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SEEN
AND HEARD INTERVIEW
Sven-David Sandström –
interviewed by Göran Forsling – on his
opera Batseba soon to be premièred in
Stockholm (GF)
L-R Michael Weinius (David in
Batseba) and Sven-David Sandström
‘On the most basic level, music is the expression
of feelings. As a composer I want to convey a vision
of the artistic life through emotions. I want to move
people, not necessarily by conveying only pleasant
feelings, but also by challenging the audience.
Today, as well as throughout most of my career, I
work with a wide variety of modes of expression to
achieve this goal: excessive beauty, naïve music,
modernist techniques, and most lately, techniques
that draw upon all my previous experiences as a
composer. In my music, stylistic diversity serves a
higher end. I can be naïve as well as complex, if the
mood of expression or the dramatic unfolding of a
piece so demands.’
The text above is the
opening paragraph from Statement of Artistic and
Pedagogical Vision, written in August 2001 by
Swedish composer Sven-David Sandström. Now in his
mid-sixties he has been a central figure in Swedish
music life for more than four decades. He studied
with Ingvar Lidholm, once member of the famous
modernist ‘Monday Group’ after WW2. At the outset of
his career Sandström wrote in a complex modernist,
technically demanding style. Internationally his
breakthrough came at the 1972 ISCM Festival in
Amsterdam with the orchestral work Through and
Through, which led to a commission from the BBC,
Utmost, premiered by members of the BBC
Symphony Orchestra under Pierre Boulez.
A turning point came in the early 1980s, when he
started composing in a more accessible, neo-romantic
style. His controversial Requiem (1982) was a
seminal work, twelve years later he composed High
Mass, a Catholic Mass with Bach’s B-minor as
starting-point. When it was performed in Minneapolis
2003 under Philip Brunelle my colleague Bruce Hodges
wrote in his review ‘this might possibly be one of
the greatest choral works of the last twenty years or
so.’
Sven-David is hardworking and prolific. Composing in
practically all genres within Western Art Music
tradition his oeuvre encompasses about 200 works. He
held a professorship in composition at the Royal
College of Music in Stockholm 1985 – 1995 and from
1999 a corresponding chair at Indiana University,
Bloomington, USA. At present he is in the limelight
due to the imminent premiere (13 December) of his new
opera Batseba at the Royal Swedish Opera in
Stockholm. To get some aspects on the work I called
him a couple of weeks before the premiere. He was
then spending a lot of his time at the rehearsals and
he was full of confidence but admitted that with the
premiere approaching the tension also increased.
Every syllable of the quoted introduction above – his
musical Credo – breezes communication and his
verbal expressivity is just as striking as his
musical.
‘It is a biblical theme and
it is a subject I grasp. A lot of people know the
story which can be read in the Books of Samuel and
the Books of Chronicles in the Old Testament. It is
multifarious, cruel – and topical. There are certain
things we in our culture can’t identify with any
longer. The natural male perspective is one: when
King David sees Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, one of
his soldiers, he sends for her, lies with her and she
becomes pregnant. Cruelty and calculation is nothing
unknown today but when David orders Uriah to be
placed at the forefront in the battle and
consequently killed so he can marry Bathsheba, he
seems to be going too far beyond the morals of today
– and it displeases the Lord! But the eternal fights
are just as topical: the battle between good and bad,
the battle between man and woman. The struggle for
power between David and Bathsheba is central and in
the end David dies, Bathsheba takes over, gets her
will and her son with David, Solomon becomes king.
It is a cruel opera:
war, murder, mutilation; it is dramatic and thrilling
– and beautiful!’
‘The libretto is based on Torgny
Lindgren’s novel
Batseba and written by Leif
Janzon. How much influence did you have on the growth
of the opera?’
‘The idea was mine in the
first place and it was aroused when I read the novel
when it was new, back in 1984. After that it was a
long process before everything was settled. Leif and
I have discussed all the time but I have not directed
anything. I have had views about what I wanted –
should we have choruses, maybe a children’s chorus –
but I have in no way interfered with his writing.’
‘What about Torgny Lindgren? Has he
been involved?’
‘I know Torgny and we talked about it
but he had no specific views so we could feel free to
design it according to our own ideas.’
‘The libretto is in English, which is
a novelty for a Swedish opera. Why?’
‘Swedish is not exactly a language for
a possible international market. I tried to translate
a Swedish libretto into English and it was
tremendously difficult. Something that works well
musically when you set a Swedish text may turn out
awkward in translation and so we settled for English.
But the original intention was to write it in
Swedish. However, Leif had problems getting started
and so we contemplated making it in English. We were
given the green light from the management of the
opera and off we went. Lindgren’s novel has been
translated into English but I don’t believe Leif used
it. There will of course be Swedish surtitles,
written by Lasse Zilliacus, who is a masterly
linguist.’
[The new Director of the Royal Swedish
Opera, Birgitta Svendén, due to take office next
autumn, has on her agenda exchange of productions
with other stages, so this concept fits perfectly
well with her ambitions. Read the interview with her
here.]
‘This is a grand opera, playing for 2½ hours,
including interval. When you start working on a
project like this, what is it that triggers your
inspiration?’
‘I actually imagine the drama in
cinematic terms. I know perfectly well that a lot of
this will not be possible to realize on the stage,
but I don’t bother. The filmic images are my
inspiration and then it’s up to stage director and
set designer to transform it into something
practicable. Batseba plays in 20 different
rooms with different lighting and the sets are rather
abstract.’
‘The production is
directed by David Radok, former Music Director of the Royal Opera
Leif Segerstam will conduct and the cast comprises several of the
leading soloists of the house with Hillevi Martinpelto, playing the
old Batseba, presumably the internationally best known name. How
long has it been in the making – since you started working on the
score?’
‘There is so much that has to be sorted out before composition can
begin. You have to present the libretto, have it accepted as
playable, then you need a commission, and all of this takes time in
an organisation of this size. It has to be fitted into the schedule.
I started writing the music in 2007. The management are satisfied
with the length of the opera. We can’t expect people to sit through
performances of modern works lasting for four to five hours as some
of the Wagner operas do.’
‘What about life after
Batseba? You
have a unique project running for the
Cathedral Parish. (The Cathedral – Storkyrkan – is the church just
behind the Royal Castle in Old Town and the parish encompasses also
St Jacob (the red church just beside the Royal Opera) and St Clara
(the church close to the Central Station)’
‘It is a three-year-project which implies
that I am going to compose music for every Sunday of the
ecclesiastical year. It is in a way a task similar to Bach’s when he
was in Leipzig. Hopefully people will see that there are connections
between the present and the past. What is also unique is that the
whole project is financed by private sponsors. Another project,
commissioned by the Bach Festival in Stuttgart is a new Messiah.
I’m setting Jennens’ text, as Handel also did, and both works
will be performed during the festival. That is also a way of
building bridges between the centuries. People will be able to hear
the Hallelujah Chorus in Handel’s 18th century idiom and
then my version of today. It is fascinating…’
......says
Sven-David Sandström and apologizes for having to run to an
appointment. He seems to be always on his way somewhere, whether it
be musically, philosophically or plainly moving physically through
the bustling traffic in the Capital.
Göran Forsling
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