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Harald Sæverud - Sonatine for bratsj og klaver (1989)
(17. April 1897 – 27. March 1992)
(Sonatina for viola and piano)
First performance: 20. September 1989, Oslo Universitetets Aula
Are Sandbakken, viola; Helge Kjekshus, piano
Harald Sæverud was born in Bergen, the son of a respected and modestly wealthy business man and a devout mother. When Sæverud was 12 years old, disaster hit the household: his father, with his business partners, was found guilty of tax evasion and became bankrupt. He was sent to jail for three months. It was at this time that young Harald began to write music, perhaps as an inner escape from grim reality. His first formal studies took place at the Bergen conservatoire where his main teacher was the pianist and composer Borghild Holmsen (1865-1938). By the time he was 17 Sæverud was working on his first symphony, often skipping school in order to do so.
Between 1920 and 1922 Sæverud studied at the Berlin Hochschule. While there a wealthy friend hired the Berlin Philharmonic for the first performance of Overtura Apassionata.
Later in life Sæverud would claim that he learned nothing in Berlin, and that his only teachers were Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. However, letters from the period show that he did in fact learn a lot in Berlin, where he studied with Friederich Koch (1862 – 1927).
Upon returning to Norway in 1922 he slowly built a reputation as one of the country’s most promising young composers, making ends meet as a music critic and by giving piano lessons. He received unexpected encouragement from Carl Nielsen (1865 –1931), who wrote Sæverud a letter expressing his great enthusiasm for his Five Capricci for piano, op. 1.
Harmonien (today known as Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra) would eventually become Sæverud’s main expressive outlet. The ensemble went on to premiere many of his orchestral works.
In 1934 Sæverud married Marie Hvoslef (1900 – 1982), an American of Norwegian ancestry, daughter of a very wealthy ship magnate who had died in 1926. Marrying Marie Hvoslef enabled Sæverud to devote himself to composition full-time. It also facilitated the building of Siljustøl, the impressive mansion in the outskirts of Bergen which would become their home. Siljustøl, with its wild nature, would, from 1939 until Sæverud’s death, serve as his main source of inspiration, together with his family.
The completion of Siljustøl was timely. The Nazi occupation of Norway during WW2 started in April 1940. Sæverud was one of the few Norwegian artists with an unequivocal anti-Nazi stance throughout the war. WW2 turned out to be an especially fertile period for Sæverud. The anger caused by the Nazi invasion brought out a strong rush of creativity in him. This difficult time induced him to compose three symphonies (Nrs. 5, 6 and 7), as well as several other orchestral works and piano pieces. The Ballad of Revolt (Kjempevise-slåtten), by far his most famous work, was written out of rage against the occupation.
By the end of WW2 Sæverud had become an established composer. The Ballad of Revolt made him into a kind of national hero in a country that had just begun to recover from five years of foreign invasion.
Shortly after the war, the radical actor and theatre director Hans Jacob Nilsen (1897 –1957) asked Sæverud to write new music for a stage production of Ibsen’s Peer Gynt. Sæverud hesitated at fist but, on rereading the play, he decided he had indeed something to contribute. His Peer Gynt score stands among his most powerful creations.
In the 1950s the Koussevitzky foundation commissioned Violin Concerto, op 37. The State of Minnesota commissioned a symphony (his eighth, the Minnesota Symphony, op. 40) to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the state in 1958.
Although the new wave of modernism that swept Norway in the 1960s relegated Sæverud to a less prominent position (at least in the eyes of the young generation), he continued to be held in high regard by the musical establishment and the public. He was made an honorary member of Harmonien, and was commissioned to write a work for the celebration of the 900th anniversary of the city of Bergen (Fanfare og Hymne, op. 48). He also wrote the opening work for the official opening of Bergen’s Grieghallen, in 1978 (Overtura Monumentale, op. 53). In 1977 he received the highest public honour available in Norway: the medal of Commander of the Royal Norwegian Order of St Olav. In 1986 he was made the Festival Composer at the 34th Bergen International Festival, for which he composed his last orchestral work: a suite for orchestra and choir based on Ibsen’s “Keiser og Galilæer” (Emperor and Galilean).
Although the final years of his life were marked by illness and predictable physical weakness, he remained alert and engaged with the world around him to the very end. Between 1986 and 1989 he wrote a number of small piano pieces and a sonatina for viola and piano.
