Mari Mäntyläfinal.Indd
Orfeo Amoroso Mari Mäntylä decacorde1 Orfeo Amoroso My second decacorde disc is like a set of Orphean and the same to some extent applies to Pekka Jalkanen’s attributes: belief in the spellbinding power of music, Nocturne for Insomnia and The Bog Gypsies. The courage to rush headlong into danger, to love contrasts, four lowest strings have no frets in this ten-stringed to act rationally yet at the same time to rely on intuition guitar. I developed the instrument in partnership with and spontaneous displays of emotion. guitar maker Kauko Liikanen in 2015. In the earlier model I play for the other pieces (also built by Kauko There is contrast between the pieces, too. Almost all of Liikanen, in 2001), there are frets under all the strings. them were composed at my request; a few found their The absence of frets affords both the player and the way into my repertoire via other routes. The stylistic composer some interesting potential. Glissandos are range is broad. Most of the new works are in modern, unhindered and soft, microintervals come naturally neotonal styles such as those that have followed post- and the completely novel touch – the four lowest serialism. There is also evidence of instrumental fun bass strings being pressed on the fingerboard direct – and games in dialogue with the history of music, gives the colour scale of this big guitar instrument a Neoclassical stylisations and distancings, echoes of delightful, pizzicato-like hue. Estonian minimalism and ethnic influences. Only the work by Jukka Tiensuu for the new decacorde model, in which the lowest bass strings have no frets, travels a different, microtonal path.
[Show full text]