Drama, drive and sensuous appeal - a portrait of the composer Bent Lorentzen Bent Lorentzen was born on the 11th of February 1935 in Stenvad - a village in...
Drama,
drive and sensuous
appeal
- a portrait of the
composer Bent Lorentzen
Bent Lorentzen was born on the 11th of February 1935 in Stenvad - a village
in Eastern Jutland - in a multi-talented family. His father was an inventive
wag with a partiality for opera and music drama, especially Wagner. The opera
singer Kirsten Schultz was s frequent guest, and accompanying her on the piano
her younger cousin became intensely absorbed in this way of singing. The singing
cousin was later married to the composer Svend S. Schultz, who was already a
prolific opera composer. When Svend visited Stenvad young Bent would help him
copying his scores; this turned out to be a kind of informal apprenticeship.
The practical dimension of the composers craft has a deep meaning for Lorentzen,
who was rather ambivalent towards the formal education of composers at music
academies and conservatories - of which he has first hand knowledge, both as
a student and as a teacher. His own formal education began at Aarhus University
(where the composer Knud Jeppesen was ordinary professor) and continued at the
Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen (where his teachers were the composers
Vagn Holmboe, Jørgen Jersild and Finn Høffding). He became a Reader at the Royal
Academy of Music in Aarhus, where he worked from 1962 to 1971, since when he
has worked full time as a composer. During the Aarhus years he attended courses
in Darmstadt and Munich (1965), he studied electronic music in Stockholm (1967-68),
and he was the co-founder of the Aarhus Opera Group in 1963 and of Aarhus Unge
Tonekunstnere (AUT, Young Aarhus Composers' Association) in 1966.
Lorentzen has held important positions in Danish musical organisations, and
he has been awarded many prizes in international competitions, including Prix
Italia 1970 (for the open Euridice) the Serocki competition 1984 (for
the chamber work Paradiesvogel, International Choral Composition Award
in Austria 1987 (for Olof Palme), the Olivier Messiaën Organ prize
1988 (for Luna, Vienna Modern Masters 1991 (for the Piano Concerto),
the Music and Poetry Prize in Belgium 1989 (for Enzensberger's Prozession).
Since 1982 he has received the lifelong grant of the Danish Art Council,
and other Danish awards include Choral Composer of the Year 1990, and the Carl
Nielsen Prize 1995.
Lorentzen's compositions cover all genres, also 'rare' or 'unknown' genres
- like music for carillons, dramatic pantomimes, bugle ensemble, and 'town sounds'.
His orchestral music includes concertos for oboe (1980), cello (1984), piano
(1984), saxophone (1986), trumpet (1991) trumpet and trombone (1999), violin
(2001); the chamber works include solo music for organ, piano (complete on this
CD), trumpet, saxophone, clarinet, guitar, violin, cello and double bass; and
in addition to this string quartets and works for mixed ensembles (2- 12 instruments).
He has composed numerous choral works in unique dramatic style. The list also
includes electronic music and instrumental drama. The most important part of
his work, however, must be his operas and other works for the stage. To date
Lorentzen has composed 13 opens (in different formats), many of which had their
premiere in foreign countries, mainly in Germany. The most recent opera - Der
Steppenwolf based on Hermann Hesse's novel - is still awaiting its
world premiere. Intensive dramaturgic studies have accompanied the operatic
work during the years, and Lorentzen frequently teaches music drama at the Århus
and Copenhagen academies of music.
This composer never settled in an ivory tower. Lorentzen's goal has always
been communication and interplay with musicians as well as audiences and institutions.
This effort has not always been successful - in special cases the composer's
management led to conflict instead of contact. An example was the 'Opera dispute'
in Aarhus 1969, where Lorentzen, as a leading member of AUT, articulated a critique
of the prevailing traditional and conservative line and autocratic leadership
style of the Danish National Opera (Den jyske Open) at that time. No consensus
was possible, and the culmination of the conflict came, when members of AUT
interrupted an open performance with a demonstration in the theatre. A resolution
was read aloud to the astonished audience, before the demonstrators were removed.
Lorentzen wrote two articles in the local newspaper with a thorough analysis
of the situation of the open as a threatened species' in the musical fauna.
It is interesting to observe - more than 30 years later - that most of Lorentzen's
ideas and recommendations have been turned into reality by later generations.
His own experiments were many, and during the 1970s three of his operas had
their premiere at - Den jyske Opera. A later, very successful example of the
composer's communication strategies was the Ebeltoft Festival (1989-1993), a
summer festival in an old Danish town, where inhabitants and tourists were offered
programs with a fifty-fifty mix of old and new music in carefully selected surroundings
(in- and outdoors). This philosophy of multisensory surprises created a special
and stimulating festival.
