Kleiberg was born in
Stavanger. A graduate of Oslo University
he now holds an assistant professorship
in Trondheim. He was awarded the Fartein
Valen prize in 1999 and has been composer-in-residence
to the Valen Days and also to the Trondheim
Symphony Orchestra.
The Lamento is
one of a trilogy of works written in
response to the Nazi atrocities. The
other two works are Dopo (a cello
concerto) and Requiem for victims
of Nazi persecution. Cissi Klein
was a 13 year old taken from her classroom
at Kalvskinnet school in 1942 and transported
to the gas chambers of Auschwitz. The
Lamento describes an arc ascending
from quiet writing to vehement protest
(10.03) and falling away into music-box
innocence and silence. It makes for
a tender and touching journey in a single
movement. Lamento is most fastidiously
and magically orchestrated. Its world
is a shade Bergian sometimes accented
with the world-weary sorrow of Nystroem's
Sinfonia del Mare.
The insinuatingly emotional
probing string writing in Lamento
with its modestly graded ascents
and sinuous weaving carries over into
the first movement of the at first rather
severe Kammersymfoni.
However the suggestion of marine depths,
viridian and emerald return here in
subtle Ravelian light. Once again there
is some protesting work for the brass
punching the message home with a force
not always expected from a chamber symphony.
The tension and style at the few moments
of trauma are comparable with Allan
Pettersson - especially in his emphatic
writing for brass. The lyrical impetus
and sustained intensity is dreamlike
and evocative of Copland's outdoor manner
crossed with that of the Ukrainian composer
Valentin Silvestrov in his psychedelically
kaleidoscopic Fifth Symphony. The Kammersymfoni
sounds not at all chamber-like except
in its transparently airy orchestration.
The First Symphony
is in three movements (Departure;
Shipwreck; The Bell Reef)
and comes last on the disc. The ‘Bell
Reef’ of the title is a reef off the
south-west coast of Norway. In 1537
a ship came to collect valuables including
the bells of Stavanger Cathedral. The
ship foundered on the reef and the bells
were lost. It is rumoured that they
can be heard sounding from the seabed.
The music in this case is less Bergian
and something like a clash between Howard
Hanson and Ravel (Daphnis and
the last movement of Ma Mere l'Oye).
The orchestration is diaphanous, unafraid
of modest dissonance for the sake of
colour. Harp and bell-like sounds ring
out while the violins sing keeningly.
The second movement's storm uses gestures
common to the tempestuous music in Nystroem's
Sinfonia del Mare without being
as baldly onomatopoeic as Nystroem's
overture for The Tempest. Even
so this movement is arguably over-extended
for its 6.22. The keen-edged rustling
of the violins and the lazy curves of
the woodwind in the finale create an
idyllic nature-scape with some similarities
to Frank Bridge (Summer), Bax
(Spring Fire) and Moeran (slow
movement of the Symphony) and with hardly
any dissonance. A solo trumpet sings
a requiem, not unlike the lines of a
Bax epilogue, over the skein of sound
in motion. The strings toll in reference
to the sunken bells.
One small criticism:
the timing gaps between works are too
short.
Good to see the name
of Jim Samson as the notewriter. I still
cherish his K&A study of the music
of Szymanowski. He has that gift for
writing about music that describes imaginatively
yet uses a vocabulary accessible to
the non-musician.
These are extremely
impressionistic-melodic scores in which
Kleiberg writings with natural fluency
synthesises the heritage of Ravel and
others to original effect. Recommended.
Rob Barnett
Trondheim Symphony Orchestra 