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New Music in Oslo

30.09.2010

This year it was the turn of the Latvian Radio Choir, the Norwegian Soloists’ Choir and the Nederlands Kamerkoor to appear at the Ultima Festival in Oslo. The Nederlands Kamerkoor’s contribution to the festival was substantial. On the evening of Friday 7 September the choir gave an a cappella concert conducted by the Latvian conductor Kaspars Putniņš, which included two world premières - of Micha Hamel’s setting of poems by Erik Menkveld, and of a work by the Serbian composer Isadora Zebeljan on fantasy texts of her own.

Bomen (Trees) by Micha Hamel called for an unusual arrangement of the choir in the church. Standing on stage were a quartet of singers and two speakers: the poet himself and a woman who delivered commentary on or interpreted the text, sometimes amazed, sometimes mocking, sometimes admiring or disappointed (very nicely played by Marleene Goldstein.) The rest of the singers stood amongst the audience – sometimes separately, at other times in groups. This produced a very special effect, attracting the audience’s attention and undoubtedly influencing the way they listened. One could say we were surrounded by ‘trees’, or, as someone posted on Twitter: “I thought it was brilliant. During the third part the penny dropped - that I was sitting on the window-sill and the singers were the wood.”

Photo of the rehearsal of “Bomen” in the Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ

Hamel’s composition inspired us to make very conscious choices about where in the church to perform the other works. The Lamentationes Jeremiae of Thomas Tallis, the only pre-20th century composer on the programme, formed an atmospheric opening to the concert, being performed from the raised choir of the Grønland Kirke, a lot further away from the audience. By this means we wished to symbolise the ‘devotion’ expressed by this piece – the distance between the Almighty and mortals. Antifona sul nome ‘Jesu’ by Giacinto Scelsi (in which Jesus is invoked) was also performed there. This composition appeared very simple: mainly unison, with the melody being constantly repeated, broadly speaking – but it was precisely in the small alterations in the melody that this music demanded a lot of the singers’ concentration.
The concert concluded with a performance, together with the Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, of the incomparably beautiful Tres Lamentationes by the Norwegian composer Arne Nordheim, conducted by Grete Pedersen. This year saw the establishment of a prize for talented young Norwegian composers. The prize bears the name of Nordheim, who died recently. During the evening the Norwegian Minister of Culture presented this prize for the first time.

We had added the Antifona of Scelsi to our programme because it was also to be used the next day in an improvisatory work by Maja Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje for three amplified choirs, six ‘noise musicians’ (four electric guitars and two amplified saxophones) and large organ, a work which thus also incorporated fragments of existing music.  This piece, Crepuscular Hour, is based on animals that become active during twilight. For both choir and audience this hour was a fairly intense experience, due to both the music and the lighting plus smoke machines, all of which caused us to experience all sorts of different emotions: from annoyance to a sort of ‘detached state of being.’
A few days after our return from Oslo, the programme of Hamel, Zebeljan, Scelsi, Nordheim en Tallis was repeated in Amsterdam and Utrecht, supplemented with the wonderful and now complete Mallarmé Songs by Jan-Peter Wagemans.

Photos (Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ) © Susanne Vermeulen