Svend Nielsen has
long been an important figure in Danish music. He has been a
teacher in music theory at the Royal Academy of Music in Ĺrhus
for the last 30 years, and has written an impressive body of
work in the Romantic-Impressionist tradition. As a composer
he balances between the lyrical and the succinct. This CD features
Svend Nielsen’s most extensive vocal work, indeed, his longest
ever composition; Butterfly Valley, based on a sonnet
cycle by the Danish poet Inger Christensen.
Inger Christensen
has been nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature on a number
of occasions. Sommerfugledalen is described as her mature
masterpiece, and has a place in the Ministry of Culture’s list
of the twelve most important Danish works of poetry. The work
is a sonnet cycle in a strict form of 14 sonnets, each with
14 lines. The subtitle ‘A Requiem’ was given to the work by
the author, as she describes the cycle as a gradual coming of
awareness to the presence of death. Svend Nielsen worked on
his setting for six years, collaborating closely with Ars Nova,
without whom the work could not have been realized.
Ars Nova has an
excellent pedigree in Renaissance music as well as contemporary
works, and their principal conductor since 2002 has been Paul
Hillier. As you might expect, their performance is needle sharp
when it comes to articulation, tuning and expression. The music
dips and yaws with the content of the texts, sometimes gathering
into more conventional chords from free sounding clusters and
glissandi – always a tough technical challenge for an a capella
group. Most distinctive are the upper voices, which chime through
the textures and echo each other through the musical spaces
created by Nielsen. The texts are of course sung in Danish,
but the booklet has full English translations, and it is fascinating
to follow the composer’s interpretations. There are also pretty
photos of all of the butterflies.
This is a genuinely
fine work of art. Do not be put off by the pinky cover, but
also don’t be lulled into thinking this will be easy going music;
or the kind of sentimental stuff your mother-in-law will like
because she has a buddleia in the garden. Yes, it’s arguably
over-long and static in places, but the grand sense of space
and development certainly gives the lie to any stereotypes you
might have held about music on the subject of butterflies. The
beautiful passages equal out any ‘difficult’ effects or dissonances,
but at nearly an hour it always was going to be a serious proposition.
Inger Christensen’s monochromatic reading of her own poems is
a lullaby in its own right, especially if, like me, your Danish
is weaker than absent.
Dominy Clements
Ars Nova Copenhagen/Tamás
Vetö
