was written for the Bach bygone phenomena such as Mengelberg and ‘Well, my parents helped me with the case, so anniversary in 1985 and uses material from the Furtwangler is shown with the help of a screen and we won. It was fair.’ old master’s Toccata in D. projector that he has miraculously managed to How was it fair? squeeze in there. ‘My parents had given my sister a car for her

106 107 Ultima 25 Ensembles & performers

108 109 Ultima 25 Ensembles & performers

110 111 Ultima 25 Selected writings

The Sinfonietta: The Ensemble of Our Times

Text: Kåre Kolberg Translation: Palmyre Pierroux 1993

It should not be necessary to examine a painful composer coming to his first rehearsal to hear youthful memory if it were not that it provides how terrible his music sounds, as it always does a vivid description of a particular period of time. at the first rehearsal. An older colleague of mine was to have a prize-­ winning orchestral work performed that contained Was the composer merely afraid and insecure — some unusual notation, and the atmosphere at or was there a reason for the intensity of the rehearsals was not the best. It became so unpleas- almost hateful repugnance? What was it that ant after a while that the foreign conductor — prompted musicians, up until the end of the 70s, a prominent interpreter of contemporary music — to sit and sneer contemptuously out in the hall decided to remove the work from the programme. while they played their long cluster tones, in order His decision was met with applause from the to communicate how little they thought of what orchestra, and an uneasy conductor said that he they were doing? What kind of orchestral disci- found it odd that the removal of a colleague’s pline permitted such conduct? One has attempted work should be applauded. He received his reply: to explain these attitudes by the lack of higher He sure as hell isn’t our colleague. musical education here in this country, but this My fellow composer was not fond of brief is inadequate, since they were not a particularly telephone conversations, and they certainly didn’t Norwegian phenomenon — quite the opposite. become any briefer around this time. What upset Could it be that there was a genuine fear at that him most was not the opposition and resistance time of contemporary music as an approaching to solving the problems that his special notation threat to the established orchestra culture, which entailed, but the hateful atmosphere of the most had the classic/romantic repertoire as its purpose? vicious expression — as he experienced it, Absolutely, for this was the period when modern- although perhaps he was merely afraid and ism bristled with belief in the future and it was oversensitive. only a question of time before the majority of the It could be tough to be an orchestra composer population would be walking the streets whistling at that time, especially when you had the feeling small twelve-tone melodies in 13/17 part measures. that nearly one hundred men — understanding that This certainly has been a relevant factor: orchestras were not that large at that time — were that the modern symphony’s real task is the out to get you. And it was not difficult for close to upkeep of the classic/romantic repertoire, and one hundred men to conspire against a terrified that its status is linked to a desire to maintain this

