< back to overview Repertoire & Opera Explorer
Knut Vaage - In Between for violin and piano, 2001
(b. 14.10.1961, Sunde)
First performance: 25. November 2001
University Hall, Hokkaido University of Education, Sapporo
Trond Sæverud, violin
Einar Røttingen, piano
Knut Vaage graduated as a pianist and composer from the Grieg Academy in Bergen. Vaage has worked in different styles of music, with special focus on improvised and contemporary music. Many of his projects have investigated the boundaries between improvisation and composed music. Vaage’s production ranges from symphonic works and opera to solo pieces. His music is frequently performed at concerts and festivals in Norway and abroad. Much of Vaage’s instrumental music has been released on CD.
Investigation of the acoustic/electronic hybrid-sound is another important area in Vaage’s music. He has also written a number of vocal works and works for the stage.
As an improviser Vaage early on explored the boundaries between improvisation and composition as a member of the trio JKL. The tension created between acoustic instruments and electronics was an important ingredient of their style. Vaage’s work with improvisation continues with the band Fat Battery, and in staged works like “Achilles or Stupor”, premiered at Grec Festival in Barcelona in 2015.
The dissemination of contemporary music for a wider audience forms an important part of Vaage's compositional activity. He has participated in different concert projects aimed towards children, teenagers, and local choirs and orchestras. Vaage has also been deeply involved in administrative work, having served as leader and board member of several contemporary music organizations in Norway.
http://www.knutvaage.com/
In Between dates from the latter half of 2001. The composer writes:
In Between for violin and piano was composed in 2001. Trond Sæverud and Einar Røttingen commissioned it for the tour of Japan the same year. The work is inspired by the Japanese concept of time and space. The tension increases by stretching the space between the attacks. Gradually they become closer and the piece becomes more physical, like a fight, but in dialogue nevertheless. At the end of the piece a kind of silence appears that is different from that at the beginning: the pianist repeats a chord while the violinist stands, listening. The context of this gesture is a story that I chose not to include in the program notes earlier but which I can now, with the advantage of distance in time, retell:
When I was about to begin working on the piece I traveled to my composer’s cottage, as I often do in order to get peace and quiet to work. That same day I got the news of the tragedy with the twin towers in New York, so it must have been September 11th 2001. I thought I could not bear to compose in the state of shock those news put me in, but I found a kind of consolation in working on the composition. For me there are clear memories of the tragedy in the piece, but I did not want to connect a program to the music, so the piece got a neutral title. All the same I can now admit that the ending can be seen in the light of this inconceivable tragedy. It is neither wise nor desirable for us to remain untouched by such horrible events. However, it seems we humans have the ability to, in one way or another, keep going regardless of what may happen.
The piece was premiered in Sapporo and then played in Tokyo. Later it has been performed many times by the violinists Ricardo Odriozola and Lars-Erik ter Jung in festivals and in concerts both in Norway and abroad. It was written with support from Fond for Lyd og Bilde.
9/11 has become a powerfully dark archetype in the collective consciousness. The ageing and self-centered Stockhausen understood it as such when he made his (in)famous and widely misunderstood comment on the event. Being in shock from the terrible incident, ‘the world’ was in no position to objectively decipher the meaning of the old German composer’s remark. It is no wonder that Vaage chose, at the time, to conceal the 9/11 atrocity as a direct influence on the writing of In Between. It might otherwise have appeared as if he was joining the global chorus of wailers, within which he was bound to drown unnoticed. Instead he allowed his artistic sensitivity to guide him and let the enormity of the catastrophe permeate the music that came out of him. It seems the writing did not take very long, since the first performance took place a mere two months after 9/11.
In Between is certainly a dark and unsettling composition but it also offers hope and a vision of a possible beauty. A kind of beauty that only music can properly portray or suggest.
The concept of space that Vaage mentions can be clearly felt at the very beginning of the work. It recurs elsewhere, such as between measures 78 and 84, 116 and 122 and towards the end, between mm. 216 and 223.
The desolate, repeated piano chord that closes the piece, unchallenged, appears three times previously in the work, accompanied by gradually more circumspect commentaries from the violin.
Two further essential ideas provide the light that balances the darkness and discomfort of much of the piece. The embryo of the first appears on measure 22 as a melody underlined by staccato chords. The second immediately follows in m. 34: it is a falling figure ending on a sixth chord echoing Messiaen. The former melody is expanded and re-exposed throughout the piece. With its unpredictable note values and highly graphic design of wide, gestural intervals, it seems almost whimsical, albeit in a collected manner. In its final appearance – mm. 272-287 – the original staccato chords are replaced by characteristic Vaage arpeggio figures that further reveal the uneven lengths of the melody’s notes.
In Between successfully manages to balance widely opposing forces. On the one hand we have despondency and helpless frustration; on the other beauty and the will to live. In the negative emotions the music seems to act as an impartial mirror. The life affirming sections have a definitely purposeful, almost heroic feel to them. All the same, Vaage chooses to end the piece on a dark note. Doing otherwise would have been hypocritical under the circumstances. If one longs for a placid, positive ending, one need only explore Vaage’s piano concerto The Gardens of Hokkaido. The inspiration for the piece took place during the same Japanese sojourn that saw the premiere of In Between. The piano concerto was written three years later.
In Between is a solid composition of rare beauty and a worthy addition to the very large repertoire of music for violin and piano.
Ricardo Odriozola 17. april 2022
German preface not available ...
< back to overview Repertoire & Opera Explorer