LEIF SEGERSTAM Symphonies Nos. 81, 162 & 181 @ Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra 1 2 LEIF SEGERSTAM (*1944) 1 Symphony No. 81 “After Eighty…” (2002) 25’26 2 Symphony No. 162 “Doubling the Number for Bergen!” (2006) 23’08 3 Symphony No. 181 “Names itself when played... = (raising the number with 100 for Bergen)” (2007) 22’35 Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra (without conductor) [71’29] Recorded live by NRK Alltid Klassisk Recordings: Bergen, Norway, Grieghallen, 9.10.2003 (No. 81), 28.2.2008 (No. 181), 13.11.2008 (No. 162) Executive Producer: Reijo Kiilunen Recording Producer & Engineer: Gunnar Herleif Nilsen ℗ 2010 Ondine Inc., Helsinki © 2010 Ondine Inc., Helsinki Booklet Editor: Jean-Christophe Hausmann Cover Photo: Heikki Tuuli Booklet Illustration: © Leif Segerstam (Page from autograph score of Symphony No. 162) Cover Design and Booklet Layout: Armand Alcazar 3 A SYMPHONY IS MAKING MUSIC TOGETHER – WITHOUT A CONDUCTOR Idea – inspiration – rapid composition. Voilà: a symphony is born! Each of Leif Segerstam’s symphonies lasts nearly half an hour yet takes up only a couple of pages of score. How is this possible? The answer is that the composer leaves a lot of freedom to the performers: not everything has to be precisely notated. Segerstam has been using this technique ever since his earliest orchestral works. But in 1993 he took a new – perhaps intentionally provocative – step and began to write orchestral pieces that require no conductor. His point was to release the latent creativity in orchestra musicians. “I wanted a performance to be a creative event, not a Prussian ploughing competition, which is what bar lines remind me of,” Segerstam said. Exact performing indications are no longer relevant in his music; he prefers to give musicians sounds to react to rather than pin them down with meticulous instructions and interpretations. It has been said that Segerstam’s works are all alike. But which great composer in the history of music is not instantly recognisable? Segerstam’s free-pulsative orchestral works feature powerful, rolling masses of sound that form scintillating culminations framing mysterious and lovely oases of tranquillity. Some twenty years ago, Segerstam said in an interview: “Nature is profligate, and if you listen to nature, you have to go through a lot of stuff to find the true gems. That is why I write so much music.” 4 Although Segerstam’s orchestral works – including but not limited to his nearly 250 symphonies – are chips off the same block, they do actually have individual characteristics. And every work sounds slightly different in each live performance. Music seems to erupt from Segerstam with a primeval fury. At his most productive he has written nearly 30 symphonies per year. “My symphonies are sperm. There is strength in numbers. Some will survive to take evolution forward.” Leif Segerstam (b. 1944) was always a fast learner. A precocious child, he learned to read text at the age of three and music at the age of five. He wrote his first compositions at the age of six. By his teens he had mastered several instruments. But later in life he has achieved legendary fame as a world-class conductor who looks like Brahms and can make Wagner, Mahler and Sibelius sound like nothing else on earth. He is capable of coaxing and, if necessary, coercing incredible effects out of an orchestra and has the capacity to see deep beyond the surface. Segerstam is a homo ludens, a playing man. As a composer, he dares to take creative risks, to seize the moment like a child and innocently put together seemingly incongruous building blocks. Playing is freedom, and it is a sort of freedom – like music – that is anchored deep in the aesthetic sensibility of the human race. Many of the titles Segerstam gives his works are puns or number games. The performances of the three symphonies on this disc were created with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra – without a conductor. The recordings were made at the actual world premiere performances. Symphony No. 81 is sub-titled “After Eighty...” (2002), perhaps alluding to a well-known brand of chocolate? Symphony No. 162 is double the aforementioned one, “Doubling the Number for Bergen...” (2006). Symphony No. 181, “Names itself when played... = (raising the number 5 with 100 for Bergen)”, plays around with the numbers 81 and 100, taking the number of Symphony No. 81 and adding 100 to it. These three symphonies, the “Bergen trilogy”, all feature colourful and fresh rolling masses of sound that envelop the listener as inexorably as swells in the ocean surround a swimmer. Resistance is useless. Symphony No. 81 begins with a tentative silence. It seems as if anything might happen. By contrast, Symphony No. 162 opens with a big bang that continues in a series of piercing, sparkling waves, one