Nysatsning av Trondheimsolistene

Av Magnus Mulligan

Lørdag 15.august

Trondheim Solistene inntok operaen andre dagen av Oslo Kammermusikk festival med rykende ferskt program og en ung solist på Kammermusikkfestivalen.

Det hele åpnet med et nyskrevet verk, Cello Stories, av komponisten Nils Henrik Asheim. (Se omtale av verket paa engelsk nedenfor).

Det var opprinnelig tenkt at Truls Mørk skulle fremføre det, men grunnet hans langvarige sykdom hoppet Håkon Samuelsen inn på kort varsel.

Han spilte med selvsikkerhet og presisjon, og ga Nils Henrik Asheim tidenes uroppføring. Det svært modernistiske skifter hele tiden klangfarger og kontur, noe dirigent for dagen, Øyvind Gimse, hadde full kontroll over.

Neste verk på programmet var Sofia Gubaidulina verk «Sieben Worte for cello, bayan og strykere». Verket var fullt av symbolikk og religiøse betegnelser. Et eksempel på dette er valg av soloinstrument, cello, som med buen dannet et kors over strengene. Selv om det varte litt vel lenge var utførelsen svært god, spennende og harmonisk store deler av tiden. Bayanen fungerte overraskende godt i orkesteret og Geir Draugsvoll spilte intensivt i duett med Øyvind Gimse på cello.

Konserten ble avsluttet med Peter I. Tsjaikovskijs «Serenade for strykere».

Selv om Oslo Kammermusikk festival har løftet seg kraftig på det kunstriske er det fortsatt enkelte organisatoriske aspekter som kan forbedres til neste år.

PAUSE?

Å spille hele konserten uten pause gir utfordringer for både utøvere og publikum, og til en annen gang kan man kanskje på spanderes en 10 minutters pause.

About Nils Henrik Asheim Cello Stories: (fra: http://nilshenrikasheim.no/ ):

Håkon Samuelsen and Trondheimsolistene are giving the first performance of this new work in the Norwegian Opera, Scene 2, during Oslo Chamber Music Festival, Saturday aug 15 at 13:00.

Cello Stories is basically a concerto for cello and string orchestra. But from there it starts to be different. I built it up thinking of four almost filmatic stories that are interlaced. By calling them “stories” I don’t mean to say they have a plot - rather that they possess a filmatic character, a situation or tableau which i feel is striking, epic and expressive. They also ask for very different quality of sound from the solo instrument, like different personalities. One is shy, talking in short, crystal clear phrases, drawing itself back in between. Another one is abundant and generous, with flowing sound filling a large span of pitch. A third one is hectic, on the edge between chasing and being chased. The fourth one is totally paralyzed, holding its breath, searching a strange slow pulse between nuances that almost don’t change. As these stories come back, they undergo variations. Still without approaching eachother in any attempt to synthesis. The sudden leaps between the contrasting stories are a characteristic feature of the work. (Anyone recall Schumann…?)Historikk about Sofia Gubaidulina:

The role of the solo instrument versus the orchestra could be described in this way: Everything that happens in the orchestra is born from ideas that start in the cello. You could maybe say that the cello dreamt the whole thing…

This is the second time I investigate the concerto form, after the double concerto for violin and percussion Catch Light, premiered in March this year.

Duration: 25 minutes.

Sofia Gubaidulina was born in Chistopol in the Tatar Republic of the Soviet Union in 1931. After instruction in piano and composition at the Kazan Conservatory, she studied composition with Nikolai Peiko at the Moscow Conservatory, pursuing graduate studies there under Vissarion Shebalin. Until 1992, she lived in Moscow. Since then, she has made her primary residence in Germany, outside Hamburg.
Gubaidulina’s compositional interests have been stimulated by the tactile exploration and improvisation with rare Russian, Caucasian, and Asian folk and ritual instruments collected by the “Astreia” ensemble, of which she was a co-founder, by the rapid absorption and personalization of contemporary Western musical techniques (a characteristic, too, of other Soviet composers of the post-Stalin generation including Edison Denisov and Alfred Schnittke), and by a deep-rooted belief in the mystical properties of music.
Her uncompromising dedication to a singular vision did not endear her to the Soviet musical establishment, but her music was championed in Russia by a number of devoted performers including Vladimir Tonkha, Friedrich Lips, Mark Pekarsky, and Valery Popov. The determined advocacy of Gidon Kremer, dedicatee of Gubaidulina’s masterly violin concerto, Offertorium, helped bring the composer to international attention in the early 1980s. Gubaidulina is the author of symphonic and choral works, two cello concerti, a viola concerto, four string quartets, a string trio, works for percussion ensemble, and many works for nonstandard instruments and distinctive combinations of instruments. Her scores frequently explore unconventional techniques of sound production.
Since 1985, when she was first allowed to travel to the West, Gubaidulina’s stature in the world of contemporary music has skyrocketed. She has been the recipient of prestigious commissions from the Berlin, Helsinki, and Holland Festivals, the Library of Congress, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, and many other organizations and ensembles. The major triumph of the recent past was the premiere in 2002 of the monumental two-part cycle, Passion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ according to St. John, commissioned respectively by the International Bachakademie Stuttgart and the Norddeutschen Rundfunk, Hamburg.
Gubaidulina made her first visit to North America in 1987 as a guest of Louisville’s “Sound Celebration.” She has returned many times since as a featured composer of festivals — Boston’s “Making Music Together” (1988), Vancouver’s “New Music” (1991), Tanglewood (1997) — and for other performance milestones. From the retrospective concert by Continuum (New York, 1989) to the world premieres of commissioned works — Pro et Contra by the Louisville Orchestra (1989), String Quartet No. 4 by the Kronos Quartet (New York, 1994), Dancer on a Tightrope by Robert Mann and Ursula Oppens (Washington, DC, 1994), the Viola Concerto by Yuri Bashmet with the Chicago Symphony conducted by Kent Nagano (1997), Two Paths (”A Dedication to Mary and Martha”) for two solo violas and orchestra, by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Kurt Masur (1999), and Light of the End by the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Masur (2003) — the accolades of American critics have been ecstatic.
In January 2007, Gubaidulina was the first woman composer to be spotlighted by the BBC during its annual “composer weekend” in London. Among her most recent compositions are Feast During a Plague (2005), jointly commissioned by the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra – and conducted in Philadelphia by Sir Simon Rattle and in Pittsburgh and New York by Sir Andrew Davis – and In Tempus Praesens, a new violin concerto unveiled at the 2007 Lucerne Festival by Anne-Sophie Mutter with the Berlin Philharmonic under the baton of Rattle.
Gubaidulina is a member of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin and the Freie Akademie der Künste in Hamburg, of the Royal Music Academy in Stockholm and of the German order “Pour le mérite.” She has been the recipient of the Prix de Monaco (1987), the Premio Franco Abbiato (1991), the Heidelberger Künstlerinnenpreis (1991), the Russian State Prize (1992), and the SpohrPreis (1995). Her most recent awards include the prestigious Praemium Imperiale in Japan (1998), the Sonning Prize in Denmark (1999), the Polar Music Prize in Sweden (2002), the Great Distinguished Service Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (2002) and the Living Composer Prize of the Cannes Classical Awards in 2003. In 2004, she was elected as a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Her music is now generously represented on compact disc, and Gubaidulina has been honored twice with the coveted Koussevitzky International Recording Award. Major releases have appeared on the DG, Chandos, Philips, Sony Classical, BIS, and Berlin Classics labels.
Gubaidulina’s music is published in North America by G. Schirmer, Inc.