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Magnar Åm - gratia for harp and string orchestra
(b. april 9th 1952)
First performance: Tacoma, USA, 25. July 1996
Willy Postma, harp
Local chamber orchestra
Magnar Åm (pronounced "Ohm") was born in Trondheim.
His interest in music revealed itself from early childhood and he began to write small pieces around the age of eleven. He did this in order to make sense of his inner struggles. It was then that he discovered (in his own words) "what a helpful friend music can be". He describes the process as "going around with an emotional knot and yet making something out of it that sounded beautiful and that others appreciated – a process of metamorphosis". The piano (his instrument of choice) became "a very close friend". All the above citations, as well as much of the information under these lines, come from an interview with the composer I conducted on December 7th 2013 in connection with the writing of my book "Opus Perseverat", Musikproduktion Höflich 2017.
As a 16 year old Åm travelled to Bergen in order to attend high school and get a musical education. He attended the U. Pihl School where he received encouragement from Kjell Leikvoll (1924 - 2019). Simultaneously Åm studied organ with Thorleif Aamodt (1909 - 2003). These organ studies culminated in a debut concert and the acquisition of an organist and cantor diploma in 1971. He also found time to take composition lessons with Ketil Hvoslef (b. 1939), conducting lessons with Magnar Mangersnes (b. 1938) and jazz lessons with the pianist Eivin Sannes (1937 - 2019). With Trygve Fischer (1918 – 1980) he learned score reading, using the old clefs.
Keil Hvoslef was the first person who gave Åm serious feed-back on matters of composition in a contemporary language. The singular most important contribution from Hvoslef, as Åm recalls, was the search for freshness in every note, a principle by which Åm (and, indeed, Hvoslef) lives to this day.
In the obligatory conservatoire study of traditional harmony Åm found a strong sense of the importance of maintaining a singing quality in every voice. He also realized the vital importance of the distance between the voices: how different two voices sound when they are close to one another in the high register versus the low register: the higher the register, the more consonant dissonances become. These realizations would serve him well in his later work as a consummate choir conductor and composer of choral music.
In return for free room and board Åm worked two hours every evening as a pianist at the restaurant of the Terminus Hotel. Given Åm's inquisitive nature, he used this experience also as a learning process. He closely monitored the effect his music was having on the restaurant guests and adjusted his playing accordingly.
In 1971 Åm travelled to Stockholm to continue his composition studies with Ingvar Lidholm (1921 – 2017).
After his Stockholm stint, Åm moved to Volda, in the region of Sunnmøre, where he has lived and worked ever since – except for one year, in the early eighties, spent in Bømlo where he met and mentored the young Kenneth Sivertsen (1961 - 2006). Åm soon became involved with the direction of several children and amateur choirs with which he was happy to experiment.
Magnar Åm's production is vast and it includes two operas, music for orchestra, several concertos or concertante works, chamber music, music for solo instruments, multimedia and electronic works and a great deal of choral music, with or without instrumental accompaniment.
Åm considers that, particularly in music, the personal and the professional go hand in hand. He sees the creative in music as an allegory for the creative in life: each moment must be accepted as a gift. For him music is an intuitive exercise that can be useful in interpersonal as well as inter-musical relationships. Music, he says, presents a possible future that is for everyone's best. Although artists often reflect, in their work, that which is wrong with the world, Åm feels it is important to offer hope through art.
He writes:
"Time and space structured as music is a formidable tool for one who seeks to make conscious his deepest essence and meaning, whether one creates, performs, or listens. But the pleasure of allowing things to become habit is a tempting veil and a hindrance for all searching, also here. This is why I undertake the task of delving into odd ways of mediating music quite frequently – partly to awaken, partly to develop new rituals that can better strengthen the deeper functions of music" http://www.listento.no/mic.nsf/doc/art2002100715014263789883
"In my music I try to appeal to all aspects of listening, including perception of direction. The music must therefore not only respond to the question of what the sound is and when it occurs, but also the question of where it comes from. Sound is like a heavenly body moving through time and space. Concert halls, however, are constructed to concentrate sound in front of the listener […] Nonetheless I often write for a three-dimensional space, placing sound both above and below the audience […] Through my work with electro-acoustic installations I am aware that the spatial element contains a potential for powerful experiences which cannot be realized by a single surface of sound. The difference would be like seeing a character step out of a cinema screen and become a physical body. The music changes from being a phenomenon that appeals primarily to the mind and imagination to something that evokes a physical experience to a much greater degree"
Sleeve notes to SONaR – 2L 51 SABD
gratia
This work for harp and string orchestra was commissioned and premiered by the Dutch/Norwegian harpist Willy Postma.
The composer writes
Gratia is a Latin word with four rather different and yet closely related meanings: thanks,
grace, favour, charm.
Gratitude is something we are used to come up with after we have received. But it is old wisdom to turn the order: Feel rich, and you see that you actually are rich. Find something to give thanks for, and you experience that you really have something to be thankful for ("He who has shall receive…"). In gratitude for the ideas every tone comes as a gift. In giving thanks for time, moment is transformed into grace. In the creation of what you love you discover yourself loved. In gratitude for life, even life itself is filled with a certain charm…
At least to me they are sisters, these words of signification. And in the work with "gratia" they have got a finger on my pencil and rubber, all four of them...
Magnar Åm seems to have a particular affinity for the harp. Although he generally writes on commission and, therefore, his many works for harp are a result of that, there is no denying that his harp music has a very special quality. It approaches a heavenly sphere to a larger extent than most of his consistently visionary work.
gratia is a work of exceptional beauty. From the very beginning, with its repeated open fifths, the music seems to draw us into a magical, profoundly calm and peaceful realm. The harp takes on the role of speaker or oracle, inviting the listener to follow the music in its weightless passage through time. The strings mostly function as support or willing travel companions, only rarely and briefly taking centre stage. One such place begins at measure 87. Here begins a sequence lasting 86 measures that returns, in literal repetition, in measure 276. The only difference between these two otherwise identical sections is a violin solo added from m. 299. This (almost) exact reiteration of a long musical passage - which, taken twice, occupies more than a third of the work - seems to suggest the act of reciting a well-learned, ancient prayer. A prayer of gratitude, in accordance with the ethos of the piece.
As is common in practically all of Åm's music, tonality and weightless, searching atonality - or, more appropriately, lack of tonal centre, hence its weightlessness - coexist in friendly balance. In gratia's case, the loss of a tonal anchoring presents itself seamlessly as a result of the harp's free, hovering spirit. At the end of the piece, the music returns to a safer sense of tonality, as if lightly landing after a flying spell. The final sounds heard in the piece create a sense of openness, as if suggesting a world of possibilities, a bounty of blessings that lies beyond the time confines of the music.
About the score and edition
In this work, Magnar Åm generally writes the tempo markings and dynamics above the harp part and below the double bass part. When all the instruments have a similar rhythm or texture, it is understood that these markings apply to all the parts. All dynamics and tempo markings have, of course, been transferred to the individual parts.
We dedicate this edition to Liv Åm, biologist and wife of Magnar Åm
Ricardo Odriozola, room 324, Grieg Academy, Wednesday April 30th 2025, 11:50
German preface not available ...
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