Niels Rønsholdt
51
A Violinist with Fire in His Bow
Darragh Morgan, Ulster Orchestra & David Brophy: »Spin – New music for Violin & Orchestra from Northern Ireland«
© Brian Morrison
There is nothing quite like true enthusiasts. They champion composers and works that might otherwise have remained dormant. Here we have the exuberant violinist Darragh Morgan, who since the age of fifteen (!) has promoted and performed contemporary music. He knows what works and has a keen instinct for new pieces and composers – especially on this album with the not exactly catchy title Spin – New Music for Violin & Orchestra from Northern Ireland. Four relatively recent violin concertos, all centred around Morgan as soloist. Two of them are dedicated to the musical firebrand himself.
There is fire in Brian Irvine’s violin concerto À mon seul désir from the very beginning, where sparkling motifs and riffs erupt everywhere. Almost too much energy and activity – but it works, and all the fierce gestures are carefully balanced. The movement is titled »With a big life embracing energy«. Concrete and descriptive – the Irish leave the grand spheres of abstraction to the contemporary music scene in Central Europe. I have replayed the dramatic climax of the second movement several times out of sheer enthusiasm, and the entire concerto (which lasts only fifteen minutes) ends with angelic beauty on Morgan’s highest, finest strings.
Ryan Molloy’s three-movement violin concerto, stretching beyond twenty minutes, by contrast tends to drift somewhat aimlessly, although the final movement reaches a strong level. Bill Campbell’s Swim is unmistakably Irish in tone throughout, conjuring images of rolling fields and the proud Irish landscape. Midway through the quarter-hour work, Darragh Morgan delivers a heartfelt and expansive solo cadenza.
Fortunately, Frank Lyons’s Spin 3 is also a small gem, leaving the listener uplifted by this new Northern Irish music performed by the Ulster Orchestra and the fascinating Darragh Morgan, whose deep personal dedication gives so much to the music.
English translation: Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek
A Seedy Hotel Room Becomes the Stage For Lives, Traumas, and Music
Emma O’Halloran, Irish National Opera: »Trade« / »Mary Motorhead«
© Ros Kavanagh
Two chamber operas by Irish composer Emma O’Halloran, both adapted from plays by her uncle, Mark O’Halloran. The first, Trade, is utterly compelling and deeply moving: the story of two men meeting for sex in a grubby hotel room, whose intertwining lives are burdened by trauma and love. The composer writes of the »beautiful economy« in her uncle’s language and the same could be said of her music, which charges the text with more and more tension and urgency without cramping it – but just as often barely registers at all, letting theatre and storytelling rule. The vocal acting is outstanding.
The stylistic resourcefulness of Trade, in which the two characters are so vividly drawn, returns in the monologue Mary Motorhead but with less success. Here, musical sampling can get in the way of our view of the prisoner, who tells of her troubled life before she split her husband’s head open with a knife. Taken with Trade, though, it only emphasizes O’Halloran’s brilliance with theatre and deft musical hand. Would it be too much to hope for one or two truly theatrical, storytelling operas like these in the avant-garde strand of Copenhagen Opera Festival?
From Chaos, Ingebrigt Håker Flaten Weaves Musical Patterns
Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (Exit) Knarr: »Drops«
© PR
The keyword for this release can already be found in the title of the opening track: »Deluge (deconstructed)«. Here, Håker Flaten takes a Wayne Shorter composition apart like a LEGO set and reassembles it in a way that only occasionally recalls the original. Out of the pieces emerges a short, repetitive guitar motif, around which drums, saxophones, bass, and piano orbit in increasingly fragmented patterns. The melodies gradually become less concrete, the instruments interact less, the intensity rises almost imperceptibly – until everything falls apart and the process begins again. The same approach is used in the third track, »Kanón (for Paal Nilssen-Love)«, where tension and release unfold in waves that propel the music forward. Håker Flaten masters the art of creating dramatic arcs that guide the listener safely through even the most tumultuous passages.
This is not easy listening – we are still in free jazz territory – but there is a strangely compelling balance between chaos and restraint. At first, one is caught by the surprise of the music’s sudden turns, later by the joy of recognition as one begins to sense where the music sharpens and takes shape.
The album closes with »Austin Vibes (tweaked by Karl Hjalmar Nyberg)«, a noisy collage that slowly opens up toward fragments of more conventional horn melodies. Here we get closest to something resembling a classic jazz feeling—and yet not quite. It is still far from easily digestible music. But even when Håker Flaten and his fellow musicians move furthest into fragmentation, they manage to make the difficult-to-understand surprisingly easy to grasp.
English translation: Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek
When Two Worlds Meet: Bro and Takada In Perfect Listening
Jakob Bro & Midori Takada: »あなたに出会うまで / Until I Met You«
At last, three years after their concert at the Black Diamond, the collaboration between Danish guitarist Jakob Bro and Japanese percussionist Midori Takada has been released in album format – and it does not disappoint.
