Works: Glerup: Objets/décalages (2008); Gudmundsen-Holmgreen: Together or Not (2012); Rasmussen: Accvire (2008); Traditional works from Denmark, Greenland and the Faroes
Performers: Gáman [Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen (violin), Bolette Roed (recorder) and Andreas Borregaard (accordion)]
Label: Dacapo
Everything about this disc was new to me – composers and performers alike.
The Danish composer Rune Glerup, as his publisher's website states, 'goes in search of strange, almost absurd situations in music'. The piece, which can be read in full here, goes on to describe his music as alternating in violence and tenderness.
Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen, also Danish, studied with one of the country's better-known twentieth-century composers, Vagn Holmboe. A brief biography for Music Sales describes him as a contrary individual, the picture often painted being 'that of a nay-sayer, an anti-expressive, anti-virtuoso, anti-romantic inveterate dissenter, a pessimist who does not believe in big metaphysical words and beautifully crafted unities'. This doesn't sound too promising – but the conclusion, that 'Time often stands still when one is in the company of his poetic beings', is much more hopeful.
Sunleif Rasmussen, meanwhile, is a Faroese composer whose work has already been heard through Dacapo. They have recorded his first symphony, subtitled Ocean Days, and an album of string quartets, the second of which is called Sunshine and Shadows. His website, perhaps not surprisingly, declares the Faroe Islands and the North Atlantic nature to be 'key factors to understanding his sensuous music, which bears indelible traces of wind, dunes, lyme grass and the ubiquitous Atlantic Ocean'.
Finally Gáman, a group who were formed in summer 2007 through a shared passion from Nordic folk music that has seen them perform traditionally inspired music from a number of different Nordic countries. On this disc alone they look at music from Greenland, Denmark and the Faroe Islands. They comprise violin, recorder and accordion, but for the Three Bridal Pieces from Sønderho at the centre of this disc they include a tin whistle, piano and melodeon.
The Danish record label Dacapo describe their disc in exalted terms: 'The rare combination of drum songs from Greenland, chain-dances from the Faroe Islands, wedding music from the island of Fanø and new sounds by three living composers'. This becomes 'an opportunity to dance, listen and immerse yourself in worlds of sound that surprisingly and enrichingly elucidate one another'.
Thoughts
This was a whole new venture for me, taking on a very intriguing mix of music from Scandinavia and the Arctic Circle. Dacapo give them a grand introduction indeed, but it is largely accurate, as the venture looks to compare and contrast traditional songs with new compositions for the less than usual combination of violin, recorder and accordion. The result is a sound world that was completely new and original to me.
The traditional songs complement the contemporary pieces perfectly. Gáman start with two Danish Svabo Polonaises, which ebb and flow with the rise and fall of the accordion, the trio making a bright sound with very little bass. The bright first Polonaise is countered by a more reflective second.
Ormurin langi, the first of the Faroese traditional songs, has a really attractive triple time lilt but still feels a bit off kilter, and has a really nice earthy feel from the accordion that goes with it. The second song, Regin Smiður is a slower, warm-hearted canon, performed over a drone. The other Faroese songs are rather winsome too, including the softly voiced Goodnight and farewell with which the disc ends.
The Greenlandic traditional songs give an idea of the remoteness of the far north, and the Qivittoq Song after Jakob Dorph in particular has a very distant quality to it. For these it is better to be sat in a quiet acoustic, then you can fully appreciate the pictures they draw.
At the centre of the disc lie Three Bridal Pieces of Danish origin, and these are light and fragile, at times as if they are traced with ice - but very tuneful at the same time.
Of the contemporary pieces, Rune Glerup's Objets/décalages explores some very weird sounds. The accordion sounds like a piece of machinery at times, making a chugging sound like a train. Then at around the three-minute mark there is an eerie quiet, with a very soft held note from violin and recorder alike, before feathery plucking sounds are heard. This is totally in keeping with the description of the composer above, alternating graceful and more violent thoughts, and is both fascinating and odd.
I was not so keen on Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen's Together or Not, which I found became a little wearing with its reliance on the violin's opening strings in the closing section, despite a promising start with a reverberant recorder solo and some intersting timbres. The weary cough that the accordion makes is strangely charming, too – it sounds a bit like a sleepy animal.
Again this is a composer responding imaginatively to the constraints of the ensemble, but the material is stretched just that bit too far.
Rasmussen's Accvire hurries around at the start, the music sounding like a flock of birds jostling for position. This is the most substantial of the three new pieces for the ensemble, and in its central section it moves slowly and ponderously, the violin melody in slow motion. Then, leading up to the end, its energy returns, the lines darting in and out of each other until right at the end, where we suddenly and unexpectedly find a tonal centre, changing the outlook completely.
Verdict
One of the most invigorating things in music is listening to something completely new, something that opens your ears out further to music whose existence had passed you by. This is one of those discs, a captivating and at times hypnotic listen, painting in musical terms a strong sense of the cold experienced by these regions – but also the warmth they find in response.
For a completely different listening experience it is heartily recommended, especially to those already keen to dabble in world and folk music.
Further Listening
The Early & Late album can be heard in its entirety on Spotify here, and the liner notes are reproduced in their entirety by Dacapo here
Next week's listening - tbc
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