Bent Lorentzen's music
As indicated above, Lorentzen is a composer with a rare interest in the interplay
between music and listener, no matter whether the listener is a pampered 'connoisseur'
or maybe a schoolgirl trying her strength against tape recorded sounds from
everyday life. Composer, musician(s) and producer must create optimum conditions
for the experience, if a dialogue is to emerge. Humour may be an intersection
point - and it is often present in Lorentzen's music. This humour may be found
in the meeting point of two worlds, the world of sounds and instruments and
the world of human experience and expectation. Lorentzen shares this fundamental
acceptance of sound in all its variety with Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen, a colleague
three years his senior. However Lorentzen's style is unique and very personal,
irrespective of genre.
His music has often been characterized with the adjective sonic, indicating
that sound itself and the material-textural effect of sound is a core element
in the music. The composer confirms that he - in an almost childish fashion
- is fascinated by sounds, and he does not hesitate in consciously using
vulgar sound when he finds them appropriate (e.g. the sounds of gastric juices,
farts and night pots being emptied in the opera Den Stundesløse.
This engagement in the sound itself is apparently rare in new music - and certainly
not identical with the quest for "Nie erhorte Klange" of the postwar
European avantgarde. Lorentzen's point of departure is the role of sound and
the function of the auditory sense in the phylogenesis of man: the sense of
hearing enabled the prehistoric man (and still enables modern man.) to identify
a sound in two dimensions: what is it? (friendly or hostile, well known
or unknown) and where is it? (close or distant: should I stay or flee?).
Sound and timbre unfold as specific identities its space and time, and the human
ear and brain (or better: consciousness) has a remarkable capacity of differentiating
and processing auditory stimuli cognitively. Working artistically with sounds
promotes a dialogue with the listener based on his/her capacity of discrimination
and psychological processing, both cognitively and emotively. Sound is an integral
part of universal as well as personal (idiosyncratic) patterns of reactions,
thus sound composition may be a means of influencing or even manipulating the
listener, psychologically anesthetically. Sound may he a catalyst of all sorts
of associations and it has the potential of evoking a broad variety of imagery.
The by-product humour may appear when a skillfully planned sound image meet
the expectations of a listener in a surprising way.
Lorentzen's knowledge and fascination of sound manifests itself in numerous
ways. He has made intense studies of the sound producing potentials of traditional
instruments, e.g. blowing mouthpieces, producing multi-phones / 'Tongemisch'
(in works like Mambo and the Saxophone Quartet, quarter
tones / mico-intervals (the solo trumpet in Regenbogen), ways of touching
and striking instruments (the guitar in Umbra, and also in many of the
piano works). Last, but not least, Lorentzen has experimented with the human
voice and its almost unlimited expressivity, from soft whispering and 'Sprechgesang'
to the professionally trained opera voice, including micro-modulations of, and
play with, vibrato and glissando, not forgetting expressive breathing, yelling
anti screaming (in the choral works and some of the operas).
An examination of the sources of inspiration behind Lorentzen's music during
the 1960s and 70s makes it clear that he sought and found contact with international
colleagues and trends other than those dominating Danish postwar music: In the
1960s the serialism of the Second Vienna School and experimental electronic
music was important for him. Serialism made it clear that not only notes, hut
all sorts of sounds and compositional procedures could he organised in series,
and this was, of course, important for a composer engaged in basic sound perception.
Electronic composition was a natural next step for a 'sound philosopher' like
Lorentzen, as he was an early pioneer in Danish electronic music, who also worked
pedagogically with children and amateurs, to whom he introduced this type of
music. The inspiration from the 'sonoriam' of the Polish School' of the 1950s
(the direct expressive engagement with sound and text, also the aleatoric method
of Lotoslawski) is clearly present in the works of the 1970s, but impressionist
sound colour visions and expressionist harmony can also he heard in this period,
occasionally mixed with slices of (grotesque) humour. In 1977 Lorentzen visited
Brazil, and this turned out to be a major inspiration for the years to come,
most importantly the rhythmic appeal and sensuous gestures of South American
popular music.
Undertaking basic compositional research for many years Lorentzen has analysed,
separated and combined his sound materials and objects in every thinkable way.
But use sensuous dimension of the musical performance and the respect for the
listener's right to define his/her experience has always played a central role
in Lorentzen's universe. This 'manifest' social engagement may be part of the
explanation for why Lorentzen has been considered somewhat an 'outsider' on
the Danish new music scene, where aesthetic principles and problems have dominated
for decades.
