On a Distant
Shore for clarinet and chamber
orchestra (actually strings, timpani
and two clarinets), written for Martin
Fröst, is laid-out in five movements,
exploiting the clarinet’s many tonal
qualities. The movement titles serve
as indications as to the moods of the
music: The Dark, The Light, The Wild,
The Singing, The Call. So, The Dark
is mostly for low strings and the clarinet
in its low register, whereas The
Light is appropriately much brighter,
with high strings accompanying a folk-like
tune in the clarinet. The Wild
is a short, devilish Scherzo. The
Singing features a long, ornamented
melody; and the piece ends as it began,
in darkness, with a final keening movement.
This very fine work is a most welcome,
if not always easy, addition to the
repertoire that should appeal to clarinettists
willing to expand their repertoire,
for this is an ultimately rewarding
piece.
Beginning
for piano trio is in three movements:
Dramatic, Tentative, Rise. Again, the
titles of the movements give some indication
of what the music is about, whereas
the work’s title aptly sums up the intention.
"It’s about Creation", says
the composer. The first movement alternates
and opposes massive piano clusters and
melodic fragments in a chaotic way;
but high strings try intercede, almost
silencing the piano. Ambiguity, however,
prevails throughout the final stages
of the movement, the strings’ trills
again confronting the piano’s clusters
until the music evaporates. The second
movement opens with a high-pitched melody
redolent of folk-song on violin, soon
embellished by the piano, and later
joined by the cello, in an echo of the
kulning (traditional herding
call). The third movement seems – at
long last – to achieve reconciliation
of the disparate elements, the piano’s
chords punctuating rather than assaulting
the strings’ kulning.
Arktis Arktis!
for orchestra was inspired by a trip
to northern Canada in which the composer
accompanied a Swedish polar expedition.
Again, the resulting piece is in no
way programmatic, neither is it Rehnqvist’s
Arctic symphony, but a suite
of impressions gathered during that
trip. The first movement Breaking
the Ice, the longest of the whole
work, evokes bleak, desolate landscapes
("Not always beautiful. Not always
white" – the composer’s words)
in appropriately greyish tones, sometimes
disrupted by piercing rays of light.
The second movement Between Sky and
Sea hovers in ambiguity, between
light and shade, motion and stillness.
Interlude in Dark briefly harks
back to the opening movement and leads
into the final movement, a song for
orchestra. This is fairly optimistic,
although the music eventually softly
dissolves into thin air.
I himmelen
for treble voices with soloists, written
for the Adolf Fredrik’s Girls Choir
on the occasion of their tour to China,
is a very fine example of Rehnqvist’s
imagination and skill when writing for
voices; she was – and may still be –
the director of an amateur choir. It
is also representative of her music
in general, in which characteristics
of folk music (such as micro-intervals,
slurs, glissandos, and timbral qualities
of "untrained" human voices)
are woven into an overtly modernistic
framework, without there ever being
any brutal opposition. Quite the contrary:
the folk-inflected material widens the
expressive palette of the modern techniques
(or the other way round), with strikingly
imaginative results. In this short piece,
the treble choir sing a traditional
chorale from Dalecarlia while four soloists
insistently repeat a high-pitched fanfare-like
phrase on the words I himmelen
("In Heavens"). This is a
real little gem, if ever there was one.
I was literally stunned by these young
singers’ immaculate rendition, the four
soloists brilliantly – and accurately
– coping with their fiendishly high-lying
parts.
Karin Rehnqvist’s highly
personal music was new to me. I doubt
that there is a better introduction
to her highly personal sound-world than
this generously filled, superbly and
convincingly played composer’s portrait.
This very fine release is again up to
BIS’s best standards and is warmly recommended.
Hubert Culot
Martin Fröst (clarinet)a;
Kungsbacka Piano Triob; Swedish Chamber
Orchestraac; Peter Sundkvista,
John Storgårdsc; Adolf Fredrik’s
Girls Choir, Bo Johanssond 
