Interpreting Finn Mortensen’s Piano Music in an International Perspective
(2023)
author(s): Kristian Evjen
published in: Norwegian Artistic Research Programme, University of Stavanger
Finn Mortensen (1922-1983) was one of Norway’s most central composers and influential modernists in the decades following the Second World War. Nevertheless, his music is little studied among both researchers and performers. The dominant contemporary view that Mortensen was, as the renowned Norwegian musicologist Finn Benestad put it, “[t]echnically competent and emotionally cold” (Benestad 1959), and a composer more occupied with the constructivist than the expressive and emotional sides of music has largely remained a prevailing paradigm. This perception was not improved by Mortensen’s tendency to always talk about his music in purely technical, compositional terms and to remain silent about the stylistic, aesthetic and emotional content on the few occasions he reluctantly commented on his music. In addition, his scores, characterised by an ascetic notational style, contain very few expressive marks, dynamic nuances, tempo modifications, or other signs that could reveal aesthetic or emotional intentions.
In my PhD project, which focuses on the performance and recording of Mortensen’s complete piano music, my starting point has been the opposing view that his music has dynamic power, flexible gestures, colourful harmonic language, and what I perceive as strong and varied emotional content. By juxtaposing Mortensen’s piano compositions with some of the most iconic music of the twentieth century, including music by composers that heavily influenced Mortensen’s development and fuelled his search towards an internationally oriented modernist style, I hope to expose a broader range of viable ways of performing Mortensen’s music. This way, I intend to challenge the view of Mortensen as merely a cold constructivist and instead shine a light on his other sides, the impulsiveness, expressivity and emotionality I have always perceived as inherently present in his compositions. The project could thus significantly impact the understanding of his music and enable performers to make artistic choices based on a broader and more nuanced frame of reference, facilitating a deeper insight into his musical intentions.
My main goal with this project has been to explore some of the music’s interpretational possibilities and, as an extension of this, disseminate and discuss the knowledge, methods and processes that can lead to new and personal interpretations. Through this project, I hope to contribute to a new assessment of the aesthetic, stylistic and expressive aspects of performing Mortensen’s piano music, and that way, challenge and nuance history’s judgment of one of Norway’s most central modernists.
Benestad, Finn. "Ny Musikk." Vårt Land, December 8th 1959.
Point Of Return
(2023)
author(s): Kristoffer Berre Alberts
connected to: University of Stavanger
published in: Norwegian Artistic Research Programme
Den akustiske og improviserte musikken er fundamentert på modeller som tar utgangspunkt i kollektivitet og samspill. Utgivelser av denne musikken baserer seg på å spille inn og dokumentere former for samspill, og altså lydfeste situasjoner som har foregått samtidig og i samme rom. ‘Stilarten’ vi karakteriserer som støymusikk er i høyeste grad også basert på samspill, men hvor innspillings- og utgivelsesprosessen er tuftet på andre kreative og skapende modeller. Her er prosessene rundt tid og rom ofte konstruert og manipulert via digitale eller analoge teknologier. Point of Return (improvisatoriske referansepunkt i tid og rom) er et prosjekt som går ut på å finne overføringsverdi mellom modellene, prosessene, rommene og bruken av tid.
Største del av platesamlinga mi består av innspillinger fra 1960-tallet, for det meste jazzutgivelser fra USA, litt mindre av den såkalte europeiske improviserte musikken. Flesteparten er live-innspillinger tror jeg. Det er i hvert fall de jeg oftest setter på når jeg er alene hjemme – altså live platene. Etter hvert har vi blitt flere i husholdningen som jeg gledelig deler platesamlinga mi med, men ettersom min eldste datter på snart 8 år ikke har det samme romantiske (og analytiske) forholdet til den improviserte, akustiske og instrumentale musikken som meg, og ettersom jeg ikke har det samme romantiske forholdet til hennes Spotify-liste, har vi funnet ut at Beatles er noe vi begge kan sette på, noe begge kan nyte og synge med på. Vi har funnet fram til musikk innspilt lenge før vi begge ble født, men som begge har en emosjonell referanse til.
