< back to overview Repertoire & Opera Explorer
Jostein Stalheim - Glimpses of a Daylight (1989/2015)
(b. 23. Voss, July 1960)
First performance: Lindemansalen, Oslo, May 20th 1989.
Torleif Ander, Terje B. Lerstad Lisbeth Wathne, Anders Flodin, Ann- Charlotte Ohlsson, Tanja Orning
Jostein Stalheim was born in Voss, Norway in 1960 and started composing at an early age. When only 17 years old, his first works were broadcast on both radio and television. He studied composition and accordion at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Copenhagen, Sibelius Academy and at the Norwegian State Academy of Music. Stalheim appears regularly in European festivals as soundpainter, performer and composer.
Stalheim has written music for orchestra, chamber-ensembles, solo, multimedia and also site-specific productions. Stage music comprises a considerable part of his production; a.o. the opera “Pr.Warrants Progress” and the ballets; “Watch”, “Volatile”, “Alrekr” and “Kast”. He has worked in theatres both as composer and musician, among others The Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, Hordaland Teater, Den Nationale Scene, The Norwegian National Ballet and Danseteatret/Carte Blanche in Norway. He has received commissions from ensembles both in Norway and abroad.
Stalheim is internationally recognized as an accordion soloist and performs at festivals and with several international orchestras. He had his breakthrough in 1984 in Nordic Solistbiennale were he performed with Esa Pekka Salonen and Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra. He appears in numerous recordings, both as soloist, as chamber musician and with orchestra; for example Broderfolkonsert, the double concerto by Lasse Thoresen with Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra.
He received a Grant from Norwegian Art Council 2014-2015 to compose music for the opera La Peur et les Soins with libretto by Astrid Luisa Niebuhr. He has composed the music for Watch with premiere in Dansens Hus, Oslo.
Stalheim also contributed as a composer to the science opera Rosetta`s Stone; a cooperation between the two librettists Oded Ben-Horin, John F. McGrew and the co-composer John Bilotta with premiere August 12th 2016 in San Francisco. In the same year he had several large projects including Soundpainting with the contemporary ensemble BIT20 and Performance Artist Bergen.
Stalheim’s music has many endearing qualities. It often embraces the absurd and the illogical from an almost childlike perspective. There is never a hint of pretension in it and, with its deadpan delivery it often leaves the listener in doubt as to whether it is meant to be taken seriously or not seriously at all. In common with the music of Messiaen (a composer Stalheim deeply admires)
Stalheim’s compositions tend, with their disarming honesty, to have a cleansing effect on the listener. His compositions often feel like suggestions rather than statements. They are never intrusive or imposing and are always entertaining, thought-provoking, surprising and permeated with a fundamental lightness.
About Glimpses of a Daylight the composer writes:
«Glimt av dagslys» is dedicated to my daughter Eva, who was born that year. The piece is based on different gestures such as [those associated with] waiting and joy; transferred to musical shapes like the ascending figure in the beginning, variations on one note, and the climax at about 2/3 of the way into the piece where happiness breaks out in the form of playfulness and improvised situations, before everything ends with Eva’s initials E, C, E, S. [E flat]
Glimpses of a Daylight is written in a wholly uninhibited avant-garde style. On listening to this work or examining its score, one may be hard pressed to find any connection between its outwardly bizarre and atonal sound world and the feelings a father may experience about the impending birth of his first child. It would be likewise preposterous to volunteer any theories about possible connections to be found therein. It is probably best to leave it to the listeners’ imagination. This blessedly playful and transparent music invites, first and foremost, to attentive listening. Every moment of its six odd minutes has some delightful sonic surprise to offer. Such surprises come in the form of short soloistic interventions, unexpected accents, ghostly textures, swells of sound, circling around single notes or harmonies and more. The value and validity of this work, and Stalheim’s output in general, lies in a sound composer’s craft coupled with a lack of pretension, as mentioned above.
Pretension and a seeming wish to teach something to the listener are qualities that often make a lot of music written in so-called avant-garde style hard to endure. This is never the case with Stalheim’s music. The composer and his music remain immune to any kind of intellectual rationalization and elusive enough to make it always engaging. Stalhiem was once asked what would he say to someone who tells him his music means a lot to them, to which he replied “I would ask, ‘what are you on?’” We may never expect the big lecture from Stalheim about his musical philosophy. It would be unnecessary anyway: all that is to be found is there in the music. Whatever Glimpses of a Daylight means to the man who wrote it, or whatever associations it may create on listeners, it passes through time like a fresh breeze, leaving a pleasant sensation in its wake. It is only appropriate that the initials of the newborn child act as a full stop, which may also be seen as an upbeat into an exciting, uncertain future.
Ricardo Odriozola 12. June 2021
No German preface available....
< back to overview Repertoire & Opera Explorer