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. The longest works encompass a host of dramatic elements, and alongside Graham Lynch these are four character pieces gazing in different London Blues 1–4 (2016) directions. The decacorde suite by Britain’s Graham Lynch Many of the composers are internationally renowned. (b. 1957) was inspired by Paris Spleen, a prose poem All are experienced in composing for the guitar and by Charles Baudelaire of lightning shifting moods. have written a wealth of solo and chamber works – Spleen has now turned into blues but nevertheless has and even concertos – for guitar instruments. My warm nothing to do with blues music. For Lynch, it means thanks for their collaboration! a nostalgic tie with his childhood city, the memories of London that flash film-like through his mind. Lynch The new decacorde model can be heard in three of the is a composer who enjoys keeping company with and pieces. Jukka Tiensuu wrote Kymmari especially for it, stylises the music of John Dowland and his contempo- 2 raries. The highly instrumental, bustling moments may The two Jalkanen Nocturnes for decacorde from the be shot through with the déjà vu sounds of a children’s Anabasis suite are “illusions in the anabasis of life, playground or an ice-cream van, only to make room in the ascent from the lake-side flint to the mountain again for reflection or a jolly journey. Dominating the peak”. Tying the work together is a wistful four-note static mood of the third movement is a beautiful, sad motif. The suite was originally scored for guitar, but song, Lynch’s childhood blues. Jalkanen then did a version for decacorde allowing for the potential of the fretless bass strings. Their differ- A composer who has succeeded in breaking down the ent scordaturas enhance the dark chromatics of the tonal/atonal wall that seems to be so firmly entrenched Nocturne for Insomnia and the explosive, pro-multi- in contemporary music, Graham Lynch has rocketed to culturalist energy of The Bog Gypsies. fame in the past couple of years thanks to his various works for keyboards. My collaboration with Pekka Jalkanen has produced both solo works and chamber music for the decacorde. The biggest opuses are the double concerto Aeterna Pekka Jalkanen and the monologue opera Dominus Krabbe. Anabasis, Five nocturnes for guitar or decacorde (2015) III Nocturne for Insomnia No sleep only demons only angels Jukka Tiensuu I The Bog Gypsies Kymmari (2016) Sheltered by will o’ the wisps and stamens the bog gypsies gather the earth’s dew Jukka Tiensuu (b. 1948) has been an avant-garde figure in their pewter goblets in Finnish music ever since the 1970s. There is plenty and strike up Byzantine incantations. of room for the guitar in his long catalogue of works, from solo and chamber music to a concerto. Kymmari A composer with an interest in ethnic and archaic for the decacorde represents a novel, idiosyncratic subjects, Pekka Jalkanen (b. 1945) is a minimalist approach. Tiensuu makes particular use of the instru- with a penchant for contemporary Estonian music. ment’s lowest register, the fretless bass strings D, C, His extensive output ranges from operas to children’s B1 and A1, with the D string tuned a quarter-tone down songs, orchestral, chamber and choral music. He has and the B string a quarter-tone up. Using various written a variety of works for plucked instruments: microintervals and flageolet notes, Tiensuu thus creates solos, chamber music, and concertos – for the guitar a calm continuum that changes step by step and gives and particularly the kantele. the piece a magical aura. 3 Nikita Koshkin Anastasia Salo Orpheo 1–3 (2014) A Cloud on the Palm of the Hand (2015) In the track that lent this disc its title, Nikita Koshkin Anastasia Salo (b. 1980) comes from Petrozavodsk (b. 1956) looks distantly at the Russian Neoclassicists and is a well-known Karelian composer but one with such as Igor Stravinsky and Sergei Prokofiev. He is Finnish roots. She has heard Finnish spoken at home himself a guitarist and his music is famous worldwide ever since she was a child, and listened to Finnish in guitar circles. The composer of a large volume of music. It was this that inspired her to write settings of solo and chamber music for the instrument, he first Finnish and Karelian poems. Her other compositions became known in the 1980s for a work called The include symphonic and chamber music, romances, Prince’s Toys. operas and lots of music for children, and she has a keen interest in folk music. Anastasia Salo has won Orpheo is mourning music. It is based on falling many prizes in Russian and international music semitone motifs that lament the passing of Eurydice competitions. and make an agonising journey to the Underworld, but all in vain. No mortal can withstand the raging, surging A Cloud on the Palm of the Hand is a cheerful winds of death (low arpeggios). Counteracting the dark miniature well suited to the decacorde. The powerful and anguished chromatics is the heart-breaking cry: resonance and resulting singing quality characteristic “Oh, Eurydice…” of the ten-stringed guitar really come into their own in this highly melodic piece. It was composed in memory Koshkin describes his work as a piece in three sections: of a friend whose life had suddenly been cut short. a slow beginning, a busy middle section and a gloomy finale that culminates the tragedy. The rippling arpeggio typical of the ancient lyre was formed from one of the focal elements of the sound texture. It is used Sid Hille throughout the work’s texture and at the culmination Impromptu pour decacorde (2015) of the finale it transforms into a veritable deluge of ar- peggios. The work also has a leitmotif: the theme of Sid Hille (b. 1961) is a composer-musician of German the longing felt by Orpheus for his dead beloved. This descent now settled in Finland. With a background in theme sounds in the flageolets like occasional shafts jazz, he emphasises the special nature of the creative of notes from heaven. It is heard at the beginning in event: “My background as a jazz musician has meant its unadorned basic form, later in dialogue with the that improvisation and a feeling of spontaneity have bass notes and in the final coda, as high flageolet notes always played an important part in my compositions. doubling the sounds of the underworld roar. The Impromptu is through-composed, but I wanted it to sound as if the performer were inventing it extempore. Orpheo was originally scored for archlute. The version The subjects and motifs are constantly transforming. for decacorde dates from 2014. This gives the impression that the phrases were not 4 planned or pre-prepared, but that the performer is Ranked among the vanguard of contemporary Finnish developing them as he plays. Juan Antonio Muro the guitarists, Mari Mäntylä specialises in a rare type of composer lent me a decacorde in May 2015 and I wrote classical guitar, namely the ten-stringed guitar or de- the piece in three weeks. It was a hot summer and I cacorde. Appearing frequently both as a soloist and in imagined myself sitting with my guitar on a Spanish chamber ensembles, she collaborates with many com- seaside promenade and playing to the tourists.” posers and has premiered a number of works scored specifically for the decacorde. She has thus done much to make this instrument known. Mari Mäntylä has a basic repertoire spanning the various periods in the history of classical music. She Tõnu Kõrvits also operates naturally between different genres. She has worked with Finnish folk musicians and is the Serenade (2014) guitarist in the Tirioni band performing Portuguese Fado. Her chamber music ensembles include the Duo Tõnu Kõrvits (b. 1969) is one of Estonia’s best-known Dryades, a bandoneón-decacorde line-up she formed mid-generation composers. His works include a large in 2002 with Kristina Kuusisto that regularly gives volume of guitar music, including two concertos for concerts both in Finland and abroad.