However, Lorentzen's craftmanship and his expertise within the psychology
of sound in combination with an openminded experimental attitude make him a
leading Danish composer. He is a genuine homo ludens who works with
curiosity and wonder combined with a constructive talent and a sound knowledge
of materials and procedures. The aim is not 'sound realism', but a new (re)constructed
and dramatised world of the imagination. This could he called "imaginary realism"
- the composer once used the concept "sonic hyper-realism". A basic human trait
like the contrast between calm, introvert reflection (creative daydreaming)
and hectic extravert activity (an audible manifestation) has found an
aestethic form in many of Lorentzen's works. He has never been afraid of going
to extremes, as evidenced when sound becomes almost static as a 'carpet' (of
long 'lines' and 'sheets'), or when he lets his hair down in stimulating rhythmic
convulsions, chromatic 'curves' or more or less vulgar sound effects.
Since the late 1970s a polarization or complementarity is heard in many of
Lorentzen's works: sections with wild or rhythmic activity contrasts with sections
of 'wagnerian' sound carpets characterised by a special chromatic harmonic technique.
Examples on a large scale are the opera Stalten Mette and the oratorio Genesis.
The piano works include many of the features described above, but they also
bring new facets to the portrait of one of most original composers in Danish
contemporary music.
The piano music
Already from the early Easy Pieces, Lorentzen's piano music can be
characterised as a balanced unity of extemporaneous generosity and conceptual
precision. The music has a strong vitality shaped by rhythmic variability,
dramatic contrasts and a richness of ideas at the micro level. The soundscape
of the piano is investigated thoroughly, physically as well as acoustically: we
hear the piano as a singing voice, as a percussion instrument and as a
mysterious source of sound-giving. The world of associations inherent in the
more or less programmatic titles bear witness to the composer's own sources of
inspiration. Many of the titles refer to German literary culture, with Hermann
Hesse's The Steppenowolf as a continuous source of inspiration. The
titles are meant as invitations to the listener, even in cases where
programmatic elements are obvious (as in the musical quotations in Colori).
A characteristic feature in many pieces is the presence of musical motifs,
rotating or orbiting round themselves in half and whole tone intervals. In Goldranken
they appear exclusively in slow tempo, but in other pieces (e.g. Colori I)
they move very fast. This feature is not limited to the piano music, it is also
frequently heard in the orchestral music, e.g. the prelude to the opera Fackeltanz
and the introduction of the Piano Concerto.
Colon (1978)
1. Rosso 2. Bianco 3. Oro 4. Azurro 5. Nero
The composer's programme note:
The piece depicts 5 different colours in 5 discrete movements: 1. Rosso
is a flapping red banner including a short and naïve quotation from "Internationale".
2. Bianco is composed of long whole and brevis notes including a short
Palestrina quote. 3. Oro depicts gold as used for the decoration of old
altar-pieces. 4. Azurro is composed of aetherical piano harmonics. 5.
Nero is built on different associations to the colour black, especially
impressions from South America.
This is a typical Lorentzen note: Brief and laconic. The meaning of the quotations
is ambiguous: In Rosso it is possible to identify the line "So comrades,
come rally", however the music is presented piano (p) in the high register,
almost hesitatingly, thus making the melody rather unclear. This is in contrast
to the two frenetically active parts in ultrahigh register framing the quotation
and evolving in circular mirrorings. Other important elements are marcato single
notes or 2-3 part ffz-"smashes" (often in sevenths). This may evoke the
image of banners fluttering in the May wind. Bianco is a quiet and slow
complementary (or contrasting) colour - with a contemplative interchange of
4-5- part chords in a very high register and a short melodic line which may
(or may not) be a Palestrina quote (there is no shade of vocal polyphony or
other renaissance features in the movement!). In Oro we hear another
version of the characteristic circling chromatic melodies (first one part, then
two-part, the second part mirroring the first) this time mixed with an almost
'hysterical', hammered-on treble part. The dynamic development of the movement
intensifies the contrast between the introvert brooding and the extrovert, insisting
'coleratura soprano'. In Azurro we find a carefully arranged sound production
of the harmonics of the piano strings. The strings are manipulated by the pianist
in several ways: the score indicates precisely when and how to knock, pluck
or scrape the strings. This exploration of the 'internal organs' of the piano
has a strong and direct impact on the listener'- the piano is transformed into
an 'alien being'. Towards the end of the movement there is a rhythmical reminiscence
of Stravinsky's pagan music in Sacre du Printemps. Nero is a journey
into the sombre abyss of the bass register and points towards the sixteen years
younger Abgrund. This world of darkness is also dramatic - an ascending/descending
mirror duet (with pedal) in the lowest register is one core feature of the movement
(referring to the complementary treble duet in Bianco); the other is
the use of the piano as a percussion instrument in sections where chromatic
chord clustera in deep register are hammered out on tile strings in almost ecstatic
Sooth American rhythms. These sections interchange with duets of 'knocking chords'
and glissandi produced by nails scraping on the strings. The final part of the
movement is dominated by contrasts - between high and low, rhythmically poignant
single notes and tritone block chords ("Gain e infennale": joyful and diabolical)
- before the closing 'scraping lamentoso'.
