Ricardo Odriozola -Post-scriptum (2013)
(b. Bilbao, September 28, 1965)
(in memoriam Edvard Hagerup Bull)
1st performance: 30. September 2013, Tønsberg Cathedral Roger Vigulf – clarinet; Ricardo Odriozola, Magnar Heimdal – violins;
Ingvild Spilling – viola; Tove Erikstad - cello Written with support from The Norwegian Culture Council
(Norsk Kulturråd)
RICARDO ODRIOZOLA started studying the violin at the age of 9 and graduated from the Bilbao conservatoire in 1982. He then spent a year as exchange student in Arlington (near Boston) finishing his high school and serving as concertmaster of the Greater Boston Youth Symphony orchestra. In 1987 he obtained a bachelor degree in performance from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester (NY). That same year he moved to Bergen (Norway) and began teaching at the Bergen Music Conservatoire (now Grieg Academy), where he is now associate professor of violin and chamber music.
Ricardo Odriozola began writing music at the age of 10. The earliest composition he recognizes (a piano sextet) dates from 1984. Since then he has written more than 40 works (chamber music, solo, songs and orchestral music) and arranged a great deal of music by other composers. Several of his works appear on CD. In January 2015 he released his first CD dedicated exclusively to his music: “Views from my Horse”
(www.amethyst-records.com).
Although he has never taken lessons in composition, Ricardo Odriozola has received guidance and inspiration from many prominent composers, particularly from Western Norway, and has built his craft by reading thousands of scores and listening to concerts and recordings. Ricardo Odriozola’s music is, however, primarily informed by his wide experience as a performer. He always strives to produce scores that are performer- friendly and music that can communicate directly with the listener without the aid of intellectual filters.
About Post-scriptum.
Edvard Hagerup Bull died in March 2012. The summer of that year I met Bernt Kasberg Evensen, another remarkable Norwegian composer about whom I had known for years but never met in person. The occasion was a series of performances given in the island of Veierland (not far from Tønsberg) together with, among others the violinist and composer Magnar Heimdal and the clarinettist and composer Roger Arve Vigulf. We decided we wanted to realize an ensemble project the following year and that it would be a tribute to Edvard Hagerup Bull. The necessary financial support eventually materialized and we gave two concerts: on September 30th 2013 in Tønsberg and on October 2nd in Bergen. We had the pianist and composer
Rune Bekkhus, the flautist Charlotte Kjeldsberg, the violist Ingvild Spilling and the cellist Tove Erikstad with us. The programme included music by Hagerup Bull, Evensen, Heimdal, Oddvar Lönner, Vigulf and myself.
Given the fact that we were going to perform Hagerup Bull’s last work Entre Deux Trains (mph no. 1920) I decided to write a piece for the same line-up: clarinet and string quartet. Entre Deux Trains had been commissioned by our clarinettist Roger Vigulf in 2001.
Due a sudden onset of blindness Hagerup Bull had not managed to finish the work, leaving only two completed movements. I decided to write a short piece that would, if not serve as the final movement for Entre Deux Trains, at least provide some kind of closure. It seemed cruel that Hagerup Bull, whose entire life had largely revolved around the creation of music, had suddenly been robbed of that possibility. I could not pretend to anything as grand as summarizing Hagerup Bull’s lifework in seven minutes or even providing the missing movement for his unintended final work. However, I decided to include some quotations from two defining works of his with which I had had a deep involvement: Ad Usum Amicorum and Épilogue (mph no. 4333). I also included the main motifs from both movements of Entre Deux Trains. In order to keep a close eye on my emotions (Hagerup Bull had been a very important person for me for many years) I based the piece on “musical objects”, much in the spirit of the old man himself. These were various musical spellings of his name. I also decided to employ some of Hagerup Bull’s favoured techniques, such as doubling key notes of the polyphonic texture with accented or staccato notes, or the use of percussive pizzicatos. The music is elegiac in nature for the most part. On the other hand, it also attempts to display the kind of optimistic energy that permeates much of Hagerup Bull’s music. I was surprised, half way through working on the piece, when the name of my old friend turned into a childlike song of innocence. Hagerup Bull had acquired, in Norway, a reputation for being a difficult and angry man. He had many reasons to be angry and was not a great advocate of diplomacy when expressing his points of view, which did not contribute to making his life any easier. I was privileged to experience Hagerup Bull’s private side: an old-fashioned gentleman who loved his family and was fiercely loyal to his friends and who held honesty, trustworthiness and accountability among his highest ideals. I was told some time after his death that he had been bullied at school as a child. In the passage between measures 58 and 66 of Post-scriptum I imagine the great composer, with a majestic lifework behind him, turning into a small sensitive, scared boy, seeking refuge from a hostile world, craving the same affection he was naturally inclined to show. I continue to be moved by those nine measures. To me they represent the soft inner core of my friend Edvard, whom public life forced to adopt a very hard outer shell that did not suit him at all. This ill-fitting armour comes into view soon after the mentioned episode, crashing headlong into a characteristic Hagerup Bull “cramped chord”, before the music returns to its original mournful atmosphere. There is a glimpse of light toward the end, but the music ends inconclusively on a rootless chord leading nowhere.
Ricardo Odriozola 12. May 2020