112 113 Ultima 25 Selected writings repertoire as the primary concert hall programme. and even if neither personal initiative nor idealism They performed at the Stenersen Collection and create exciting constellations. This has led to Bore- That is the reason that the musicians sit there; sound like incriminating expressions, too many became prominent players in the Bergen chapter of alis performances at varied types of arrange- that is the reason that the audience has come. opportunities remain neglected due to practical Ny Musikk. There were other ensembles in Bergen ments; at Freia’s popular concerts as well as considerations. That is to say, economic, adminis- for contemporary music in addition to BIT 4. The ISCM’s World Music Days and Ultima. Borealis’s Today, reactions such as those mentioned above trative and personal sacrifices are not a good state most outstanding was the ensemble Gruppe 20, members come from the Oslo Philharmonic would be unthinkable; orchestral discipline would of affairs; enthusiasts often become tiresome. which had the music of [the 20th] century as their Orchestra, where several of the ensemble’s musi- make them impossible. Musicians might come On the other hand, there is certainly some- primary focus and placed strong emphasis on the cians sit as principal players within their respective ­forward and question, and this might well be fright- thing promising in that which is still taking shape, early decades and the second Viennese school. instrumental groups. ening. However, it does not stem from a plan and there is a challenge here that we must take In 1989, these two ensembles combined names of common deception or a wish to make the com- care to nurture. There is also something valuable and activities, called themselves BIT 20, and And now we have come to something significant poser uncomfortable, rather from a genuine in the fact that ensembles set up in order to per- appeared under the administrative leadership of regarding the sinfonietta: that it has no definitive ­interest in doing as good a job as possible. ­Neither form music which is not established and is asso- Stein Henrichsen as a professional contemporary form; actually, we don’t really know what a sinfo- should there be concern of a threat to the domi- ciated with uncertainty, are typically not estab- ensemble with high quality performances. They nietta is. The music lexicon is not of great assis- nance of the classic/romantic repertoire in the lished and characterised by uncertainty them- quickly prevailed in the city’s music life, and tance. It can tell us that a sinfonietta is a small symphony orchestra, from any direction. selves; understanding as well that one should not ­Bergen’s audience, in contrast to Oslo’s, are city symphony or orchestra, which is not very informa- The symphony orchestra is far from incapable exaggerate the parallels. patriots and supported the ensemble, filling tive. We know that it is a chamber ensemble over of playing Baroque music, and even does so their concerts. They became recognised nationally a certain size, but to what degree we’re not really ­sporadically. Neither is it incapable of playing The Norwegian Sinfonietta had a cautious and as well, with radio broadcasts and participation sure. It is, incidentally, not so important either. contemporary music, which it also does sporadi- hesitant start. In 1982 Asbjørn Schaathun, a music in festivals such as Ultima and Nordlyd. We know that it has seen an intense blossoming cally — very sporadically. It is the orchestra’s student at the time, assembled some fellow students In addition, there has been a large amount of in recent years, both here at home and elsewhere ­principal repertoire that sets the terms; all else must under his leadership in what was called the international interest in BIT 20, which has received in the world, and that we must acknowledge it conform, all else becomes marginal, and there ­Norwegian Academy of Music’s Contemporary dozens of invitations and serves as our foremost as the ensemble form of our times. Let us hope that is no reason to believe that this will change in the Ensemble with the aim of providing performing ambassador for Norwegian contemporary music it continues in this manner, as a flexible and varied near future, if ever. students practice and experience with contempo- abroad. BIT 20 is supported by the Norwegian ensemble, both with respect to programme pro- So is this just another refrain in the old lament rary music, as well as an opportunity for com­ Council for Cultural Affairs with a three-year grant file, size and type of groupings as well as work about the symphony orchestra, so frequently position students to hear their works performed. and also receives support, although modest, from methods. And let us hope that it will have the heard from both composers and critics? In that In the meantime, the ensemble very quickly made the Bergen municipality. ability to change, renew and, if necessary, dissolve case, it would probably be sadly unsuccessful a large impact in musical life beyond the peda- In 1977, Ny Musikk founded its first Norwegian itself in order for coming generations to not be left and futile. The symphony orchestra itself has chosen gogic arena and concerts were performed at ensemble for contemporary music, with Ole- with a static ensemble form with a set repertoire. its form, its repertoire and its audience, and Høvikodden and at Ny Musikk events. The admin- Wiggo Bang as its artistic director. In 1988, the ­perhaps it is best to allow this to be the concern istration was not particularly extensive — it was organisation determined that a more flexible Those who are at all familiar with what is happen- of the symphony orchestra and not for us. Our based in the leader’s student apartment. When ensemble solution was desired, with possibilities ing within Norwegian music will quickly discover concern must be to recognise the possibilities Schaathun returned to Norway in 1985 following for a sinfonietta orchestra as well as other and that it is neither within the forms of the small available in our situation, which are not as limited a study period in England, several of the ensem- smaller groupings. The solution became Cikada, chamber groups nor the large orchestras that the as they seem. As composers have put behind ble’s musicians had completed their education and a pool of musicians consisting of nine permanent most, and the most new, is created today. The most them some of the more provocative means of were already safely placed in our orchestras. members and forming a sinfonietta, a string and the most new occurs today precisely within expression and recognised that not all suggestions The Oslo Sinfonietta was founded in 1985 with quartet, a duo for piano and percussion as well the sinfonietta and the larger chamber orchestras. for new notation were practical, we have, at the some of these performers serving as its basis, as other more or less steady groupings. Cikada It is also worth noting that even if the sinfonietta same time, also acquired a new generation of and has since distinguished itself in Norwegian quickly created a reputation for itself, particularly is a newly blossomed form of ensemble, it cap- musicians. They are meeting the new, not with musical life with concerts, recordings and partici- through its participation in World Music Days in tures styles that span a spectrum containing mod- fear and aggression but as a challenge — without pation in festivals for contemporary music. 1990, which led to invitations to important festivals ernists, minimalists and new romantics; yes, even viewing unconventional notation and playing Throughout this time, the work has been shaped by for contemporary music. It has also become musical tradition can be expressed. The flexibility methods as deliberate obstacles. an administration very dependent upon its leader one of our most well-travelled ensembles. with regard to style and programming makes it We should be able to acknowledge the new and the grant authorities’ wait-and-see attitude. possible for the various ensembles to define their opportunities we have had to hear works with Despite this, the Oslo Sinfonietta has managed to The fourth Norwegian sinfonietta ensemble has own profile. There is every reason to consider the large chamber orchestras performed in an environ­ achieve recognition far beyond this country’s a different profile. Borealis was founded in 1989 sinfonietta with both expectation and anticipation, ment where they belong, opportunities that were ­borders, and has had a number of flattering invi- and rapidly distinguished itself as once of our as a musical form and a type of ensemble in very limited earlier. Previously, one was required tations, from the USA among others. A number ­foremost ensembles. Contemporary music has ­continual development and renewal. We must hope to concentrate on either smaller ensembles or of prestigious concerts are planned for 1994–95, always been an important part of its repertoire that the situation a few generations from now is full orchestras. Today there is a well-­developed as well as recordings and radio programmes. and Borealis has commissioned works from not characterised by many sinfoniettas as alike as apparatus within contemporary music, with prominent younger Norwegian composers such raspberries, all performing the same works, financing (too little, it’s true), with administration While Schaathun gathered his fellow students in as Åse Hedstrøm, Rolf Wallin and Asbjørn and quarrelling about who performs them the best. (flawed, it’s also true), with musicians, and not Oslo, Geir Johnson assembled instrumental Schaathun, which are performed in addition to its least, an audience. ­students from the Bergen Conservatory of Music international repertoire. However, Borealis is also Yes, this well-developed apparatus should at approximately the same time, in an ensemble a sinfonietta that associates itself with tradition, probably be considered at the vey least with that was named BIT 4. The ensemble was also both through the performance of music from earlier a good deal of scepticism. Too much continues founded with the purpose of performing contem- periods and through programmes in which music to depend on personal initiative and idealism, porary music, particularly of Norwegian origin. from various periods and genres is combined to

