infotext:
PETER BRUUN - PRELUDES TO DISASTER What is our life but a series of preludes to disaster - preludes to a looming unknown calamity that may not happen at all? Wouldn't it be the greatest misfortune if everything you believed in and fought for turned out to be pure illusion? Wouldn't it be an even greater misfortune if everything were pure illusion and you didn't know it yourself? And wouldn't it be an even greater misfortune than this if everything were pure illusion, if you didn't know it yourself, but everyone else did? Then at least you would live in blissful ignorance...until that moment when you realized that everyone was laughing at you and that you were the protagonist in a book about your own wretchedness and ridiculousness... While working on my musical theater piece for children Am I Not Don Quixote?, together with the FIGURA ensemble, I was increasingly fascinated by the character of Don Quijote. He is possibly the most tragic antihero imaginable. I'm glad I'm not him. I'm afraid I might be like him. And yet I like him, and in a strange way I wish I could be like him. Because I think he's a good person. He wishes so much to be good. But he is only human. I felt inspired to set to music some of Cervantes' fictional homages from the introduction to the story: poems in which other fictional heroic knights praise Don Quixote for his passion, strength and bravery and the book about him. These four songs attempt to explore the poor knight's feelings through music, from the restless-tempestuous to the thoughtful-introvert to the aggressive-extrovert, in order to finally achieve some sort of reconciliation. Peter Brown
ANDERS BRØDSGAARD – GALLOWS SONGS I had been meaning to do that for a long time gallows songs to subject them to close scrutiny and possibly use them musically (if only because of the title!) when the FIGURA ensemble asked me to set Christian Morgenstern's poems to music. When I started doing this, I discovered that the gallows songs are not only grotesque, comical and ironic, but actually quite silly - like a German counterpart to the Danish writer Halfdan Rasmussen, but with a darker side. I also found that many of the poems activated my inner, deeply buried German "cultural heritage" and that many of the songs clearly called out to be revived with elements of existing, mainly German, music. For example, the meter of the poem got me gallows hill in an irresistible way moon drunk remembered, the first song from Arnold Schönberg's grotesque melodrama Pierrot Lunaire: »The wine you drink with your eyes«. So the first stanza of Galgenberg is mixed with elements from Schönberg's song; then the music goes its own way in a pre-dodecaphone tonal language from 1912. Im National Song of the Gallows Brothers a Bach chorale appears, sung by the double bass player and accordionist with a Protestant sense of guilt: »O dreadful chaos of life, we are hanging on red thread here!« The two donkeys, a song about habitual seeing, is written in what Morgenstern considers a rather morbid style. I have it with echoes of Schumann A boy loves a girl set to music, which in turn was composed after another great German ironist, Heinrich Heine. I managed to have Schumann's little modulating final cadence run through all 12 steps of the circle of fifths during this 45-second song. Not all poems exhibit ironic ambiguities: Bang, bang, bang for example is a touching little story about the unrequited love of a bell ringing, and The dance with its whimsical depiction of a dancing "four-quarter pig" on three pink legs and its partner, the "starter owl," on the fourth (!) could be straight out of an old Disney cartoon. I chose these ten poems based on how much - and in what way! – they seemed to ask for a setting. Accordingly, my compositional technique has changed greatly from one song to the next, from the "pink waltz" to The dance to the overtone harmony in the bell sound of Bang, bang, bang or blatant theft in the Mahler style parody the pike. I apologize in advance if anyone is offended by this! Anders Brodsgaard
STEINGRÍMUR ROHLOFF – STILL NOT / NOT YET For the last ten years I have fallen in love with the lyrics of the Danish poet Peter Laugesen (b. 1942) because of these lines: »Speech fills all holes with noise.« These lines are all from his volume Frø and staengler ("Seeds and stalks"). In some of his poems, Peter Laugesen seems to conjure up abstract and invisible spaces and forces. Something is growing. There is darkness. there is light Nameless spaces expand and shrink again. There are openings and walls. Spoken words, sounds and melodies are incorporated into the poems. Although present, these spaces and powers are not explained. It was very appealing to set these poems to music and I was chosen for my song cycle Still Not / Not Yet inspired by five poems from two volumes: Frø and staengler ("seeds and stalks") and De sayde hans dog havde lopper ("You said his dog had fleas"). In this composition I just let the words relate to the music - they don't tell stories, they simply describe what is happening in the music at that moment. Text and music thus mirror and encircle each other. The song cycle is dedicated to the FIGURA Ensemble and the Seattle Chamber Players. Steingrimur Rohloff |
program:
FIGURA Ensemble Edition Vol. 1
Peter Brown (* 1968) [01] I. Forging fool's armour 04:29 FIGURA ensemble Anders Brodsgaard (* 1955) [05] 1. Gallows Hill 01:13 FIGURA ensemble Steingrimur Rohloff (* 1971) [15] I. Sooner or later 03:44 FIGURA ensemble total time: 61:42
FIGURA ensemble Seattle Chamber Players Erik Jakobsson, conductor [01–04] |
Press:
antiheroes The Danish Figura Ensemble does not have an everyday line-up: a mezzo-soprano, three instrumentalists, a composer, a poet and an architect can not only handle premieres, but also musical theater projects. Here they have teamed up with colleagues from the Seattle Chamber Players to record current song cycles with an instrumental ensemble by three contemporaries. Dirk Wieschollek Music:
06.2014 The Danish Figura ensemble has an unusual composition: mezzo-soprano, three instrumentalists, a composer, a poet, an architect. His programs also move away from the mainstream in a refreshing way. Together with the four musicians of the Seattle Chamber Players, it has now recorded works by three Nordic composers who are little known in this country. The "Preludes to Disaster” by the Dane Peter Bruun are a homage to Don Quijote that is as unconventional as it is musically impressive. His compatriot Anders Brødsgaard contributes ten sharply characterized miniatures after Morgenstern with “10 Galgenlieder”, and five dramatic scenes based on texts by the Danish poet Peter Laugesen come from the German-Icelandic Steingrímur Rohloff. Helene Gjerris proves to be a mezzo-soprano of stature. Max Nyffeler |
