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Ketil Hvoslef - 13 Fiolinduetter (hvorav kun 2 er tvilsomme), 2021
(b. Bergen, July 19th 1939)
13 Violin duets (of which only 2 are questionable) (2021)
First performance: Gunnar Sævigsalen, Bergen. 20. April 2022
SooHyun April Jang, Børge Brustad, Inga Bialach, Sinem Ceylan, Ricardo Odriozola
Written with support from Norsk Kulturrådet (Norwegian Culture Council)
Ketil Hvoslef was born in Bergen on July 19th 1939. He is the youngest son of Harald Sæverud and Marie Hvoslef. He arrived at a propitious time, since his birth coincided with the completion of Siljustøl, the great mansion in the outskirts of Bergen where the Sæverud family settled and where his father lived until his passing in 1992. It also proved to be a haven during the Nazi invasion of Norway in the Second World War.
Being the son of a great composer, music was naturally very present during his upbringing. He learned to play the piano and the viola and, in his teens, he became heavily involved in Bergen's jazz and pop music environment, becoming a member of what was, reportedly, Bergen's first rock band. Hvoslef (who retained the Sæverud surname until his 40th birthday, when he decided to adopt that of his mother) had, however, plans to become a painter and took serious steps in that direction. It was in the Bergen Art Academy that he met the painter Inger Bergitte Flatebø (1938 - 2008), who would become his wife and adopt the Sæverud surname.
With the birth of their first child, Trond, in 1962, Hvoslef realized that he needed to provide for his family and, abandoning his dreams to become either a pop star or a painter he took an organist's diploma at the Bergen Music Conservatoire. Upon finishing his studies, he was offered a position as theory teacher at the Conservatoire by its director, the legendary Gunnar Sævig (1924 - 1969).
Hvoslef became a composer almost by accident. In his 25th year he composed a piano concertino for his own satisfaction. Shortly after, his father passed on to him a commission for a woodwind quintet he had no time or inclination to write. Since then Hvoslef has received a fairly steady stream of commissions and his work list counts with some 160 compositions to date. Hvoslef always enjoys a challenge and he has often written for unusual or seemingly "hopeless" instrumental combinations, always using the limitations of the ensemble as a stimulant for his imagination. He has written for large orchestra, for a great variety of chamber ensembles and for solo instruments. He has composed twenty concertos and three operas.
He was the Festival Composer in the Bergen International festival in 1990 and has received several prizes such as the Norwegian Composers' Society's "work of the year" in four occasions (1978, 1980, 1985 and 1992) and TONO's Edvard Prisen in 2011.
Hvoslef's music is characterized by great transparency and by a conscious building of tension achieved by accumulating latent energy. He wants his listeners to lean forward and listen rather than sit back and be lulled into a reverie. Listening to a Hvoslef composition is always an adventure. One never knows what to expect. He stretches sections of the music almost to breaking point and only then introduces a new idea. His music has a classical clarity and transparency and is therefore always easy to follow. Although his highly personal and concentrated language is very much of its time, Hvoslef is not averse to using material that is recognizably tonal (such as major and minor triads) albeit always in a context that sets these familiar sounds in conflict with their surroundings. Rhythm is a very prominent aspect of Hvoslef’s music. Although the vast majority of his production is notated in 4/4 metre, his rhythmical patterns almost never conform to it, always favouring patterns of odd-numbered notes.
Ketil Hvoslef is, without a doubt, one of the greatest composers to emerge from Scandinavia in the second half of the Twentieth Century and one of the truly original masters of our time.
I commissioned the Violin Duets from Hvoslef in order to have some new music of quality to perform with my students. I have used the 20 small duets by Sæverud extensively in my teaching over the years and having a companion set of duets from his son was too good a chance to miss. Fortunately the commission materialized and I gave the first performance of the duets with four of my students on April 20th 2022, repeating them at the Bergen Public Library the next day. The performance can be watched on YouTube.
The number of duets Hvoslef should write was unspecified. The composer tells that, as a young man he once took a cycling trip with his father. When it came to spending the night, they found a grubby hostel. The feathers in the old mattresses were sticking out of the fabric, making it impossible to sleep on them. In order to pass away the sleepless hours, they played a game of naming as many Moto Perpetuos as they could remember. They ended up with a list of thirteen, of which "only two were questionable".
Part of the fun for the listener of these duets is, of course, deciding which two of the duets are the questionable ones. The composer has not divulged which ones they are. In fact, it is quite possible that he does not himself know.
The number 13 also makes it possible to have a duet placed in the middle of the series. Said duet (no. 7) is entirely different from any of the others, thus standing as a real centrepiece.
Haydn's Symphony no. 70 is the inspiration behind the main motif in Duet no. 1 (see mm. 2-3). It alternates with sequences of repeated chords at even time intervals that Hvoslef has described as "a room without furniture". Each violin takes its turn in developing an expansive melody, accompanied by the "empty room" double stops of the other. They finish the duet playing the repeated chords - which have become longer in the interim - together.
Duo no. 2 describes a dynamic arch that rises and falls. This is achieved by a tremolo line that is handed back and forth from one player to the other. The other player develops a triplet pizzicato figure that stays forte - including dynamic waves within - until the final diminuendo.
No. 3 begins with a fidgety rhythmic unison. The pitches of the melodic shape become elongated as the piece progresses: first as eight-note pizzicatos and finally in singing half-notes, each tone supported by single quarter notes underneath.
The 4th duet is a thoroughly unpredictable flowing, continuous line that is passed between the two violins. The dynamics also follow their own arcane logic and the music becomes fragmented at the very end.
Duet no. 5 is a free-atonal chorale where every single chord has two common notes:
F sharp and E - an insinuated Dominant harmony that never finds its Tonic. These always linger at the end of each phrase, including the very end of the duet.
No. 6 is a study in note lengths. Short, robust legato melodies are always answered by isolated staccato notes. Sometimes both instrument play with the same articulation, finally playing in rhythmic unison in the last eleven measures of the duet.
The central duet no. 7 is, indeed, entirely different from any of the others. It consists of a melody in D, alternating between the Aeolian and the Dorian modes. At first it is played in unison and is later harmonized by a second voice. The melody is sometimes in the upper, sometimes in the lower voice. The dynamics change from ff to pp without transition. This duet has a somewhat archaic flavour to it and represents an infrequent but very powerful, overtly tonal strand in Hvoslef's writing.
Duet no. 8 is a very suggestive dialogue between the two violins. Each plays fragments of a very curvy melody, always ending the sequences together. In the middle, the melodic notes are played as repeated eight-notes, retaining the conversational quality. These ultimately turn into couplets of notes in triplet rhythm, leading to the collected ending.
No. 9 is the most mischievous of the series. It is played pizzicato throughout and contains a lot of silence, always making it impossible to guess what may come next. In the middle and at the end the two players lock into a rhythmic unison played in parallel major seconds (middle) and minor ninths (end). The section between mm. 33 and 48, with its dynamic waves on top of a static figure, is particularly effective.
Duet no. 10 is the most rhythmically unsettling. A 5-beat ostinato where only two very short notes are heard on the first and fourth beats of the pattern, plays against a chorale of sorts consisting of a row of major thirds played in very large triplets. It is impossible to discern any sense of metre. The optional ending (beginning on m. 61) has both instruments playing parallel major thirds in contrary motion, creating a peculiar polyphony where the harmonies alternate between four, three and two voices.
No. 11 is based on a nervous, insistent theme played against an open string. It is first played alternatively by the two violins, then together. Thereafter, it is subjected to several modifications: sporadic pizzicato doublings, occasional surging triplets. It is finally played in canon nine beats apart and very softly, before uniting yet again and ending with a crescendo that cuts off abruptly.
No. 12 returns to pizzicato triplet figures, similar to the ones heard in no. 2. Here, however, there is a hidden melody sketched by the second note of each triplet. A repeated low B flat in quarter notes forms the basis for the musical discourse. The hidden melody is finally exposed when the first violin plays it in long note values between mm. 28 and 51. Like nos. 6, 9 and 11, this duet also finishes in rhythmic unison and with parallel intervals.
The final duet is obviously inspired by the last movement of Bach's third Brandenburg Concerto. The pitches are, of course, changed, but the shapes and the general character of the music are preserved. The final unison G can be seen as the resolution of the D major harmony (without a fifth) that ended duet no. 10.
These 13 duets are a very valuable addition to the repertoire for two violins.
Ricardo Odriozola, January 23, 2023
German preface not available ...
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