114 115 Ultima 25 A young person’s guide

116 117 Ultima 25 A young person’s guide

118 119 Ultima 25 Opening spaces

120 121 Ultima 25 Electronic currents

122 123 Ultima 25 Electronic currents

124 125 Ultima 25 Maverick spirits

126 127 Ultima 25 Maverick spirits

128 129 Ultima 25 Selected writings

The Universal Anthem

Text: Rob Young 2014

In any land, when the national anthem comes on worlds’, sculpting elemental musical forms that the radio, or is played in public, everyone is eliminated divisions between Western harmony expected to stand, sing along, show respect. In this and Eastern modes, working in an apartment official setting, the national anthem reveals the in Rome, which he described as ‘the boundary undemocratic side of democracy, with disapprov- between East and West… it runs right here, ing looks directed at those who don’t sing out. through my drawing room’. His music avoided But freedom must also mean the freedom to being locked to a particular place, and a single refuse to join in. spectral note could wipe out the old divisions And so, as radio stations begin to close down between ancient and modern, orient and occident. for the night, or to move to automated playlists, His cosmic music reminds the citizens of all the national song marks the transition to a new nations that they are also citizens of a single, day. But what if something stranger, more alien, spherical supra-nation, orbiting the sun. emerged from the airwaves? It might sound something like Hymnen, the massive electronic From the 1950s into the sixties, the ideas of uni- montage of national and political music realised versal harmony and political utopianism became by Karlheinz Stockhausen in 1967. Hymnen event more closely linked in the arts. From Jasper expresses the idea that culture could overspill Johns’s abstract expressionist degradations of the national borders and represent a totalised view US flag, to Buckminster Fuller’s ‘Fuller Projection’ of the citizens of the world, and it arrived at of the earth’s land masses — part of the US archi- exactly the historical moment in which Marshall tect’s vision of an ‘Operating Manual for Spaceship McLuhan was proposing the notion of the global Earth’ — and a little later, Swedish artist Öyvind village, and interplanetary space travel was Fahlström’s work with maps that drew on United looking like a genuine possibility. Stockhausen Nations and other data to show a world facing appeared on the sleeve of The Beatles’ Sgt crisis. French musique concrète pioneer Pierre ­Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in mid-1967, Schaeffer worked towards his ambitious theory and shortly after its release, the British group of a solfège of sound objects, an infinite lexicon performed the first globally televised satellite of all available sounds. The multimedia piece broadcast in history, singing their new song ‘All HPSCHD, by John Cage and computer musician You Need is Love’ — a trans-national anthem if Lejaren Hiller, sampled the NASA photographs ever there was one — to a worldwide audience of that were showing Earth dwellers their home 400 million in a programme called Our World. planet from outside its borders for the first time. It is a natural product of the post-war radio- In this utopian vision of Spaceship Earth, all phonic age, which also produced the extraordinary ­citizens had the right to take the controls. music of Giacinto Scelsi. It is a ‘journey to an inaccessible place’ based on the composer’s inten- When did music first make a claim of universal- sive concentration on the physical sensations, ity? For the answer, we can look to the choice overtones and vibrations of a single note. Scelsi made by the European Union — then called the himself was both of the world and apart from it: EEC — for its own European Anthem. The final an international traveller who lived in London and movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No 9, con- Paris before the war, stranded in peaceful Switzer­ taining the choral setting of Schiller’s poetry that land while it was raging. After the war, he has come to be known as the Ode To Joy, is the ­described­­ himself as a ‘messenger between two official anthem of the EU in a version recomposed

