Allan Gravgaard MADSEN (b 1984)
Nachtmusik, for violin, piano and orchestra (2018-19) [26:16]
Pelle GUDMUNDSEN-HOLMGREEN (1932-2016)
For Violin and Orchestra (2002, rev 2003) [33:54]
Christina Åstrand (violin)
Per Salo (piano)
Danish National Symphony Orchestra/Ryan Bancroft, Nicholas Collon
rec. 2017/19, Koncertsalen, DR Koncerthuset, Copenhagen, Denmark
DACAPO 8.226138 [60:25]
Some MWI readers may recall the recent Danish television drama series Arvingerne (translated as ‘The Legacy’ for UK viewers) which ran over three series between 2014 and 2017. For those who don’t, it was a gripping family saga whose starting point was the death of matriarch Veronika Grønnegaard, a famous avant-garde artist who has bequeathed her enormous family manor house to the daughter she gave up for adoption at birth, much to the chagrin of her other children. I mention this as I found the most captivating character in the series to be Veronika’s ex-partner Thomas Konrad (played by the wonderful Jesper Christensen), an experimental composer and performer, an ancient hippie and man-child whose presence imbued the series with simultaneous pathos and levity. I wondered at the time if this character had been inspired by Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen, a quirky figure who was as admired in his homeland as his compatriot Per Nørgård, and whose reputation has in recent times started to gain traction elsewhere in Europe, largely due to the advocacy of Dacapo Records. His music is by turn entertaining, confrontational, infantile, funny, accessible, inaccessible and touching. A celebrated
Youtube clip of the composer dancing along to his percussion work Triptykon epitomises his spirit (he passed away in 2016). His superb For Violin and Orchestra (whatever it is, the composer was adamant it’s “not a concerto”) is reason enough to acquire this disc.
Any 34 minutes in the company of this composer’s work is time well spent. Dacapo have helpfully divided the piece into five equal sections to help listeners navigate, but for all the lavish eccentricity of Gudmundsen-Holmgreen’s expression, For Violin and Orchestra emerges as surprisingly cogent and utterly captivating. In its opening two minutes the high flung violin line traipses along over light pizzicati and stray, diffuse percussion which one perceives to be distant and which pricks the texture for much of the works duration. (This composer’s treatment of percussion is one of his music’s most singular characteristics; it lends it a ‘tactile’ quality which possibly owes something to Gudmundsen-Holmgreen’s father Jørgen (1895-1966), who was an influential Danish sculptor). At this early stage of the work, gentle bells and harp provide textural depth and harmonic interest. An oboe traces the violin line in a ghostly canon which other single instruments seek to follow. The effect is delightful and refreshing, akin perhaps to taking a leisurely amble through a weird, but benign forest landscape.
The subsequent delineated ‘section’ is slower yet seemingly more improvisatory, notably in the increasingly fragile harp writing at its outset. Christina Åstrand coaxes a gossamer thread of silken melody from her violin which hovers beyond slowly shifting clouds of orchestral sound flecked with microtonality; this seasons the music’s sinuous, exotic undercurrent. As the work approaches the halfway point its argument becomes more angular, assertive even. The soloist’s material incorporates some attractive, rather folksy riffing and after a big climax (at 1:44 in the third ’section’) muted trumpets compete for attention. Strokes of the tam-tam suggest distant thunder or gunfire. Listeners familiar with Gudmundsen-Holmgreen’s style will recognise a characteristic ‘vagueness’ in his writing which is consistently attractive. At 4:36 a portentous, almost tragic episode in the strings seems to point to a change in mood, but the low instruments, especially the bassoons don’t buy into this seriousness and attempt to ‘perk up’ the textures. A haunting solo violin ‘cadenza’ follows; it’s grave, and rich in microtonality.
At this point the material that began the piece seems to re-emerge, and what appear to be familiar phrases drift in and out of the by now more fraught orchestral backcloth. The edifice evolves into a magnificent ‘controlled riot’ of sound with colourful drum tattoos before a still section leads to an exotic drone-inflected episode for the soloist. The final section seems to revisit and reconfigure much of what has already happened, but by now the work projects a more ethereal, ambiguous atmosphere. The soloist (and a ripe, orphaned clarinet) seek to restore an earthy normality with folk-like ideas but their attempts are only partly successful. The conclusion involves Åstrand riffing away in a style which recalls Hardanger fiddle before her tones drift off into nothingness. It’s magical.
