Expanding horizons – Improvisational explorations of 20th-century classical music by Peter Knudsen

"Expanding horizons" is an Artistic research project carried out between 2021 (August) and 2024 (November) at NTNU, Trondheim. The objectives were to contribute to knowledge on how different kinds of departure points can be useful for musicians when approaching 20th-century Western classical music through improvisation, an understanding of how one can navigate and negotiate the musical language of this repertoire, and insights into how the tension between different performance values can be navigated in this process. The research questions were: When applying improvisation to works of 20th-century classical music, 1. What role does the choice and preparation of musical representations play? 2. How can we navigate and negotiate musical structures such as melody, harmony and form? 3. How can we navigate the tension between fidelity to the work and creative expression? Based on selected pieces from this repertoire and practical explorations together with participating musicians, various approaches to creating improvisational frameworks were then explored. These included a wide range of scores, including lead sheets and indeterminate notation, as well as ear-based methods. From the perspective of integrating improvisation into the performances, approaches such as repeating elements, working with layers, creating transitions, and introducing open sections were examined. A key point was to use melodic material as a way of building strong connections with the source material, rather than relying on harmonic representations of the music. In terms of balancing respect for the original work with creative freedom, a “healthy dose of disrespect” pervaded much of the explorations, allowing deviations from the originals when they were musically justified. Throughout the work processes, an idea of focal points emerged, as aspects to focus on when reworking a classical work into an improvisational version. These focal points included the score, historical and performative contexts, expressive qualities, and the improviser’s personal voice.

Approaching melody

In general, the extent to which improvisations were based on the melody of a piece depended mainly on the individual choices of the performers, the piece, and the moment of improvisation. Typically, such decisions were made on a tacit level rather than being discussed. Sometimes, however, it was brought up in discussions about how to reinforce the connection between the composition and an improvised section. This was the case with our duo version of Assez lent from Valses nobles et sentimentales, as Söderqvist tried different approaches to an open introduction. One of the ideas was to combine his singing voice with the cello so that he could improvise harmony parts with himself. Just a few days before recording the piece, we talked about how parts of the melody could also be woven into the introduction, something that spurred Söderqvist to make Ravel’s theme an integrated part of his polyphonic improvisation.

Figure 9.6. Theme from Ravel's Valses nobles et sentimentales: II. Assez lent, mm. 9-12.

Recording 9.14. Improvised introduction to Assez lent by Söderqvist. Recorded in Kingside Studio, Gnesta, 2022-09-26.

When discussing the recording afterwards, Söderqvist pointed out how the melody plays an important role when he approaches improvising over a piece:

SS: It's always the melodies that benefit the music the most, I think. … For me, improvisation has always been more interesting when I base it on what I hear than what I read, I always think it gets stronger. You have to remind yourself of that constantly. (Listening session with Söderqvist, 2022-10-07)

[SS: Det är ju alltid melodierna som gynnar musiken mest, tycker jag. … för mig så är det ju så att improvisationen alltid har varit intressantare när jag utgår från det jag hör än det jag läser, jag tycker alltid det blir starkare. Det där måste man påminna sig om hela tiden.]

The melody often served as the main reference for improvising over harmonic frameworks as well, as an anchor when navigating and internalizing the framework for improvisation. This became clear, for instance, in our trio work based on Cortège. After Jenny Kristoffersson and I improvised over it the first times in our trio sessions, initially staying close to the melody, it was tangible how we became freer to do other things as the melody had established itself firmly. This turned out to be valuable as we developed our way of playing the piece. After having tried different approaches to starting it – e.g., starting with a groove – we gravitated towards a collective trio improvisation where the melody was established over time.

Recording 9.15. Improvised introduction to Cortège by Knudsen, Kristoffersson & Olsson. From Studio Epidemin, Gothenburg, 2023-10-20.

This way of gradually going to the melody in an open way – without adhering to a chord progression or a fixed number of bars – was not only fruitful from the perspective of interplay, it also seemed to go together well with the playful character of the melody.

The idea of “improvising our way” into the melody was also an approach I tried with Terese Lien Evenstad. This can be heard on the open introduction to Pastorale in D, where we started off by introducing the general contour and the percussive character of the opening melody:

Figure 9.7. Pastorale in D (Tailleferre, 1928), first measure.

Recording 9.16. Improvised introduction to Pastorale in D by Evenstad & Knudsen. From Studio Epidemin, Gothenburg, 2023-02-14.

One rewarding aspect of this was the interplay that took place in the process, as fragments of the melody gradually unfolded:

TLE: There's something special when you just listen. There are no filters of musts, expectations, “play that note”, but you simply listen and see what happens and act on the impulse (Listening session with Evenstad, 2023-03-09)

[TLE: Det är något särskilt när man bara lyssnar. Det finns inga filter av måsten, förväntningar, "åh, sätt den tonen", utan man bara helt lyssnar och ser vad som händer och agerar på impulsen liksom.]

In this case, the fact that we based the improvisation mainly on a few notes also seemed to play a certain role, as it gave us an easily manageable amount of material.

Short melodies could also serve as valuable “triggers" for improvisation. In our septet version of Forest Musicians, the first improvisation emerged of a unison melody played by bass (Söderqvist) and bass trombone (Karin Hammar). The improvised dialogue that follows between bass trombone and bass – played over a low, repeated cluster – simply continues in a similar character, over the same cluster, sometimes with fragments and gestures taken from the melody.

Figure 9.8. Excerpt from No. 14. Forest Musicians from Musical Toys, mm. 12-16. Based on original piano score (Gubaidulina, 1969).

Recording 9.17. Improvised dialogue between Hammar and Söderqvist based on Forest Musicians. From the concert Skärningspunkter V, Kapellet, Stockholm, 2024-03-08.

This approach seemed to work particularly well for that melody, with its atonal character, its distinctive marcato character, and its clear building blocks for improvisers to play with. Also, the fact that the original melody ends somewhat abruptly seemed to prompt the musicians to keep expanding on the material.

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Peter Knudsen - Expanding horizons – Improvisational explorations of 20th-century classical music - 2025