A
couple of months ago I reviewed a brand new disc with songs
by Geirr Tveitt, whose 100
th anniversary was
celebrated in 2008 (see
review).
It missed my recordings of the year by a hair’s breadth.
Hardly had the review been posted before I got a mail from
Stig Olav Skeie, one of those responsible for this issue,
and within a few days I had this double CD in my hand.
It is not really a competitor to Vollestad’s disc, rather
a complement. And this is not only because there is no
overlapping of songs but because in a way they belong in
two different genres.
Vollestad,
a baritone well established in the operatic repertoire
as well as being recitalist, sings the songs as a good
Lieder singer – and very well he does too. Birgitte Grimstad
has a classically trained, very attractive voice, but she
sings her chosen songs mostly accompanied by guitar - often
by herself - in the manner of what in Norwegian would be
termed
visesanger.
Vise in Norwegian,
visa in
Swedish are equivalents to, say,
chanson in French.
This is as opposed to
mélodie which is the commonest
equivalent to the German
Lied.
Art song,
is probably the best English translation. A latter-day
troubadour or minstrel should be something similar. What
is also enormously important is that Birgitte Grimstad’s
interpretations are as close to Geirr Tveitt’s ideas as
could be imagined. Tveitt wrote the majority of them for
her. They were created as a collaboration with Grimstad
and she premiered more than thirty of them. Every now and
then Tveitt rang her up and asked if she could have look
at some new songs. Sometimes she drove to the Norwegian
Radio, where Tveitt worked in those days, or they had ‘phone
tests’ where they discussed details. Then he came to her
house in Røyken with a technician and a tape-recorder.
This is as close as the artistic collaboration between
Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears, maybe even closer.
The
background to their collaboration was that Tveitt had been
engaged by Norwegian Radio to make programmes of literature.
During this period he set to music some of the finest Norwegian
poetry. He worked with the finest voices in the arts world.
These included two Nobel Prize Winners, Sigrid Undset and
Knut Hamsun, as well as Tarjei Vesaas and Jacob Sande and
even the Icelandic Nobel Prize Winner Halldor Laxness.
There were many others, several of them little known even
in the rest of Scandinavia, which is not to say that they
are in any way inferior to those with an international
name.
The
recordings were made over quite a long period, most of
them during the early to middle 1970s. Most are from the
archives of Norwegian Radio but quite a few are licensed
from commercial sources. On a couple of them Tveitt conducts
the orchestra, which gives a special imprimatur, and on
Tarjei Vesaas’s
Første snø (The first snow) Tveitt
accompanies Birgitte on harpsichord.
As
with the Vollestad disc the very special atmosphere of
Tveitt’s highly personal harmonic and melodic language
is very tangible. I am very happy to have both interpreters
available. When I am in
vise-mood - the first song
of the set is suitably entitled
Vise - I will turn
to Grimstad. When I want to fit Tveitt into a more Central
European Lieder tradition Vollestad will be my choice.
I was deeply impressed by Vollestad’s disc but I have to
admit that since I received the Grimstad set these songs
have really haunted me.
I
am not going to analyse the programme in details; just
say that each poem attracts a musical garment that seems
absolutely inevitable. Music and words fit to perfection.
And here I also have to issue a warning: This set is primarily
intended for the domestic Norwegian market, which means
that all the texts, the introduction by Grimstad as well
as the beautifully designed poems, are in Norwegian only.
This poses some problems for non-Scandinavians – maybe
even for some of them insofar as
nynorsk (New Norwegian)
can be a stumbling-block for Swedish and Danish speakers – but
I would eagerly encourage all readers with an interest
in some wonderful songs a bit off the beaten track to give
these discs a try. Maybe a few songs at a time to begin
with. Don’t start with the admittedly impressive final
number on CD 2, the almost half-hour-long
Telemarkin,
a cantata commissioned for the opening of Rauland Academy
on 8 June 1974. It’s written for song, reading, hardingfele
(the typical Norwegian folk-music fiddle) and orchestra.
It should also be added that there are a few purely orchestral
excerpts included on the disc, culled from Bjarte Engeset’s
admirable Naxos recordings of Tveitt’s music.
A
wholly engrossing experience.
Göran
Forsling
Track listing
CD 1
1.
Vise (Tarjei Vesaas) [1:55]
2.
Fløytelåt (Jacob Sande) [3:02]
3.
Tonen (Knut Hamsun) [2:35]
4.
Så rodde de fjoran (Aslaug Vaa) [3:24]
5.
Tora synger (Knut Hamsun) [1:54]
6.
Eg møtte deg alder (Astrid Krog Halse) [1:16]
7.
Skinnvengbrev (Aslaug Vaa) [3:00]
8.
Barnet og kista (Tarjei Vesaas) [2:51]
9.
Stutt er folars flygelov (Tarjei Vesaas) [0:51]
10.
Lurleik (Per Sivle) [2:37]
11.
Ingen fare (Olav Kaste) [1:22]
12.
Sko, sko hirdmans hest (Sigrid Undset) [3:13]
13.
Natta, Gunnar og bjørka (Tarjei Vesaas) [3:00]
14.
Du (instr) [2:22]
15.
Marian (Jacob Sande) [2:51]
16.
Fann eg dei stigar (Aslaug Vaa) [1:44]
17.
Vaka og vente (Aslaug Vaa) [2:07]
18.
Når heggen blømer (Olav Kaste) [1:36]
19.
Spør vinden (Olav Kaste) [1:04]
20.
To (Ragnvald Skrede) [1:39]
21.
Det studdelege romet (Aslaug Vaa) [2:53]
22.
Hyldesbrev til Drachmann (Knut Hamsun) [2:32]
23.
Roald Amundsen (Inge Krokann) [1:45]
24.
Og den tredje (Ragnhild Jølsen) [1:22]
25.
Oh fremad, fremad (Ragnhild Jølsen) [1:54]
26.
Kun skinner et smykke (Ragnhild Jølsen) [1:44]
27.
Fergemann tid (Hermann Wildenvey) [2:41]
28.
Etterklangen (Aslaug Vaa) [3:10]
29.
Søvnen og døden (Knut Hamsun) [4:32]
CD 2
1.
Høyrer du songjen [1:15]
2.
Furuski [1:10]
3.
Huldrelokk [1:50]
4.
Huldresong “Tusseflyta” [0:49]
5.
Fagraste viso pao jorde [0:53]
6.
Uppskoko [1:26]
7.
Uppskoko (instr) [1:12]
8.
Stavkyrkjestev [0:37]
9.
Stavkyrkjestev (instr) [1:28]
10.
Ég skal vaka og vera gód (Halldor Laxness) [2:36]
11.
I hasseldokk (Aslaug Vaa) [1:30]
12.
Første snø (Tarjei Vesaas) [1:04]
13.
Tile in falk (Ragnvald Skrede) [1:08]
14.
Møte på fjellet (Tarjei Vesaas) [1:49]
15.
Der villmarka suser (Mikkjel Fønhus) [2:30]
16.
Nordlysun (Aslaug Vaa) [3:21]
17.
Sjå deg vel irking (Ragnvald Skrede) [1:20]
18.
Blå kveld (Aslaug Vaa) [2:14]
19.
Telemarkin (Aslaug Vaa) [28:28]
Birgitte Grimstad (vocals and
guitar) other instrumentalists and
ensembles 