The entire piece strikes this listener as an exercise in deconstruction and reconstruction – it’s a design that seems typical of Gudmunsen-Holmgreen’s larger orchestral canvases, especially those featuring solo instruments (the Concerto Grosso, the wonderful Plateaux for piano and orchestra and this piece’s earlier sibling For Cello and Orchestra). I would argue that this composer’s big pieces could only have been made by him. I suspect I will not be alone in finding this account of For Violin and Orchestra especially moving given that it was recorded so soon after his passing. Christina Åstrand is outstanding throughout but the warmth Nicholas Collon draws from the Danish National Symphony Orchestra (and his superb pacing of the piece) suggests that this performance was deeply felt by all concerned. Like his almost exact contemporary Per Nørgård, Pelle Gudmunsen-Holmgreen has created a body of work which is instantly recognisable and often profoundly beautiful - one fervently hopes that over future decades the world outside Denmark continues to appreciate the fact. Dacapo have certainly done his memory proud with this recording.
I was somewhat less taken by the coupling. Allan Gravgaard Madsen’s name is new to me, and his recent piece Nachtmusik (scored for solo violin and piano with orchestra) is inspired by topographical and atmospheric phenomena linked to the city of Aarhus. Andrew Mellor’s typically lucid note tells us that Madsen is the composer-in-residence with that city’s symphony orchestra and that Nachtmusik was inspired by an occasion when he walked his regular daily route in the city (from its centre to the edge of a lake in a nearby forest) at night to assuage a sense of restlessness. In the booklet the composer admits he was expecting to experience a “transition” during his perambulation which never materialised; instead nothing much happened, although he was more sensitive to odd details of the walk, which were rendered stranger by the darkness and moonlight. This idea of ‘nothing happening’ is central to the first movement, a seventeen minute long Nachtstück during which texture, colour, duration, attack and decay vary throughout, but pitch (the note E) does not. As the panel proceeds the listener might become aware of tiny microtones (the odd grace-note at the outset of a solo violin passage, for example) which take on an exaggerated significance in this context, but in terms of pitch nothing really important happens until the concluding D flat major chord. In the two subsequent movements (an Intermezzo lasting six minutes and Ständchen, an agitated finale which races headlong towards its conclusion in little more than three) pitches steadily work outward from the E, but by the time Nachtmusik threatens to become interesting (Ständchen is certainly adrenaline-fuelled and colourful) it ceases abruptly. Madsen admits that he wanted the piece to faithfully convey faithfully the reality of little happening on his walk (at least for the first three-quarters of it) and while the idea of a work progressively recreating the negative correlation of duration and eventfulness might well make an intuitive kind of sense on paper, it is unfortunate that despite the best efforts of the soloists (Christina Åstrand and her husband, the redoubtable pianist Per Salo) the first movement seems like an unnecessarily long haul; it gravely undermines the balance of the piece and blunts its potential impact. On the other hand the brief, brittle finale is a white-knuckle ride which strongly suggests that Madsen can and will in time produce more coherent and compelling scores. (For an alternative work which arguably offers a more satisfying exploration of the effect of increasingly shorter sections within a structural whole I am minded to refer readers to Andrew Norman’s remarkable orchestral piece Sustain, written for Gustavo Dudamel and the LAPO and recorded by them for DG on 483 7608. It won the 2020 Grammy for best orchestral performance.)
If Madsen’s work constitutes a bold experiment that doesn’t quite come off, it perhaps merits its place as an audacious coupling for Gudmundsen-Holmgreen’s marvellous piece. Regardless of listeners’ reactions to the Madsen (I feel sure some will respond to it more sympathetically than I did) For Violin and Orchestra is a masterpiece which deserves the widest possible currency. Performances and recording for both works are in the best traditions of this label.
Richard Hanlon
