Exposition

Interpreting Finn Mortensen’s Piano Music in an International Perspective (2023)

Kristian Evjen
open exposition

About this exposition

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.
typeresearch exposition
date30/05/2023
published03/10/2023
last modified03/10/2023
statuspublished
share statusprivate
copyrightKristian Evjen 2023
licenseAll rights reserved
urlhttps://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/778684/778685
published inNorwegian Artistic Research Programme
portal issue2023. 2023


Simple Media

id name copyright license
778700 Lykkehjulsonaten Lang versjon 13.11.18 Kristian Evjen 2020 All rights reserved
778708 Lykkehjulsonaten Kort versjon 13.11.18 Kristian Evjen 2020 All rights reserved
778710 Lykkehjulsonaten spesiell versjon 13.11.18 Kristian Evjen 2020 All rights reserved
778893 UiS Kristian Evjen Version 1 Kristian Evjen 2020 All rights reserved
779003 Sonate für zwei Klaviere Field 1 Kristian Evjen 2020 All rights reserved
779005 Sonate für zwei Klaviere Field 2 Kristian Evjen 2020 All rights reserved
779006 Sonate für zwei Klaviere Field 3 Kristian Evjen 2020 All rights reserved
779007 Sonate für zwei Klaviere Field 4 Kristian Evjen 2020 All rights reserved
779008 Sonate für zwei Klaviere Field 5 Kristian Evjen 2020 All rights reserved
779009 Sonate für zwei Klaviere Field 6 Kristian Evjen 2020 All rights reserved
779023 Lykkehjulsonaten hele partituret Kristian Evjen 2020 All rights reserved
780282 UiS Kristian Evjen Version 2 Kristian Evjen 2020 All rights reserved
780286 2018-04-23-LKS-Boucourechliev-p1 Kristian Evjen 2020 All rights reserved
780289 2018-04-23-LKS-Boucourechliev-p2 Kristian Evjen 2020 All rights reserved
2124412 lykkehjul detalj Mortensen 1964 CC BY-NC-ND
2124415 Lykkehjul ny detalj Mortensen 1964 CC BY-NC-ND
2176969 Ferdig Refleksjon 30.05.2023 Kristian Evjen All rights reserved

Comments are only available for registered users.