IKKE TULL MED NATUREN

På denne utgivelsen får vi presentert to nyere verk av samtidskomponist Jon Øivind Ness, framført av cellist Marianne Baudouin Lie og Trondheim Symfoniorkester, under ledelse av Kai Grinde Myrann.

Jon Øivind Ness’ musikk var i midten av nittitallet leken og humoristisk, i ånden til Frank Zappa og Residents. Stykkene hadde preg av å være dagbokpregede, med innslag av kattungelek, venner som kom på besøk, forsøk på en telefonsamtale til et nummer som ikke var i bruk, osv. Siden tok musikken en annen vei, og ble svært seriøs, nesten dyster. I dag kombinerer han de to side om side; dystre passasjer avbrytes av humoristiske innslag som ofte tangerer grensen for det helt teite.

Da Ness leste ordet «Mørkgånga» første gang tenkte han umiddelbart at dette må bli en tittel på et stykke. Mørkgånga handler ikke først og fremst om å gå i mørket, men er igjen et slags dagboknotat om en skogtur til juvet Mørkgånga på Krokskogen, som komponisten prøvde å gjennomføre for å drive research til å skrive nettopp dette stykket. På sin ferd møter han på diverse utfordringer, deriblant flere dyr som prøver å drive ham ut av skogen; en sverm med veps, en hoggorm og en hauk. Det er masse urovekkende alvor i «Mørkgånga», men samtidig er innslagene med dyrene helt på grensen til tegnefilm-musikk.

Cellokonserten «Marmæle» er beslektet med «Mørkgånga» på mange måter. Der «Mørkgånga» prøver å si at «du skal ikke tulle med skogen», er budskapet til «Marmæle» «du skal ikke tulle med havet». I «Mørkgånga» er orkesteret en ekspresjonistisk skog, i åpningen av «Marmæle» er orkesteret et hav, med celloen i rollen som marmæle. Er du grei med marmælen, går det deg godt, men om du behandler den dårlig, kan den sette i gang skumle krefter rundt deg når du ferdes på havet. Disse to stykkene er på et vis programmusikalske fabler som kommenterer miljøspørsmål på en bevisst naiv måte, nok en gang i Residents’ ånd.

DON’T MESS WITH NATURE

With this release, we are presented with two recent works by contemporary composer Jon Øivind Ness, performed by cellist Marianne Baudouin Lie and the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra, and conducted by Kai Grinde Myrann.

In the mid-nineties, Jon Øivind Ness' music was decidedly playful and humorous, akin to the spirit of Frank Zappa and art-rock collective the Residents. The pieces had a diary-like vibe, exemplified by his use of kitten play, friends popping over for a visit, attempted phone calls to non-existent numbers. The music would later go down a different path, becoming much more serious, some might even say gloomy. These days he likes to juxtapose the two side by side, with more the sombre passages interspersed with humorous elements that often border on the ludicrous.

The moment Ness first set eyes on the word ‘Mørkgånga’, he immediately knew this was going to be the title of one of his works. Mørkgånga is not first and foremost about its literal meaning, which is 'the dark corridor'. Rather, it is another kind of diary entry about a walk in the forest to the gorge actually called Mørkgånga, at Krokskogen, north-west of Oslo, which the composer thought he’d try to carry out for the sake of researching this very piece. On his journey, he encountered various challenges, with several animals, including a swarm of wasps, a viper and a hawk doing their best to scare him out of the forest. While there is undoubtedly a great deal of disturbing seriousness in Mørkgånga, the parts which feature the animals are almost cartoon-like.

The cello concerto Marmæle is not dissimilar to Mørkgånga in several ways. Where Mørkgånga tries to warn you not to “mess with the forest", the message of Marmæle is “don’t mess with the sea". In Mørkgånga the orchestra is an expressionist forest, while in the opening of Marmæle the orchestra plays the role of the sea, with the cello taking on the role of the marmæle (in Norse folklore, a half-man and half-fish sea creature). If you're nice to the marmæle, you'll be fine, but if you treat it badly it can make some pretty scary things happen around you when you’re out at sea. In a way, these two pieces are programmatic music fables that comment on environmental issues in a deliberately naive way, once again in the spirit of the Residents.

ANMELDELSER/REVEIWS:

" [...] Both large-scale works reveal a composer with a pictorial, sound-painting orientation who, despite the use of modern compositional devices, understands how to formulate immediately accessible and thus evoke moods. Especially the often darkly tempered solo voice of the cello in Marmaele, which resembles more a Harold in Italy than the over-flying capricious soloist, and the likewise threateningly powerful backdrop in Mørkgånga, which paints the narrowness of the gorge in tones, cast a spell on the listener. Marianne Baudouin Lie is a cellist firmly anchored in Norway and active there in many ways. She succeeds effortlessly in making her solo sound mischievous, as the mythical creature is said to be. The fact that her cello playing is easier to take in than the humor of the creature, which is described as difficult to understand, speaks for her mastery of the instrument. The Trondheim orchestra, under the baton of Kai Grinde Myrann, convincingly finds the mix of colorful illustration of the works’ thematic worlds as well as exquisitely crafted drawing of the challenging compositional textures. It may have helped that Ness has already been the orchestra’s composer of the year, and in this respect there is a close bond. Even if the music builds up threateningly depending on the situation, the orchestra remains faithful to a well-structured and audible ensemble expression." Uwe Krusch, pizzicato.lu, 06.12.2022