First the minor complaint. In the booklet, the track-listing is
printed in light brown ink on a mottled dark brown background
and is well nigh unreadable. Even when the colours are reversed
on the jewel-case insert the information isn’t the easiest of
reading.
More positively,
and more importantly, there is a lot of striking music here,
played with conviction, certainty of purpose and considerable
subtlety by the Duo Gelland.
All the composers
are – like the performers – Swedish. It is clear from the documentation
provided that the Duo Gelland have worked regularly with the
composers. This is apparent in the evident understanding and
sympathy that characterises these performances. Indeed, it is
clear that the Duo Gelland have themselves done much to encourage
the creation of this repertoire. Both parties – performers and
composers – have certainly benefited from this interaction.
So does the third party made up of listeners.
Erik Förare’s teachers
have included Gunnar Bucht and Brian Ferneyhough. He describes
his Duo No.2 rather delightfully: “Duo nr. 2 comes out of my
long time dream to create a direct and spontaneous piece of
musician’s music. Nonetheless its character is philosophical.
Perhaps this work is an example of what I would like to call
fiddlers’ philosophy”. Certainly it is a closely argued piece
that yet has an air of freedom and intuition about it. In three
movements, its central ‘allegro fluente’ is perhaps the most
striking, its juxtaposition of one melodic line played in the
upper piccola register with another played sul ponticello intriguing
and witty.
Hakan Larsson also
has a reputation as a jazz guitarist; in the classical sphere
his works include two symphonies, two violin concertos and a
number of works for chamber ensemble as well as three double
concertos for two violins and orchestra. The piece recorded
here is apparently a kind of pendant to one of these double
concertos, itself commissioned by Duo Gelland. In his duo’s
title – which can perhaps be translated as ‘Naught becomes all’
– the composer intends an allusion to the famous verse from
Corinthians: “For now we see through a glass darkly,
but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I
know even as also I am known”. The voices of the two violins
act out a poignant drama of unfulfilled aspiration to unity,
of familiarity never quite fulfilled, union never quite achieved;
yet their interaction seems to carry the promise there will
come a time of full communion. The playing of the Duo Gelland
is particularly fine here.
The Largo by Ingvar
Karkoff - son of the fine composer Maurice Karkoff - is a meditative,
mysterious piece which is melancholy, even lamentational in
mood; its gestures are not big or dramatic and the sense of
silence and space around the intimate sound of the two violins
is an important part of its effect. A quietly impressive work,
which it one cannot imagine receiving better performances than
the one it gets here. Karkoff, incidentally, is another who
studied with Ferneyhough during his time as Visiting Professor
at the Royal College of Music, University of Stockholm.
Kerstin Jeppsson
- who studied with Maurice Karkoff - speaks of the three movements
of her Canto cromàtico in imagery which relates it to the renewal
of life in spring and summer, especially as reflected in garden
birds and their song. But this is neither a piece of cosily
whimsical onomatopoeia nor a Messiaen-like study. It is not
in the actual sounds of bird-song that Jeppsson deals, so much
as with deeper structures, with natural rhythms that lie outside
the codes and structures of human music, yet must somehow be
accommodated within them if we are to make them part of the
art’s representation of the world we occupy. This is an interesting,
sophisticated piece, in which I have found more with each hearing.
A cellist by training,
Peter Schuback’s work as a composer has encompassed many genres
and instrumental groupings, mostly in the field of chamber music,
though he has also written an opera (Ku) and three cello
concertos. An earlier recording on nosag (nosag 067) is made
up of improvisations with the pianist Davor Kajfes. Del altro
al altro is preoccupied with echoes and reflections, of ideas
exchanged between the two violins, of material given and taken
and given again. I found it the hardest going of the pieces
here, but I am getting more from it on later listenings.
This is a finely
recorded CD, full of music which rewards attentive listening
in ways that aren’t always predictable. It confirmed the good
impression - admittedly based on very limited evidence - of
one or two of these composers, and made me want to hear more
by those whose work was new to me. I hope that both the Duo
Gelland and nosag will be able to keep up the good work. I note
with gratitude that production of the CD was supported by the
Swedish National Council for Cultural Affairs and the Swedish
Arts and Grants Committee. I hope that they will keep up the
good work, too.
Glyn Pursglove
AVAILABILITY
Nosag
Records
Duo Gelland: Cecilia Galland
(violin), Martin Gelland (violin)
