Anna THORVALDSDOTTIR (b. 1977)
Enigma
Spektral Quartet
rec 17-18 October 2020, Sono Luminus Studio, Boyce, VA, USA
SONO LUMINUS DSL-92250
[28:25]
The Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir has built herself a fine and
well-deserved reputation. Her music contains enough grit to sound
contemporary whilst its cinematic qualities make it readily accessible to
the novice listener. Much of her music to date has been for orchestra and I
understand from the sleeve notes that this is her first foray into writing
for string quartet.
In those sleeve notes, the Spektral Quartet's violist, Doyle
Armbrust writes of the inspiration for this work as
coming from a time when “ducking your head under the covers was ample
defence against the bogeyman.” Enigma occupies the “permeable border”
between light and dark. He further comments that, with Covid, we have all
spent most of the last year neither here nor there.
This is a piece that generates its tension by contrasting slow chordal
passages, which in the liner notes one of the performers likens to a
chorale, with more disparate agitated music that deploys a very wide range
of techniques including tapping the body of the instrument, col legno
bowing and even, by the sounds of it, blowing. These techniques are used to
create what feel to me like the sounds of nature. One recurring passage had
me thinking of the cries of sea gulls over the Icelandic coastline. These
reasonably modernist techniques are, however, liable to disguise the fact
that this is, in fact, a surprisingly traditional piece of music. The slow
chordal passages have Thorvaldsdottir’s own unmistakable voice which seems
almost a part of the landscape, but musically I kept being taken back to the
late Shostakovich quartets.
As you can see from this description, I didn’t find the music particularly
evocative of the ostensible theme suggested by the notes.
The middle section acts as a scherzo of sorts. The various pluckings
assemble themselves into a rhythm. I think this section suffers from the
same issue as the scherzo of Mahler’s 7th symphony in that it
sounds like music that is meant to be disturbing but really isn’t. Compare
this with music specifically designed to disturb such as the eighth section
of Luigi Archetti’s piece Transient Places and hopefully you will hear what
I mean. This notwithstanding, like the Mahler, it is enjoyable music which
works itself up to a striking climax that for all the world sounds like a
tree falling down. It is a very powerful moment before things subside to
the mood of the opening of the whole work.
The third and final movement recapitulates a lot of the opening section
before rising to what felt like rather ecstatic, hymn-like music which
brings the whole piece to a satisfying ending before disappearing upwards
into the ether.
Recording and performance are both keenly tuned into Thorvaldsdottir’s
creative world. The ambience is deep enough to accommodate her gigantic
landscapes.
Thorvaldsdottir’s admirers need not delay, as this represents a successful
extension of her unique voice into this genre. For those unfamiliar with
her work, I would imagine the orchestral music will give a more powerful
impression of her direct, primal music. I would suggest that she is the
kind of composer who could help the timid listener bridge the gap between
Sibelius and contemporary music. That said, Enigma is a powerful and
assured statement from a composer who clearly knows what she wants to say.
I found what she has to say gripping and, at times, moving in its
plain-spoken simplicity.
David McDade