He was given a state funeral.
Sæverud is, arguably, Norway’s pre-eminent symphonic composer. With his nine symphonies, five concertos and numerous orchestral works, including ballet and stage music, he created a distinctive body of work, wide in scope and imagination. His music for piano stands as a truly original and unique contribution to the literature.
He began writing in a style redolent of late romanticism. For roughly a decade he experimented with atonality before finding his mature voice around the beginning of the Second World War. His music is characterized by an intense focus on the present moment and is strongly influenced by Western Norwegian nature, with its abrupt contrasts both in landscape and weather. He was always mostly interested in musical lines and the way they interact with one another, and was a master at the exacting art of two-part writing. He always demanded full characterization of every note and every phrase, often stating that “every note is a personality”.
Sonatina for viola and piano - 1989
On February 25th 1989 the 91 year old Harald Sæverud was in Oslo. The occasion was his being awarded a "Spelemanns Pris" (the Norwegian equivalent of a Grammy) for lifetime achievement. One may say that such an award came rather late for an artist of Sæverud's remarkable achievements within Norwegian music. He made the most of it both at the ceremony (his thank-you speech can be seen on YouTube) and during the party afterwards. The old, eccentric composer was very high entertainment value for those present and the Television audience. The media had a field day. Outwardly it was a great success and a worthy, if rather late show of official recognition for the great composer. Privately, however, the experience left him exhausted. He told me how, the morning after, he struggled, with great pain, to put on his socks in his hotel room. After all the pomp and hullabaloo of the previous night, no-one was there to help him. He was unwell and unable to do creative work for several months thereafter and never again regained the essential vitality that had characterized him throughout his life.
Fortunately his muse was reawakened when a young, very gifted Norwegian violist, commissioned him to write a viola sonatina for his upcoming debut concert in Oslo. The violist was Are Sandbakken, now a firmly established and highly respected musician. He was, for many years, a member of the superb Oslo String Quartet and is now a chamber music professor at the Norwegian State Music Academy in Oslo.
Sæverud worked intensely for two months on what would become the last composition to come from his hand. As had become the norm with most of his late work, he drew on earlier material for the new composition. In keeping with his life-long philosophy of composition, he planted the old seeds in new soil and helped them grow into something entirely new, albeit recognizably his.
Sæverud's language had gradually become more austere in his last years. The viola Sonatina is well nigh ascetic in the way it eschews all but the absolutely essential. Having long since favoured two-part writing - inspired by the interplay in nature between a mountain's outline and its reflection in the water - by the time the Sonatina came into being, Sæverud was positively obsessed by the effect one single note, in all manner of articulations, might create against a singing melody.
The first movement is based on two contrasting themes. The first is a good example of what I like to call Sæverud's hiking themes. His younger sister Solveig remembered, at the time, that her brother used to sing that tune when they went hiking as children. The second theme is more of a motif, consisting of six notes (mm. 19-21). It originates from the “Saturday” movement of his unpublished piano piece Days of the Week. The motif is immediately subjected to different modes of articulation and followed by a more lyrical strophe. The latter consists of six measures that are repeated exactly except for the last note, much in the manner of a folk tune (mm. 28-39). This is a method of melodic organization that Sæverud had used successfully in some of his earlier music. Yet a new, more serious theme appears in mm. 50-57. Its dotted rhythm relates it to the opening theme, in spite of its very different character. After some altercation between the different strands of the material, the movement ends in a very self-assured, almost pompous manner.
The second movement is basically a cantilena preceded by an introduction. Sæverud, however, would not be content to simply lay out an unaccompanied simple singing melody (though examples of this do occur in his output). The rather odd introduction opens with a misty cluster in the piano right hand. This is followed by nine bars of 5/8 in which short and long, soft and softer alternate in unexpected ways, like the play of light on the water. The rather sombre melody that begins in measure 13 is very Norwegian in character and representative of Sæverud's melancholy streak. It is first presented in the lower register of the viola doubled two octaves under by the piano. When the second section of the theme appears in measure 25, it is challenged by unpredictable, loud staccato notes. At m. 39 the opening cluster and the 5/8 motif (now marked feroce in the viola) coalesce for a short time before a new strophe of the melody appears: now the viola plays in the highest register against an ominous rising line that begins at the bottom of the piano. When the instruments' registers finally coincide (mm. 54-57) the piano provides a playful rhythmical counterpoint to the viola part. After a pregnant pause, the movement concludes in an orderly fashion.
