Expanding Horizons explores different ways in which musicians can approach 20th-century Western classical music through improvisation. Through selected pieces from this repertoire and practical explorations together with participating musicians, different approaches to improvising over the music have been tried out; some resulting in versions that stay close to the original pieces, while others are reimagined for the new constellations.
All in twilight (Tōru Takemitsu)
is a composition for solo guitar in four movements by Tōru Takemitsu (1930-1966), a self-taught Japanese composer who became famous for his unique way of synthesizing elements from Western and Eastern music traditions. Takemitsu's universe encompasses a wide spectrum of influences that ranges from Japanese traditional music to modernist music by Debussy, Messiaen, and Cage, via the Beatles and Ellington.
All in twilight was commissioned by and dedicated to British guitarist Julian Bream, as one of four major guitar works written by Takemitsu, the other ones being Folios (1974), Equinox (1993), and In the Woods (1995). It’s worth pointing out that three of these works include titles that are inspired by works of visual art, where All in Twilight is taken a watercolor painting from 1932 by Paul Klee. This shouldn’t not be over-interpreted as an ambition from Takemitsu to create a musical representation of the painting; in his own description, the painting provided him with an impression that resonated with the music he wanted to compose for Bream. Seen this way, the title resemble the way names are used by impressionist artists and composers, where titles serve to evoke an expressive atmosphere, rather than a definite depiction.
One of the things that separates Takemitsu’s writing from typical Western approaches to music making is his conception of time:
Westerners, especially today, consider time as linear and continuity as a steady and unchanging state. But I think time as circular and continuity as a constantly changing state. These are important assumptions in my concept of musical form. Sometimes my music follows the design of a particular existing garden. At times it may follow the design of an imaginary garden I have sketched. Time in my music may be said to be the duration of my walk through these gardens. I have described my selection of sounds: the modes with their variants, and the effects with shades, for example. But it is the garden that gives the ideas form. (Takemitsu in 1995, p. 119)
This is reflected throughout the composition, where time signatures are often changing – with the exception of the fourth movement – and where phrases are often of irregular length, rather than adhering to periods of 4, 8 or 16 measures. Takemitsu's description also gives an idea of how nature plays an important role in his music; in fact, he occasionally referred to it as one of his main teachers, alongside Duke Ellington and Claude Debussy.
The processes with this music unfolded in a collaborative way together with David Härenstam. In our interpretation of the music, we've worked in a way that closely follows the original score but with added, improvised elements, often achieved through repeating elements in the music, and sometimes through combining material from the composition with improvised passages.
Reflets (Lili Boulanger)
Reflets is a composition for voice and piano from 1911 by French composer Marie-Juliette Olga "Lili" Boulanger (1893–1918), younger sister of the renowned composer and teacher Nadia Boulanger. Despite the fact that her life ended prematurely due to chronic illness, Boulanger was a prolific writer who became the first female composer to win the Grand Prix de Rome in 1913, a scholarship that allowed her a longer stay at the Villa Medici in Rome to compose new music. Boulanger, like Debussy, was drawn to the Symbolist poetry of writers like Stéphane Mallarmé and Maurice Maeterlinck; the latter providing the text that serves as the foundation for Reflets.
Original version
Sous l'eau du songe qui s'élève
Mon âme a peur, mon âme a peur.
Et la lune luit dans mon coeur
Plongé dans les sources du rêve!
Sous l'ennui morne des roseaux.
Seul le reflets profonds des choses,
Des lys, des palmes et des roses
Pleurent encore au fond des eaux.
Les fleurs s'effeuillent une à une
Sur le reflet du firmament.
Pour descendre, éternellement
Sous l'eau du songe et dans la lune.
(Maurice Maeterlinck)
English translation
Beneath the water of the dream that rises,
My soul is afraid, my soul is afraid.
And the moon shines into my heart
That is bathed in the dream’s source!
Beneath the sad tedium of the reeds,
Only the deep reflection of things,
Of lilies, palms and roses,
Still weep on the water’s bed.
One by one the flowers shed their leaves
Upon the firmament’s reflection
To descend, eternally,
Beneath the dream’s water and into the moon.
(Translation: © Richard Stokes)
By the still waters (Amy Beach)
By the still waters, op. 114, is a piece for solo piano published in 1924 by Amy Beach (1867-1944), one of the first American female composers of large-scale classical works. The title is taken from Psalm 23 of the bible, verse. 2; "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, He leadeth me beside the still waters, He restoreth my soul …". The biblical reference shouldn't be over-interpreted, however; as Beach explains, the piece is secular and inspired by nature, in particular the calmness of gently flowing waters.
