Arne Nordheim

octophonia lidholm lutosławski sallinen nordheim dan styffe double bass Ingvar Lidholm 1 fantasia sopra laudi 05:08 Witold Lutosławski 2 grave – metamorphoses for violincello and piano 06:22 Aulis Sallinen 3 elegia – sebastian knight’ille 04:45 a logic Arne Nordheim of three stanzas for double bass alone 12:40 4 i across / innover 04:51 memory 5 ii octophonia 05:05 6 iii searching / søkende 02:44 HILD BORCHGREVINK partita for six double basses 11:53 7 i passionato 03:32 8 ii morgana 03:25 A fascination for bell-like sounds is found in Three works by Nordheim form a kernel of 9 iii avanti 04:56 both Arne Nordheim’s instrumental and this recording, on which Dan Styffe has electronic music. The composer himself grouped together music originally written for 10 clamavi 09:47 linked this to the story of how, as a young boy, double bass with music for cello adapted for its he was asked to ring the church bells at the larger relative. The music is by composers who .......... liberation of Norway in May 1945. The sound are, in various ways, associated with Arne dan styffe – double bass of a church bell is not far from the sound of Nordheim's work. ingrid andsnes – piano the lowest strings on a double bass. The sound world of the double bass may also be Nordheim's education as an organist is håkon thelin, karol ciesluk, jon åsnes, eskild abelseth & mathias sunde valseth – double bass considered as related to Nordheim’s own reflected in how his music is often associated instrument, the church organ. with words and with the human voice. 2 3 Clamavi (1980), originally composed for cello recognized for his undogmatic, open approach an organist, writes a clear, open music. here harmonically condensed. The subtitle solo, is inspired by a biblical psalm, Psalm 141. to teaching. Partita has three movements. The Fantasia sopra laudi (1977) for cello solo builds points to Lutosławski’s own Funeral Music Its text is a dramatic cry for help, which first opens with dark, smoky sounds, almost on one of his own compositions, the choral (1958) and Lutosławski refers openly to both divides the world into good or evil people and beyond the range of human hearing. Later the work Laudi, with a text from chapter 14 in the works in his own programme note to this deeds. However, the psalm also concerns the composer builds layer upon layer of circular Book of Job: “Man, that is born of woman, is piece. During the international ISCM festival opposite of the cry – silence: “Lord, set a guard movements increasing in tempo before of few days and full of trouble.” The in Oslo in 1953, Arne Nordheim was on my mouth; keep watch over the door of my suddenly being cut off. The title of this movement is constructed in a way that keeps introduced to several contemporary East lips!” it says in one of the verses. In movement, Passinato, implies to filter or to sift. the performer on a rather tight leash – there is European composers and their textural Nordheim's oeuvre this work is a study for and The middle movement, Morgana, has a no room for unnecessary interpretive techniques of sound. Several of them, forerunner of Tenebrae (1982) for cello and different, ethereal feeling. A slow harmonic cavorting. But the music appears in spite of, or including Lutosławski, became important orchestra. Musically Clamavi centers on the pulse is introduced with light, restrained perhaps just because of this, very resounding. sources of inspiration for Nordheim’s own cry.The work opens with a motif that moves harmonics. Gradually the music is moving The framework makes individual notes slip development. Grave was written the year after from darkness to light and is repeated three faster, the sounds still vibrating, metallic and into the background and the space between Clamavi and works in an extended tonality times. Then begins a narrative of great open, in line with how the title alludes to them, a broader and slower pulse, comes into with a tone-row that consists of 24 notes, twice contrasts both in dynamics and timbre. The illusions and mirages. Towards the end, a focus. Where Nordheim often works with as many as in a normal row. music is loosely structured as a dialogue darker, concentrated landscape alternates with motifs and associations, Lidholm is a stricter between light and darkness, high and low, the dream-like feeling of the introduction. The technician of harmony, but with an unusually Both Arne Nordheim and Aulis Sallinen share strong and weak; perhaps between the little third movement, Avanti, unfolds a more organic way of writing that opens large musical a fascination for the human voice and a man and his God. traditional, dancing theme in a fugue-like vaults filled with light. commitment to social and political contexts of form. In a long section towards