The final movement revisits a composition that was originally written nearly five decades earlier: Sumarnatt Båtsong (Summer night boat song), written for a sextet of oboe, clarinet, bassoon, violin, viola and cello (or string orchestra). While the old composition had its charm it was, somehow, overlong. Sæverud must have had misgivings about it, since he did not give it an opus number. All the same, the 92 year old composer found something worthwhile enough in the material to repurpose it for his musical valedictory. In the more concise environment of the Sonatina the old barcarolle is much better served. The melody, bookended by a short presto passage, is presented twice at the beginning, first muted and then without the sordine. The central part of the movement is a lively, rhythmical fantasy. The main theme, played an octave higher and at full volume, occupies the last 17 measures of the piece.
The Sonatine is, in many ways, a very odd piece of music. It stems from the creative mind of a post-mature composer, so comfortable with his own voice that he makes no compromises, seeking to please no-one but himself. In its own terms it is a composition of rare beauty.
Are Sandbakken has fond memories of his work with Sæverud leading up to his debut concert on September 20th 1989:
“Harald Sæverud composed his Sonatina for viola and piano for my debut concert, which took place in the Oslo University Aula on September 20th 1989. In the time leading up to the premiere, I had the pleasure of visiting the composer at Siljustøl and going through the work in great detail. Sæverud was wholehearted in his instructions; his main priorities were contrast and simplicity of expression. He was open where it regarded technical realization and instrumental adaptations. He let me make the adjustments of the viola part that I considered to be necessary and appropriate. Although he did not include these small changes in the score, they must be considered acceptable solutions, since Sæverud did not object to them. Each interpreter of the piece is of course free to follow the original score more faithfully than I have.
These are the most important changes to the viola part:
1st movement –
a) Measure 10: Sæverud wanted two powerful glissandi here, and he sang them for me with tremendous ferocity.
b) mm. 46-49: omission of l.h. pizz. on the 16h notes, since this is practically impossible at the given tempo.
c) mm. 66-67: addition of octave double stops (lower octave) in order to achieve a fuller sound.
d) mm. 67 and 68: rewrite and omission of pizzicati.
e) mm. 79 and 80: upper octave added.
2nd movement –
a) m. 20: pizz. in parenthesis.
b) mm. 40, 44 and 45: harmonics notated in the manner I played them for Sæverud.
3rd movement:
m. 75: sul ponticello instead of col legno.”
(Are Sandbakken: email to R.O. April 2021 – English translation by R.O.)
About the present edition
The viola sonatina, like several other works from Sæverud’s last 20 odd years, has remained unpublished for decades. This edition aims to fill that gap and, in the same vein as the 2nd and 3rd string quartets (mph. 4200 and 4045 respectively), it intends to create the possibility for a new generation of interpreters to enter into conversation with the music on a solid basis.
The edition offers a rendition of the original score and two viola parts. The first of these is the part as Sæverud composed it. The second includes Sandbakken’s adjustments (as described in the above text) as well as his fingering and bowing suggestions. Sandbakken is the only violist who worked on the piece directly with Sæverud. Having his input in this edition was, for this editor, a matter of course and a rare privilege. As Sandbakken has stated, other performers are free to follow Sæverud’s text more closely. All the same, we are very fortunate to have the advantage of his experience with the work and its composer.
In addition to Sandbakken’s comments, the following is worth of note:
In mm. 13-24 in the second movement there were a number of obvious wrong notes in the piano part. The composer marked them with an asterisk. These have been corrected.
In the same movement, the enigmatic second measure consists of only an 8th note rest with a fermata. The previous measure comes with the instruction “a tre”, meaning that it is meant to be repeated three times. The aforementioned second measure has “III” written above it. In this edition it is substituted by “3. v.” (terza volta). Sæverud was fond of adding extra beats or half beats to certain measures without bothering to change the time signature. Examples of this practice can be found in the Minnesota Symphony and the second string quartet. In this edition, however, I have chosen to let the aforementioned 1/8 measure have its very own measure number, albeit without time signature.
Ricardo Odriozola, June 7th 2021
German preface not available ...
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