Although there's a certain tonal ambiguity in the start, as can be observed in the water-like arpeggios of the piano, Ab major is eventually established as the tonal center. This bears a particular significance, seen that Beach had synesthesia – the phenomenon of making connections between musical sounds and colors – with Ab major as the key that she perceived to be the 'blue key', an apt choice for a piece that evokes the image of gently flowing water. While one might draw associations to other piano pieces inspired by water, such as Ravel's Jeux d'eau (1901) or Debussy's Reflets dans l'eau (1905), there is a steady pace to Beach's composition that distinguishes it from the water-inspired music of the French composers.
This version started out as a duo version with Svante Söderqvist, based on the piano score with added annotations. In this concert version, it is expanded with Terese Lien Evenstad, Eirik Hegdal and Daniel Olsson. The improvised sections are based on repeated passages taken from the piece and an open introduction.
Cortège (Lili Boulanger)
Cortège was written in 1914, as one of the pieces that Boulanger finished during her stay at the Villa Medici. The piece was written in two different versions; first as a solo piano piece published in the set Trois morceaux pour piano (Three pieces for piano), and then – later the same year – in a version for violin and piano, published as the second part of Deux morceaux pour violon et piano (Two pieces for violin and piano). Besides the fact that the violin part has added melodies – and countermelodies – that are not present in the original version, the duo version also changes some of the rhythms of the piano accompaniment, and some of the melodic runs in the violin.
In the piece, Boulanger moves around between different modalities and tonalities that eventually returns to the home key of B major. Worth noting is the Spanish character that is particularly prominent in the middle section, as a contrast that contributes to the dramaturgy of the piece. This also reflects a trend of its time, as a fascination for Spanish music that was common to many French composers around the turn of the 20th century. There are also passages with triads moving chromatically over a pedal point in the bass, a device that Boulanger uses in other works.
D’un vieux jardin (Lili Boulanger)
D’un vieux jardin (= From an old garden) was written in 1914 and published as the first piece of the collection Trois morceaux pour piano, with Cortége as the third (and last) piece. These pieces are among the more frequently performed of Boulanger’s works, compositions that align with a renewed interest for the character piece in France around the turn of the twentieth-century. A character piece is a brief composition, often written for piano, that expresses a specific mood or extra-musical idea; here it evokes the image of an old garden.
In this piece, we find many examples of the rich colors that became a trademark of the impressionist composers, in combination with a melody that often create a tension against the underlying chord. The opening phrase is also reminiscent of Debussy's Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune.
Meditation [interrupted] (Peter Knudsen)
Meditation (Interrupted) is an original composition that came about spontaneously after spending time with the music of Germaine Tailleferre, Paul Hindemith and Anthony Braxton. As always, it's difficult (and perhaps unimportant) to say what came from where. The music is mainly used as a departure point for an improvisational encounter with the Norwegian trio En en en– here with the addition of Svante Söderqvist and Jenny Kristoffersson – where the improvised section unfolds as a conversation between me and Haugerud, with the rest of the group providing an anchor to the melody.
Variazioni from Cinque preludi (Erzsébet Szőnyi)
Variazoni is the third of five preludes for piano solo – Cinque preludi per pianoforte– published in 1966 by the Hungarian composer Erzsébet Szőnyi (1924 - 2019). Besides being an well-respected composer with a highly eclectic style, Szőnyi was also a choir conductor, teacher, and an important figure in music education in Hungary.
Variazoni is an atonal piece – i.e. written without a tonal center – that is created using serial techniques. It largely follows the twelve-tone technique developed by Arnold Schönberg, based on a set of 12 pitches that are presented in a sequence of permutations throughout the piece;
C Bb F Gb D G E Ab D# A B C#
What makes the piece somewhat unusual is that Szőnyi wasn’t much of an adherent of twelve-tone devices, unless it was justified by a particular expression, such as the extra-musical plot of Alban Berg's opera Wozzek. In the words of Szőnyi herself: "I am not really too much for twelve-tone music but I love Wozzek, and if I love Wozzek, it means that I am all right with dodecaphony as well".
Leggiero from Nine preludes for piano (Ruth Crawford Seeger)
With Leggiero from 1928, we enter the modernist domain of American composer Ruth Crawford Seeger (1901-1953), a central member of a group of American composers known as the "ultramoderns". Leggiero is taken from Crawford Seeger’s Nine preludes for piano (1924 - 1928), a piece that uses fifths as a recurrent building block. According to the composer's own description, this "wild Prelude No. 8 in primitive fifths ... represents a human laugh”