Their friendship may seem surprising at first, given their differences, but あなたに出会うまで / Until I Met You reveals how it rests on a shared ability to close their eyes and listen. They give each other space to do what they each do best: Bro’s simple yet refined melodies and Takada’s magical soundscapes. On the title track, Bro sketches the outlines with acoustic guitar and sparse notes, which Takada fills in with shimmering marimba and gong. On A Brief Rest of Sisyphosthe roles are reversed – here Takada sets the frame while Bro adds the details.
The sublime sister pieces Landscape II, Simplicity and Landscape I, Austerity are more abstract than the earlier works. Landscape II breathes hope and longing with resonant chimes and percussion, while a middle section unfolds in melodic harmony between guitar and piano. Landscape I carries the same sense of yearning, but with a more melancholic tone; a gently undulating marimba supports a beautifully moving guitar part. Both pieces radiate a clear sense of respect and tenderness between the musicians: Bro and Takada listen to each other with rare intimacy, and together they have created something truly unique.
English translation: Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek
When Synthesizers Sprout: Filip Leyman’s Organic Debut
Filip Leyman: »Soft Light«
© Gianluca Grasselli
The forest lake is a cradle of life in more than one sense. The forest’s myriad forms of life depend on its waters, but its trickling branches, intense stillness, and soft reflections also hold powerful musical potential. It is precisely this life-giving energy that forms the basis of Swedish composer Filip Leyman’s solo debut album, Soft Light. From the very first track, »Beyond the Sea«, one senses how Leyman manages to create an organic universe where every sound nourishes the soil for the next. It is difficult to find either beginning or end as the many synthesizers and strings grow into and out of one another – you simply have to surrender and sink into this spherical universe of reverberations and deep, steady bass.
Filip Leyman’s work cannot be described without mentioning Swedish artist Anna von Hausswolff. Her music is like a force of nature, carried by long, sacred organ passages – and what is Hausswolff and what is Leyman is never entirely possible to determine. Soft Light gathers together compositions written over decades and appears as a natural extension of the many albums and soundtracks the two have created together. The album contains a strong cinematic dimension: in a track like »Shapes«, the layered sounds culminate in a dazzling climax that feels like slow motion in sound.
Here, Leyman appears as a musical botanist, patiently letting his synthesizers grow, sprout, and bloom. Although Soft Light has developed over many years, it sounds remarkably cohesive – like one long breath. The album seems more cultivated than composed. Let us hope that Soft Light is only the beginning, and that Leyman will allow more solo albums to grow in the same light.
English translation: Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek
Goosebumps In the Courtroom: When Music Turns Into a Power Play
Niels Rønsholdt and Louise Beck: »Den Stærkes Ret – Den Svages Pligt« – Aarhus Festuge
© Malte Bülow Photography
A newly composed opera staged in a courtroom may sound like a banal trick. But as I step into the waiting hall of the Aarhus Courthouse for Niels Rønsholdt and Louise Beck’s Den Stærkes Ret – Den Svages Pligt (The Right of the Strong – The Duty of the Weak), I wonder for a moment if I’ve come to the wrong place. An oblong room, tables scattered about, a balcony above – and then a sheet of music in a glass display case that normally would hold old legal documents. The scenography is discreet, but the legal framework immediately sparks reflections on law, power, and justice.
Soon, nearly 20 singers appear on the balcony. The music is tonal, carried by resonance and repeated phrases that gradually shift like a canon. You sense borrowings from minimalism, but also a near-folklike simplicity that makes the choir both enchanting and unsettling. The plot – a daughter confronting her father’s ghost to claim his weapon – emerges only in fragments. It is the atmosphere that drives the work, and it changes radically when the singers leave the balcony and place themselves among the audience, while three dancers move through the hall.
A pivotal moment comes when the choir suddenly strikes tuning forks and places them on the tables, sending a vibrating »wuu-uu« through the room. Goosebumps arrive instantly. Moments later, the singers address us directly, holding intense eye contact. It feels both intimate and transgressive, like being spoken to in court with no chance to reply. I wanted to look away, but felt compelled to hold their gaze. Here, the title became physical: the duty of the weak to submit.
As the work fades out, all the singers turn against the father and side with the daughter. Books are torn from the shelves, pages ripped out, and as »Listen and learn« is sung, Orwell’s 1984 flickers in the back of my mind. It is both disturbing and uncannily timely in an era where obedience to authority and manipulation again shape public discourse.
Den Stærkes Ret is one of the most intense musical experiences I have had in years. It unites aesthetics, body, and social commentary in a way that makes you shudder. I am already waiting for acts two and three.
English translation: Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek