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Ketil Hvoslef - Sextet for oboe, bassoon, trumpet, trombone, violin and cello (1972)
(b. Bergen, July 19th 1939)
First performance: Gunnar Sævigsalen, Bergen. May 6th 2015
Ricardo Odriozola, violin. Steinar Hannevold, oboe
Britt Pernille Linvik, trumpet. Håvard Sannes, trombone
John Ehde, cello. James Lassen, bassoon
Ketil Hvoslef 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.
Hvoslef wrote his Sextet (1972) in his first decade of work as a composer. It is his thirteenth documented composition. Coming shortly after the masterful ‘Rondo con Variazioni’ for piano (1970) and ‘Mi-Fi-Li’ for symphony orchestra (1971) it is one of his first works to fully exhibit the signs of a mature composer. It displays all of the elements one associates with the Hvoslef musical voice. By the composer's own admission, the influence of Stravinsky can be clearly felt in much of the piece. The same can be said of what he calls his "suspicious pop background". Such background has been felt throughout his career in the rhythmical nerve that runs through his music, as well as in the directness of its expression. As far as Stravinsky is concerned, one can hear echoes of Le Sacre here and there in the Sextet. The frequent changes of metre – not at all common in Hvoslef's output – are also a clear influence from the Russian master.
Although, according to Hvoslef, the piece was once read at a rehearsal in the early 1970's it was not performed at the time. The premiere had to wait until 2015, in connection with the recording of the work for the series of nine CDs "Ketil Hvoslef Chamber Works", published by the Norwegian LAWO record company.
This work has an infectious rhythmical drive, interspersed with simple but wholesome melodies that are easily remembered by the listener. The first two thirds of the piece unfold in a satisfyingly organic manner. After an initial block harmony gradually insinuates itself in typically unpredictable rhythms, snippets of melody grow into theme-like material. These are immediately subjected to development. New melodies seem to sprout from the previous ones. The first of these appears on the oboe in measure 38. The violin and cello respond in tandem with a melody of their own in m.42. The interaction between these two melodic lines carries the piece all the way to m. 72, where a new melody appears on the trumpet. This soon undergoes playful contrapuntal treatment. New material keeps emerging, such as the new lyrical string duo beginning in m. 93. The language, throughout, has traces of bi- or polytonality. Hvoslef often places simple diatonic or pentatonic melodies in playful conflict with pedal points or lines that have an entirely different tonal centre. His very personal free-tonal language would eventually crystallize.
It is the rhythmically homogeneous passage between mm. 112 and 133 that most closely resembles the Stravinsky of Le Sacre. A solo cello in mm. 133-136 seamlessly leads the way to the central, meditative section of the work: the music breaks into fragments in mm. 137-149; a slow lyrical duo between the cello and bassoon gives way to a quaver figure in the violin. Like the work's initial chord, this figure also presents itself tentatively before becoming an oscillating presence from m. 170, joined by the cello in m. 171. It becomes a constant, with only one short respite, for the next 84 measures - some 3 minutes of music: about one quarter of the piece. The other four instruments develop a tender melodic discourse, now alone, now in pairs. Time almost seems to stand still. As this is taking place, the violin and cello ostinato transforms itself almost imperceptibly, its initial simplicity turning into a dense, barely recognizable harmony. It eventually returns to its original paired-down texture as the music seems to dissolve into nothingness, leaving the oboe to hold a long note.
It is not uncommon for Hvoslef to follow up a section of slow, almost still music with something much more animated. However, in no work of his is the resulting contrast more striking than in this Sextet. At 160 beats per minute, a rambunctious 4/4 dance riff emerges out of the blue, with insouciant accents on the syncopated, bent last quaver of the measure. Typically, Hvoslef soon introduces a new riff-cum-theme that, with its Stravinskyan accentuations immediately challenges the established rhythm. What at first appeared to be an old rock'n'roll riff has turned into unhinged Dixieland. Without ever deviating from the pulse, the music undergoes similar procedures as the first half of the piece, with new ideas emerging playfully. There is even room for some lyricism, as with the oboe melody in mm. 281-296. A striking event occurs in mm. 357-363 when the seemingly unstoppable energy of the music crosses paths with the re-emergence of the theme first heard on the oboe in mm. 38-40. By m. 364 this earlier material has taken over the entire ensemble. It dominates the sound spectrum for six measures before the music plunges into an even faster coda, finishing in exhilarating fashion.
Sextet (1972) is an immensely fun piece to play and listen to. It is full of youthful energy and brimming with colour, invention and vitality.
Ricardo Odriozola September 24th 2023
German preface not available ...
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