The accordion has long been around on the fringes
of contemporary music, but releases such as this and other substantial
new works for similar instruments by the likes of
Sofia
Gubaidulina have seen it taking an increasingly mainstream role.
Institutes such as my employers at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague
started new departments for accordion not so very long ago, populated
by seriously minded students who refuse to play sea-shanties or other
stereotypical accordion fodder. Frode Haltli has already carved a name
for himself with an ECM recording ‘Looking on Darkness’
(see
review),
and his inspiration to take up the instrument was through another accordion
pioneer, Mogens Ellegaard, for whom the concerto
Spur and the
other works on this disc were written. The booklet notes have a nice
anecdote on the subject of benign persistence which should be an inspiration
for all players of obscure instruments. Ellegaard wrote Christmas cards
for years to the great composer Vagn Holmboe, each time challenging
him to write a piece for accordion. Holmboe eventually gave in, writing
a four movement sonata and informing Ellegaard that he no longer needed
to send Christmas cards.
The booklet is lively with fascinating snippets about the origins of
the pieces in this programme, but we’ll stick to the music at
hand.
Spur is the masterpiece of the disc; a truly remarkable
work full of inspired music and breathtaking effects from both the soloist
and the orchestra. Just take in the
glissandi in the first few
minutes and you’ll be hooked. The recording engineers have taken
the decision to put the left-right stereo nature of the accordion in
each respective speaker, which always makes me think of a player with
a vast instrument and very long rubbery arms. Aside from this quirk
the recording is tremendous: deeply involving and endlessly fascinating
portrayal of a work which is hard to describe without waxing lyrical
about transparency of sound and a confluence of simplicity and complexity
which results in a kind of intense profoundness of accessibility.
Pre-dating the quasi-timelessness of
Spur,
Signals sits
very distinctly in the late 1960s avant-garde, the electric guitar and
elements of angular serialism now parked in the artistic space reserved
for ‘modern’ music which no-one really likes. This is however
more than a mere 20
th century museum piece, The six movements
of
Signals explore time-shaping improvisatory musical ‘moments’
in which the gestures of Webern are expressed by the more extreme sonorities
of the percussive, plucked and puffed, or where miniature worlds of
darkness, mystery and violence are presented, flashing past our imagination
and consciousness.
Dinosauros for accordion and electronics is a grand theatrical
demonstration of the accordion’s range and flexibility, the sounds
of the instrument transformed through Mogens Ellegaard’s recorded
playing, making this a kind of homage to the craftsmanship of both the
composer and the original performer. With the tape an equal partner
to the soloist, the integration and extension of the accordion’s
sounds create a fascinatingly unified tapestry of sound which goes way
beyond the weighty tread suggested by the title.
The final piece,
Flashing, is derived from material already heard
as the solo accordion cadenza in
Spur. Taken out of context this
still makes an excellent solo work, and Frode Haltli states that his
versions of both “demonstrate the vast room for interpretation
that lies in Nordheim’s music.” In other words, we are barely
troubled by repetition, and in fact the points of recognition between
the works appear as welcome friends.
Flashing is yet further
evidence that the accordion has much more to offer than the image conveyed
by conventional expectation.
A minor gripe with recent Simax releases and other labels which use
the same foldout packaging design is that the inner slot which holds
the booklet is inevitably torn. CD cases of many kinds seem plagued
by design weaknesses and I’m no great fan of the clattery old
jewel case, but these cardboard foldout things aren’t the answer
either. This is no place for such moans however, since the qualities
of creativity, performance and recording on this release soar above
all considerations of the mundane. If you’ve never thought of
the accordion as anything more than an ethnic accompaniment or busker’s
squeezebox, here is the very place to have your horizons widened.
Dominy Clements 
