(Un-) settling Sites and Styles

Einar Røttingen

(Un-)settling sites and styles: In search of new expressive means. Eight performers (voice, piano, violin, cello), one musicologist and one composer aspired to unsettle their habitual ways of working with musical interpretation of 20th century and contemporary Norwegian composers. By collaborating to develop new perspectives and methods, they investigated questions of style and how different sites influenced their rehearsals and performances. How do performers find new expressive means? How can intersubjective exchange within a research group contribute to articulating tacit knowledge? How can mutual unsettling approaches influence conventional or subjective attitudes of fidelity to a score or a performance tradition? How can novel sounds, musical material and musical meaning emerge beyond prejudiced conceptions or through improvisation? The three-year project was facilitated by the Norwegian Artistic Research Programme and the Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design (Grieg Academy), University of Bergen, and resulted in texts, sound recordings, videos, and new commented score editions.

(Un-)settling sites and styles

- in Search of New Expressive Means

Introduction

Acknowledgements

Expressive means

Unsettling and unlearning

Unsettling sites and styles

Methological approaches

The individual projects

Results and documentation

References

SITE MAP

SEEING HARALD SÆVERUD´S STRING QUARTETS IN A LARGER ARTISTIC CONTEXT

by Ricardo Odriozola

VIDEOS:

In the final year of the artistic research project RO wished to examine string quartets written by major composers of the Twentieth Century in order to ascertain whether Sæverud really was as unique as he always claimed to be. RO thus listened to and, where possible, examined the scores of string quartets by (in chronological order according to the composer's date of birth) Janáček, Foulds, Bartók, Szymanowski, Vermeulen, Martin, Martinu, Prokofieff, Hindemith, Revueltas, Hartmann, Shostakovich, Britten and Ginastera. NB. John Foulds, Frank Martin and Matthijs Vermeulen only wrote (or completed) one string quartet each.

Sæverud's string quartets are notable for the leanness of their texture. The third string quartet, for instance, has 619 measures. Of these, 221 have all four players participating within the bar lines. Out of those, however, only 55 measures have the group making continuous sound together. That makes approximately for 11% of the music where all the instruments are playing, without pause, at the same time.

It seems that the opposite is generally true for the vast majority of string quartets written by Twentieth Century masters: having all four instruments playing simultaneously is the rule rather than the exception. This is not a criticism of the outstanding works by those composers; it is merely the observation of a fact.

Leanness of texture is a common feature in the quartets of Benjamin Britten, (particularly in his Quartet No. 3 Op. 94 and also in the concluding Chacony from the Second Quartet, Op. 36) and the late Shostakovich quartets. These also include relatively frequent passages for solo (i.e. unaccompanied) instruments.

With regards to articulation, the aforementioned Chacony from Britten's second string quartet features a characteristic dotted motif with an accent on the small note. This is a mode of articulation very dear to Sæverud.

At the beginning of the slow movement (Sehr Langsam) of his String Quartet No. 3 Op. 16 Paul Hindemith uses the <> marking. Frank Martin uses the same marking throughout his only string quartet.

An interesting aspect to explore in the string quartet writing of Sæverud and his contemporaries is the balance between organic development and spontaneous invention. RO came to the conclusion that Sæverud's "eruptive" style (as Trond Sæverud once described it to him), is only comparable to the styles of Leoš Janáček (1854-1928) and Silvestre Revueltas (1899-1940). Sæverud, however is much more rigorous (at least in appearance) in his treatment of the material. This is well in keeping with the way he viewed himself as a classical (not neo-classical!) composer.

A further point of contact between Revueltas and Sæverud (who almost certainly were unaware of each other's existence): they both wrote their own folk tunes rather than using pre-existing folk material. The following video is recommended viewing for an excellent introduction to Revueltas' work (and a corroboration of the claim in the previous sentence). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tirU0B8BldI

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