the middle, the music outside a purely aesthetic approach. In 1982, Nordheim wrote Partita for the six instruments are playing independently of Witold Lutosławski’s Grave: Metamorphoses for Sallinen worked for a long time as an unusual combination of six double basses, two one another in individual rhythms, ever more cello and piano is dedicated to the musicologist orchestral manager of the Finnish Radio of them with an extra, fifth string, and thereby slowly and softly. The division of roles between Stefan Jarocin´ski, a close friend of the Orchestra. Musically, his connection to a lower register. Something about this musical melody and lower parts becomes clearer, before composer, who died suddenly the year before Nordheim is less clear – Sallinen works form must have attracted him, since his list of it ends in a similar way to the first movement, Grave was written. In Polish, too, the title can idiomatically and practically, composing clear works contains five partitas in total, written for with a sharp pizzicato. mean both serious and a grave. Jarocin´ski was forms in a free-tonal landscape that often different instruments. This one is dedicated to closely acquainted with Debussy’s music. The emphasises the melodic. He grew up in Salmi the composer Finn Mortensen (1922-83), who Arne Nordheim studied privately with several letters D-A-G-A, which introduces the cello’s in Karelia, today Russian territory. The cello built up the first composition course at the composers, among them Ingvar Lidholm material, are said to be the forest theme from work Elegy for Sebastian Knight (1964) is Norwegian Academy of Music and was (b.1921) in Stockholm. Lidholm, who is also Debussy’s opera Pelléas et Mélisande (1898), relatively early piece that nevertheless represents a turning point in the composer’s the same sound was stretched out and read in practice, back to an expressive, free tonality. slow motion. Throughout the work this octave Sallinen has written several large symphonic figure alternates with a sequence of unstable works and operas, and his purely instrumental intervals, and moves up and down the register music also often involves fictional characters. like a slow cadence. In Søkende (Searching) a In this work the title refers to Vladimir slow melody alternates with short, sharp Nabokov’s first English-language novel, The chords before the music plunges into long Real Life of Sebastian Knight (1941). Nabokov runs, alternately played on bowed and plucked was a passionate chess player and is notorious strings. Towards the end, the octave figure for writing stories full of hidden numerical from the middle movement pays a visit structures. Amongst other things, the book is between the runs and lines, all in free tempo about the challenge of measuring time and the marked “irregolare, esitante”. similar impossibility of writing a biography. “I am Sebastian, or Sebastian is I, or perhaps we The darkness and opacity that attracted are both someone neither of us knows,” writes Nordheim to double basses and bell-ringing, is the author. also reflected in the way he allows his music to proceed in time. These works follow a logic of In Arne Nordheim’s Tre avsnitt for kontrabass memory and remembrance – they move alene (Three stanzas for double bass alone) irregularly, exploring and slowly, but freely, (1998) many years’ experience of working with and may as well twist into sudden associations. large orchestras are distilled into three small stories for solo double bass, all of which have a meditative, lingering character. The stanzas have both English and Norwegian titles. Innover (Across) (– in Norwegian the title may also mean "inwards") draws long, partly polyphonic lines that are gradually cut into shorter sequences, always multilayered. Octophonia opens with eight notes that extend the same pitch over four octaves, as if one and Ingvar Lidholm 1 fantasia sopra laudi 05:08 Witold Lutosławski 2 grave – metamorphoses for violincello and piano 06:22 Aulis Sallinen 3 elegia – sebastian knight’ille 04:45 a logic Arne Nordheim of three stanzas for double bass alone 12:40 4 i across / innover 04:51 memory 5 ii octophonia 05:05 6 iii searching / søkende 02:44 HILD BORCHGREVINK partita for six double basses 11:53 7 i passionato 03:32 8 ii morgana 03:25 A fascination for bell-like sounds is found in Three works by Nordheim form a kernel of 9 iii avanti 04:56 both Arne Nordheim’s instrumental and this recording, on which Dan Styffe has electronic music. The composer himself grouped together music originally written for 10 clamavi 09:47 linked this to the story of how, as a young boy, double bass with music for cello adapted for its he was asked to ring the church bells at the larger relative.

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