130 131 Ultima 25 by the German conductor Herbert von Karajan in ‘National anthems are more than national the 1970s. Why wasn’t a new anthem composed anthems,’ said Stockhausen, ‘they are “charged” for this new coalition of countries? When various with time, with history — with past, present and other nations turned to the classical tradition for future.’ A piece such as Hymnen was only possible an off the peg national anthem, the selections in the post-war age of musique concrète, collage, tended to be rather bland populist hits: Char- sound as physical object, and in an age where pentier and fragments of Handel’s Messiah, for music was mostly experienced in recorded form. instance, were among the early suggestions for This allowed a long range perspective upon the the European project. ‘They were all typical world of historical sound which informs Luciano examples of political music but without roots in Berio’s Coro, which takes the folk and ethnic history, and all of them set out to express a notion musics of many world tribes and cultures as its of a new identity in an old way,’ says Esteban launch pad. Coro, premiered in 1976 — the same Buch in his book-length study of the ways in which year the Voyager spacecraft blasted off with Beethoven’s ninth, with its sentiments of universal a golden record containing greetings in fifty-five brotherhood (‘Alle menschen werden Bruder’) has languages and ninety minutes of music from been appropriated by competing factions over Spaceship Earth — is based upon ‘a development two centuries. ‘The paradox of the whole proceed- of folk techniques and modes which are combined ing resided in the fact that in building the new, without any reference to specific songs’, said men were turning toward the old,’ Buch observes. the Italian composer. Literally throwing its singers and instrumentalists together, Berio creates Nevertheless, there is an appropriateness in a ­chaotic multiplicity that mirrors the development selecting a piece of late Beethoven. By the time of a multicultural world metropolis such as São he composed the ninth, Beethoven had conjured Paulo, Mexico City or Los Angeles, where up an idea of the ‘Empire of the Mind’, immersing planned grids dissolve into anarchic hinterlands. himself in Immanuel Kant’s Universal History of In amongst the hybridity, lines of Pablo Neruda’s Nature And the Theory of the Heavens and the poetry drift in and out of focus, as if asking the writings of British orientalist William Jones, who question, how much power can an individual voice was interested in the all-encompassing energies hold onto among the chaos and noise of the of Brahma from his studies of ancient Indian texts. ­modern world? Through these dynamics of the Closer to home, a petition to the composer en­­ single voice inside (or against) the larger common couraging him to perform his new symphony in his voice, Coro dramatises the key relationship adopted country of Austria pleaded, ‘Beethoven’s between individual and state. name and his creations belong to all contempora- neous humanity and every country that opens “Give me your hearts / I’m ready / There’s only one a sensitive heart to art…’ direction/One world, one nation/Yeah, one ‘A national anthem is the mirror of a people’s vision…” When Slovenian group Laibach comman- character’, wrote Richard Wagner in a moment of deered Queen’s hit single “One Vision” in 1987, astonishing wishful thinking. Of course, the music they retitled it “Geburt Einer Nation” (“Birth Of of Wagner, along with Beethoven, was among the A Nation”). Slowing Queen’s original down to favourites of the Nazi regime, which appealed a slug-paced crawl, they unpicked the fascistic to the emotions of a mass audience via the grand impulses at the song’s core, while the renaming classical tradition and the spectacle of mytho­ inevitably pointed to the DW Griffith film which logical opera. The first half of the twentieth century so unashamedly celebrated the racism of pre-civil saw composers of many nations — Vaughan rights America. As products of the former com- ­Williams, Ives, Tveitt, Sibelius, Ravel, Stravinsky, munist Yugoslavia, Laibach have deep insight into Albeniz, Villa Lobos, to name a few — striving the double edged nature of universalist propa- to create their own national musics, beyond the ganda when allied to savagely repressive politics. merely patriotic, that stirred deep and emotive A true citizen of the world recognises no connections with landscape, memory, folklore and place and every place as home. Works such as literature. That didn’t have to mean that the view- ­Mauricio Kagel’s Exotica, the omni-music of point was narrowed. Ralph Vaughan Williams, an ­composer Liza Lim, or the omnivorously multi-­ English socialist, believed that a passion for one’s national scenarios of Verdensteatret, are all own culture was a necessary thing to bring to the ­products of the global village, a village that has international table. swelled in the internet age to a town, a city, But after the shock and awe of the second a gigantic supra-nation of billions whose only world war, music often turned away from expres- borders are the rim of the planet. sions of national mythology towards the idea of sound that would harmonise the planetary nation.

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