in brief
18.11.2022

Chok – klassisk trænet komponist skrev noder

Else Marie Pade: »The Orchestral Album«
Dacapo, 18. nov.
© PR
© PR
Sune Anderberg. © Alexander Banck-Petersen Sune Anderberg

Hvem skulle have troet det om Else Marie Pade: Komponisten, der blev undervist af Vagn Holmboe, Leif Kayser og Jan Maegaard, skrev ikke kun elektronisk, men også klassisk musik. At kalde indspilningen her en sensation, som Dacapo gør, er en underdrivelse. Det er regulær verdenshistorie. Ryd forsiden!

I sine liner notes opfordrer Henrik Marstal alle danske orkestre til at opføre musikken, og det må de da gerne gøre. I så fald helst de otte korte etuder fra 1965, for her lyder og er Pade mest moden; med genfærdstoner og indespærret atonalitet skaber hun en alarmistisk stemning, som sætter sig i lytteren.

Det er dog det eneste af de fire værker, jeg har lyst til at genhøre. Suiten for kammerorkester fra 1953 er rig på Holmboe’sk mørke, på dramatiske ideer og på temperamenter, men overbeviser ikke. Heller ikke selvom Malmö Operaorkester går dedikeret til værks.

Suitens arkaiske stil virker hende helt fremmed, men skinner også igennem i trompetkoncerten fra 1954. Her er trompeten i dialog med en marchtromme, og man aner så småt det humør og talent, Pade uomtvisteligt besad. Musikken virker dog rudimentær og usammenhængende.

Der er langt fra disse skriveøvelser til den strenghed, hun demonstrerer i sine fragmentariske Parametre I-III fra 1962. De er til gengæld en tør omgang. Jeg holder mig til etuderne.

Kunne Else Marie Pade være blevet en stor symfoniker? Garanteret. Var hun det? Det mener Dacapo, så det må vi hellere rette os efter. Hil Else Marie Pade, komponisten, der skrev noder!

Else Marie Pade
33
Malmö Operaorkester
1
in brieflive
24.05

The Electronic Altar

 Fascia, Soli City, Nagaver
Alice, 22.05
© PR
© PR
© Martin Funder Martin Funder

The table is a practical prop at most electronic music concerts. It has almost become a symbol of how electronic music is denied the same expressive, physical gestural language as acoustic music. This rigid symbolism was thankfully broken when the concert network Up Node hosted a showcase evening at Alice, featuring three emerging experimental electronic artists from Norway, Sweden, and Denmark.

The MacBook stood enthroned like an altar as Swedish artist Fascia opened the evening, holding a blinking flashlight above her head – each flash triggering brutal bursts of noise. When she placed a webcam in her mouth and projected the table’s mysterious objects onto the screen behind her, the boundary between stage and audience dissolved through simple yet cunning technology.

Next to his MIDI keyboard, Danish artist Soli City had his trademark moving-head lamp. Like a robotic head, the lamp lit up and rotated in sync with epic crescendos and computerized voices. Soli City’s music is built around field recordings and classical instrumentation – strings and piano – forming a universe that exposes the tension between human and technology. The animated lamp and dramatic light show took centre stage, while composer Harald Bjørn stood like a hidden puppeteer, gently guiding the futuristic narrative forward.

The table in front of Norwegian artist Nagaver had been laid flat on the stage floor, forming a low wall. Behind it knelt Ilavenil Vasuky Jayapalan, who unleashed hard-hitting, dark rhythms from a DJ mixer, enveloping Alice in a transcendent haze. The concert evolved from driving trance into a kind of karaoke performance, with Jayapalan singing over dusty tracks—and unfortunately the music felt more like a run-through than a fully realized concert.

Behind the table lie untapped potentials for auditory innovation, but practical constraints often limit performative expression. The concerts by Fascia and Soli City succeeded in breaking the boundary between mere execution and true performance, reminding us that not all music needs to be presented with the same gestures – and that sometimes all it takes is a webcam and a laser lamp to make that clear.