Et lite segment av samlinga mi består av utgivelser fra den såkalte støymusikken. Disse platene hører jeg sjelden på (må jeg innrømme). Innkjøpene er som regel utført på grunnlag av (tidvis ikke helt edru) shopping på utenlandsreiser, og ofte på grunnlag av de kule omslagene. Likevel setter jeg stor pris på å være publikum på konserter med annonsert støymusikk. Det er noe magisk med disse konsertene, og jeg setter stor pris på at jeg ikke kan ‘sette fingeren’ på hva det er jeg liker med dem. Det handler kanskje om et fravær av analytiske egenskaper når det gjelder denne stilarten, jeg er litt ‘novise’, den er ikke min. Konsertene transporterer meg bort fra et analytisk ståsted og jeg setter stor pris på det oppstykkede lydlandskapet og de uvanlige elektroniske og soniske strukturene i musikken.
Ingen av støymusikkplatene i samlinga mi er spilt inn live, og nesten alle er spilt inn av to utøvere, og på baksiden av omslagene oppgis det ofte at de har spilt inn musikken i hvert sitt studio, på ulik tid, men at utgivelsen likevel er produsert av begge to – som to adskilte og likeverdige improviserende komponister.
Prosessen i mitt doktorgradsarbeid har i utgangspunktet gått ut på å spille inn musikk fra én og én utøver i isolasjon, for så å flytte dette innspilte materiale inn i en annen tid, i et annet sonisk rom, hvor musikken treffer (settes sammen med) annet innspilt improvisert materiale fra andre musikere. Arbeidet har i stor grad bestått i å eksperimentere med sammensetninger; versjoner av helheter, hvordan solistiske komponenter passer/ikke passer sammen, og hvilke felles og forskjelligartede referanser som er hensiktsmessig å benytte seg av i prosessen mot de offentliggjorte kunstneriske resultat.
Ng revisited
(2018)
author(s): Johan Jutterström
published in: Research Catalogue, University of Stavanger
The point of departure for my artistic research project is the piece Ng, composed by me in 2014 for an ensemble of three musicians without instruments and three dancers. Having reached a critical point in my own practice as a saxophonist where the identity of my music and that of the instrument seemed too intricately intertwined and convoluted, I happened to attend a dance rehearsal where the choreography was rehearsed without accompanying music. I listened to the rehearsal with my eyes closed, activated the situation musically and suddenly found myself in a soundscape that was full of musical possibilities seemingly free of much of the problems with western music that the saxophone represented for me. Possibilities that I tried to make sense out of when composing Ng. Approaching an interdisciplinary perspective towards choreography and dance, the movement of the human body became the music material. The sounds that appeared did not originate from an instrument built with the purpose of projecting a certain sound on to the world; they were of this world and in that sense concrete. But they were also of human anatomy and in that sense, I believed, more malleable than other concrete sounds and already in a close relationship to human perception and understanding. I hoped that, by abandoning the music instrument and approaching a choreographic perspective, I would contribute to the theories and practices of western art music while also challenging conventions that I felt was weighing it down—just as the saxophone weighed around my neck.
During my artistic research project I intend to challenge Ng and investigate the concepts behind it more thoroughly before finally revisiting and reworking it with the knowledge gained during the research project. Does a choreographic approach offer a substantial addition to western art music theory and practice? Can such a premise challenge how music notation is approached and help expanding how music structure is thought of beyond how it is communicated through notation? Can it change time measuring mechanisms of music and advance the way space is approached?
The disposition of my research project is such that I can criticize the ideas of Ng in retrospect, while still actively working on refining them both in practice and theory through Ng revisited. In juxtaposing Ng and Ng revisited I hope that my research questions, my methods, the context of my research and whatever new knowledge my research project can offer will become clear while simultaneously activated by, and contained in, my own artistic practice. As such coalescing concept, form, theory, material and presentation; something that I believe is an important ambition of artistic research.