culmination after another seemingly without end. This is music that is wild and free, roaming the borderlands of crushing madness and calm sanity. Finally, the tumult spreads out across the orchestra and calms down as the familiar opening notes of Für Elise on the piano reveal a different world. This new landscape is like a mirror image. Elise=Alice? Through the Looking Glass. Languid psychedelic swirls of colour pass from one solo instrument to another. After a final squall, a lonely violin soars above the landscape in a serene melody, closing the gate to Wonderland. Symphony No. 181 begins with exploration, a violin enticing its friends to join it, a cross-current of music seeking direction. Having found its bearings, the music begins to sizzle with energy. The flow escalates into a waterfall whose foaming thunder yields to a sudden, tense silence. Distant bells... peace... sleep. A great dream bursts open in a furious bustle. The listener is pummelled with points of colour that assemble themselves in the mind into an endlessly swelling canvas of splatters. The expression action painting aptly describes this “all over” experience that has a flavour of something pompous yet heroic. 6 This is living in the “now moment”, in Leif Segerstam time: all that is left is making music together and the listener’s unique experience. Pekka Hako / Mats Reges (Translation: Jaakko Mäntyjärvi) The Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra is one of the world’s oldest orchestral institutions, with a history dating back to 1765. The orchestra has had a long tradition of performing contemporary music. Bergen-born composer Edvard Grieg had a close relationship with the orchestra and held the post of Artistic Director in 1880–1882. In 2003, Andrew Litton succeeded Simone Young as music director. One of Norway’s two national orchestras, the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra annually participates in the Bergen International Festival and tours regularly in Europe. The orchestra has performed for instance at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Royal Albert Hall in London, The Sage Gateshead, the Gasteig Philharmonie in Munich, the Vienna Musikverein and Konzerthaus, and Carnegie Hall in New York. The Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra has released several award- winning recordings on various labels. www.harmonien.no 7 SINFONIA ON YHTEISTÄ MUSISOINTIA – ILMAN KAPELLimestaria Idea – innoitus – nopea sävellysvaihe. Sinfonia on valmis! Leif Segerstamin lähes puolituntiset sinfoniat mahtuvat nuotteina muutamalle partituurinsivulle. Miten tämä on mahdollista? Vastaus: Säveltäjä on halunnut jättää paljon vapauksia soittajille, kaikkea ei tarvitse kirjoittaa tarkkaan nuoteiksi. Näin Segerstam menetteli jo varhaisissa orkesteriteoksissaan. Vuonna 1993 hän otti uuden – ehkä tahallaan poleemisen – askeleen. Tuolloin syntyivät ensimmäiset orkesterikappaleet, joissa ei tarvita edes kapellimestaria. Segerstam halusi vapauttaa orkesterimuusikon käyttämään piilevää luovuuttaan. ”Halusin esityksestä luovan tapahtuman, en preussilaista kyntökilpailua, mitä tahtiviivojen suorat kynnökset minulle edustavat”, Segerstam on sanonut. Hänen musiikissaan tarkat esitysohjeet ovat menettäneet merkityksensä; säveltäjä haluaa pikemminkin antaa muusikoille ääniä joihin soittajien tulee reagoida kuin kahlita heitä tiukkoihin esitysohjeisiin ja tulkintatapoihin. On väitetty, että Segerstamin teokset muistuttavat toisiaan. Mutta kenenpä musiikinhistorian mestarisäveltäjän teokset eivät niin tekisi? Segerstamin vapaasykkeisten orkesteriteosten tavaramerkkejä ovat voimalla vyöryvät sävelmassat ja näiden säteilevien huipennusten vastapainoina salaperäisen kauniit suvannot, levähdyspaikat. 8 Parikymmentä vuotta sitten Segerstam sanoi lehtihaastattelussa: ”Luonto on tuhlaavainen, ja jos kuuntelee luontoa, joutuu tekemään aika lailla tavaraa, jotta löytäisi kultajyvät. Tämän vuoksi sävellän niin paljon.” Vaikka Segerstamin orkesteriteokset – esimerkiksi lähes 250 sinfoniaa – ovat lähtöisin samasta maailmasta, niillä on toisistaan erottuvia luonteenpiirteitä. Elävässä esityksessä samakin teos saa aina eri hahmon. Musiikki tuntuu pursuavan vimmalla ulos säveltäjästään. Parhaimmillaan sinfonioita on syntynyt vuodessa lähes kolmekymmentä. ”Sinfoniani ovat spermaa. Niitä on oltava paljon. Osa jää henkiin ja vie kehitystä eteenpäin.” Leif Segerstam (s. 1944) on ollut nopea oppimaan. Varhaiskypsä lapsi oppi lukemaan tekstiä kolmivuotiaana ja nuotteja viisivuotiaana. Ensimmäiset sävellyksensä hän teki kuusivuotiaana. Teini-ikäisenä hän soitti useita soittimia. Myöhemmin hän on saavuttanut legendaarisen maineen maailmanluokan kapellimestarina, joka on Brahmsin näköinen ja joka johtaa jumalaisesti muun muassa Wagneria, Mahleria ja Sibeliusta. Hän kykenee houkuttelemaan ja tarvittaessa pusertamaan