Here is a real cracker! And I don’t
primarily allude to Kinga Práda
as cover girl of this CD but rather
to her fantastic playing and her choice
of music. I already hear the grumbles:
"New Swedish Flute Music"!
Anyone knows what contemporary music
sounds like ... and Swedish at that.
No thanks! But wait a moment. Don’t
stop reading yet. Let me explain. Look
at that cover picture – that’s what
the music is like: beautiful and classically
elegant as Kinga Práda but relaxed
and inviting and in a setting that is
just as contrasting, mysterious and
full of unexplored possibilities as
the wild nature surrounding her.
The mastermind behind
the disc and also composer of most of
the music is the indefatigable Stellan
Sagvik. Kingám is Hungarian
and means "My Kinga". The
two met in Cluj ten years ago and they
took a fancy to each other. To lure
her to Sweden Stellan wrote this piece
for flute and percussion, and it worked
– today they are married! Dripping water
is the starting point, which also has
an explanation: one evening when Stellan
called Kinga was in the bathtub. The
germ of this music – and the germ of
life – is water, and out of this dripping
the flute softly sneaks in and joins
the percussion in an ever wilder dialogue;
a lyrical section with beautiful flute
garlands leads over to a kind of interlude,
dominated by ominous percussion, then
a thrilling rhythmic finale and – a
full stop. Marvellous music.
Tommie Haglund’s Fragile
is exactly what the title implies but
there are also more earthbound reminiscenses
of Nordic folkmusic. Look at the cover
again!
When Vampire State
Building was premiered in Germany
in 2001 the original title was impossible
to use, after September 11, so it appeared
as Flute Status. The vampire
reference was obvious since both Kinga
and her mother who plays the piano part,
are from Transylvania. This is a more
sprawling composition with heavy rhythmic
accents but also strands of baroque
counterpoint.
For Martin Larson’s
Boughs look at the cover picture
again but raise your eyes as it were
and imagine the boughs above. "This
piece is about climbing trees",
the composer says, adding: "I think."
It starts with eerie sounds from the
flute and marimba in unison. It is slow-moving
music, sometimes a flute phrase peters
out from the fabric of sounds that changes
colour when the flute climbs higher
and higher "through the network
of leaves".
Sagvik’s Flute Concerto
No. 1 was in all essentials composed
in 1971 for full-size symphony orchestra
but was reworked and reduced to strings
only the year after "when I was
much older and maturer. It still had
to wait another 24 years for its premiere
performance." It is serially composed
and constantly changing: aggressive,
dancing, cathedral-like. In the middle
of the piece there is a long cadenza
like section for unaccompanied flute,
improvisational in character and giving
the feeling of open air music making
(see cover again!).
Originally written
for clarinet and vibes, B Tommy Andersson’s
Impromptu is equally well suited
to the flute. Idyllic, melancholy, pastoral
are the prevailing moods but the middle
section is eagerly rhythmic.
Solar Plexus
is another work from Stellan Sagvik’s
late teens but this time radically rewritten
in 1998. Its aim is to comprise the
whole solar system; in addition to the
seven planets in Holst’s famous orchestral
suite, Sagvik also includes Pluto (although
astronomers today debate whether it
is a "real" planet). Then
we must add our own Tellus plus the
asteroids and at the centre of it all,
the Sun. It is technically demanding
and at 24 minutes a real tour de force
for a skilled player. Each planet is
given its own individual character:
Jupiter is big and bold and turning
slowly while the Asteroids are shattered
into a kaleidoscope of fast-moving fragments.
Pluto, the most distant of the planets,
is also the most difficult to perceive:
lots of space around the notes until
it disappears out of view.
The final Nocturne
is a beautiful folkmusic inspired hymnlike
tune, played here as a kind of encore,
and we are back again in the cover picture.
Are you still with
me? Don’t you feel like following Kinga
on an expedition through "the undiscover’d
country from whose bourn each
traveller returns" uplifted, renewed?
The musical sceneries to which she will
guide you are full of surprises, beauty,
rhythms, changes, meditation – always
alive, always thrilling, like life itself!
In plain English: Recommended
to anyone except the tone-deaf.
Göran Forsling
Kinga Práda (flute), Markus Leoson (percussion)
(1, 2, 4, 6, 18), Ilona Jánky Práda
(piano) (3), Filarmonica de Cluj Strings/Stellan
Sagvik 