 Fascia
1
Soli City
1
Nagaver
1
in briefrelease
21.05

Emergent Music

Lauri Supponen: »Dwell«
Äänitetuotanto OSK, 01.05
© Tuomas Tenkanen
© Tuomas Tenkanen
Jakob Kullberg

As an abstract micro manifesto Lauri Supponen describes his interest in »music that inhabits a second space and lingers there«, an invitation for us to dwell in the moment and discover music in its quiet emergence. 

»Gaz aux étages«, the first composition on Supponen’s breathtaking album, seems to test this idea as it unfolds with whispered bow strokes devoid of pitch. It is as if the piece itself is an entity wondering if it will prove to be music as it tentatively investigates its own constituent components. A subtle opening to an album that answers this question with clarity in its eponymous second work »Dwell« (tracks 2–5), exploring a fascinating microtonal realm. In virtuoso performances of astonishing accuracy, guitarist Petri Kumela and vocalist Tuuli Lindeberg bring Supponen’s demanding four-movement duo to life. The guitar writing in Dwell recalls Norwegian composer Martin Rane Bauck’s Fretted with Golden Fire with its drone-like microtonal strumming – a connection substantiated by the album notes, which reveal both composers know each other and have collaborated with bass clarinetist Madison Greenstone. 

The dwelling-space Supponen offers in »Eau & gaz à tous les étages« and »Opus Nen«, return the listener to a more remote sonic space, reminiscent of the album’s opening albeit with tighter compositional sense. Performed with intensity by Madison Greenstone and baritone saxophonist Sikri Lehko, they consolidate the pervasive feeling that Dwell is a uniquely inspired collaboration.

Lauri Supponen
1
playlist
09.05

My name is Sven Helbig – would you like to see my playlist?

© PR

»Every moment is nothing but the uttermost end of the past. Music makes this edge wide and beautiful.«

Sven Helbig is a German composer and producer known for combining orchestral and choral music with electronic elements and a strong poetic sensibility. A self-taught musician raised in Eisenhüttenstadt, he released his debut album Pocket Symphonies on Deutsche Grammophon to critical acclaim for its emotional depth and formal precision. Helbig has collaborated with ensembles such as the BBC Singers, Fauré Quartett, and Staatskapelle Dresden, as well as with artists like Rammstein and the Pet Shop Boys. He just released REQUIEM A on Deutsche Grammophon. It is a deeply personal and reflective composition, intertwining classical Latin liturgical texts with new ones written by Helbig himself. The work revolves around themes of loss, memory, and the possibility of renewal – with the »A« in the title symbolizing Anfang (beginning) and the belief in a new start after devastation.

playlist
25.04

My name is Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek – would you like to see my playlist?

© Kåre Viemose

»Recently, I discovered that when a couple of thousand people clap their thick gloves in minus 30 degrees, it sounds like the softest techno – a freezing space where the cold air turns into a wave of warmth, and we, in a moment of collective devotion, become one with the rhythm, one with the invisible bond that connects us in the warmth of silence. Music is not just sounds, but a vain attempt to capture the infinite, which has always been and always will be.«

Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek has been the editor-in-chief of Seismograf since 2021. He is also a music critic and cultural journalist at Kristeligt Dagblad and Århus Stiftstidende/Avisen Danmark and has over the years written to publications such as Kunsten.nu, Glissando (Poland), Neural (Italy), Raw Vision (UK), Nutida Musik (Sweden), Kunstkritikk (DK/Sweden), Iscene.dk, B.T., and Jazz Special. He is the author (together with Lars Muhl) of the book HVA' SAA! En guidet rutsjebanetur gennem Aarhus – før, nu og i fremtiden (2024) and has also contributed to the anthology on music criticism Man skal høre meget (ed. Thomas Michelsen and Claus Røllum-Larsen, 2024). He is a founder and partner in the Polish-Danish cultural organization Kultur(a), and wherever there is a piano, he will be there, eager to coax a melody from it.