in brieflive

The Kids Are Alright

Ligeti Quartet: »Workshop concert«

Ligeti Quartet. © Louise Mason

Sune Anderberg. © Alexander Banck-Petersen

I know, I know. A workshop concert at the conservatory: yawn. And no, hardly anyone showed up – apart from Bent Sørensen. Fair enough. But yes, you missed out. Especially on young Albert Laubel, who did exactly what you hope someone will do at this kind of concert: suddenly step forward, make a mark, and promise something for the future.

It was the English Ligeti Quartet visiting the Royal Danish Academy of Music for the seventh time to work with the students. And they did so with both commitment and precision. (Someone should really give them a prize one day – say, someone sitting on a fortune they clearly don’t know what to do with.)

Lucas Fagervik’s Bells & Canons set up stark oppositions, as composers tend to do in exercises of style: a bright, slightly fractured minor chord set against gentle baroque pastiche in increasingly rapid alternations. Then a movement with brutal – almost banal – glissandi, another with heavy bow strokes, and a final one in which the strings took turns trying to keep a single tone alive. A beautiful, constructive, and Jürg Frey–porous landing.

A different kind of circus instinct drove Yifan Shao’s ultra-short Dreams Evaporated Too Soon, which sounded like abused sounds dragged across a floor. The ending was ultra-theatrical: the quartet froze mid-air for a moment before scraping the last traces of life out of the strings.

»I can make this even more mannered,« Jonas Wiinblad must have thought, opening his String Trio with Viola – not a quartet, of course! – with silent playing. But cliché turned into quiet poetry as small, innocent intervals slowly emerged in tight patterns. When the viola was finally allowed to join, it went against the grain: a virtuosic solo cadenza with falling bow strokes, shimmering overtones, and temperament. Boom! A striking contrast. Less convincing was the piece’s apparent need for a final, unnecessary layer of electronic distortion. Still, points for mannerism.

What remained was Albert Laubel’s String Quartet as the most fully realized work of the concert. Not overthought, just a seamless movement between dynamic extremes. Distinctive trills were elegantly disarmed by inserted snaps, glissandi sounded like part of an internal logic rather than mere effect, and the sound world shifted with calm dramatic overview. Substance and maturity in 2026 – well, well.

English translation: Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek

playlist

13.06.2023

My name is Allan Gravgaard Madsen – would you like to see my playlist?

»In his music, composer Allan Gravgaard Madsen tries to create a better version of himself.«

Allan Gravgaard Madsen is a Danish composer based in Copenhagen. His most recent works include Träume nicht and Nachtmusik. He tries to create a better version of himself in his music – where his personality tends to be restless, chatty and has an active inner life, his music is controlled, simple and merciless in its expression. He is the recipient of the Carl Nielsen & Anne Marie Carl-Nielsens Hæderspris 2022.

in briefrelease

23.01.2022

Finnish Space Travel

Tomutonttu: »Hoshi«

Vauva, 02.12

Kristoffer Møllegaard

The Finnish multimedia artist Jan Anderzén has, with the album Hoshi, released under the solo moniker Tomutonttu, created a true little star. Not only because »hoshi« literally means »star« in Japanese, but above all due to the music itself. There is something cosmic, yet infinitely minute, about the sonic worlds Anderzén conjures—like a galaxy reflected in a puddle, or a space journey in a rocket carved from a hollow tree trunk. Synths emit busy, warm blips and bloops, while ultra-short vocal and instrumental samples create a recognizable blur. At once artificial and organic – soft, rounded, jagged, crackling.

Anderzén approaches sound with a playfulness I simply adore. His music is strange in an incredibly comforting way. It places me in a kind of colorful, trance-like state, only interrupted when, several times over the course of the album, I find myself smiling in delight at a particularly great sound. The synths on »Katse osuu sähköön!« The choral samples on »Kesä oli äkkiä ohi!« Milo Linnovaara’s flute on »Malta lausua ‘AH’!« And many more. Hoshi is an album packed with microscopic moments that together form a frayed, exploding, radiant, idiosyncratic whole—a stellar moment of just under 38 minutes.