Goldranken (1987)
The title word of this composition is not included in any German dictionary -
the composer found it (like Paradiesvogel - Paradise Bird) in
Hermann Hesse's Der Steppenwolf. However, the listener does not
need this information, associations to the golden vine are easily produced,
e.g. the wind playing with the laburnum vine, waving in many layers (of tempo
and pitch). A closer examination makes it possible to identify the tiny
components (single flowers or notes) of the vine. The texture is sparse from
the beginning, three or four different and apparently independent melodic lines
are heard, each in a separate register (very low - middle register - normal
song register - very high; c: (sub)bass - tenor - alto - (coleratura) soprano).
Each line has its own rhythm and tempo, melodic and dynamic profile (e.g. the
long, marked single notes of the bass; the quiet circling melody of the alto).
Suddenly and very surprisingly (6:13 on the CD recording) the bass produces an
outburst, initiating an interaction of the hitherto independent parts. Imitation
occurs (first a four-note motif in alto and soprano), then the motif is
expanded. The composition takes on the style of an improvisation, rhythmically
as well as melodically. However, an examination of the score makes it clear
that nothing is accidental. The characteristic tiny circling motives unfold in
half or whole tone steps, in this composition only in slow tempo. The meter is
6/8 all the way through according to the score, and is arranged in three
systems: one bass and two treble parts. The 'circling motives' are often
notated as an interaction of the two upper pails - an ambiguity, since the listener
will hear the two parts as one (as they are so close) - separated from the more
remote parts in high and low register. The improvised effect of the rhythmic
process is produced by arching both the semiquavers of the lively parts, of the
dotted crotchets of the low voices, and of the single notes (occasionally duplets)
of the bass. Control and spontaneity go hand in hand. From a formal point of
view the composition divides into two sections, with the surprising outburst as
an axis or centre. Another important difference between the first and second
section is that there are only marcato single notes in the first section,
mostly at some distance and thus experienced as not interacting, while there
are more marcatos in the second section, creating an unexpected connection
between the parts. Finally the number of marked and imitated notes decreases,
and the composition ends without any marcatos in a quiet middle register.
Nachtigall for piano and bass clarinet (1988/2000) The opening has the character
of a slow introduction to a sonata for piano and bass clarinet. However, it
does not continue like that. From 2:15 on cut 7 of the recording the clarinet
retires to the background and the work presents itself more and more as the
composer must originally have conceived it: a piano fantasy (in version A with
electronic effects) on the musical universe of the nightingale. The clarinet
follows the piano-nightingale as a shadow: imitating, echoing, adding colours
or forming a background - but the interaction dives not have the character of
chamber music in the classical sense. The listener is invited to experience
a fantastic, unfolding universe of sounds and timbres, where intervals, chords,
tone production and embellishment (arabeques) and micromodulations (trills,
vibrato) emanate as 'new sound'. The music has a sensuous freshness, stimulating
the associations of the listener. This is not 'a concert'; this is 'music-created-here-and-now:
composition taking the form of an improvisation - inspired by the nightingale,
one of nature's most astonishing 'musicians'. Maybe Lorentzen pays homage to
Messiaën who also made the piano sing songs of the nightingale in Reveil
des Oiseaux.
Abgrund
(1994)
The title (Abyss or The bottomless pit) may be a reference to the
Inferno of Dante's Divine Comedy, but also act III of Wagner's Tristan
and Isolde may come to the listener's mind. The composition belongs to a
period in Lorentzen's work where Wagner-inspired chromaticism is explored in
depth. (The 'Tristan-chord' heard clearly at 6:03 of cut 8 is a marked point of
reference to an informed listener). The composition does not follow any
traditional formal principles. It may be heard in two main sections. The first
section presents two interchanging elements: A) the 'ground' is made of chord blocks
in the bass register with a 'figure' of a chromatically descending, irregular
melody. B) begins with an 'arpeggio fan' spreading from a low note and followed
by treble parts moving in parallel (twice). Then follow three variations of B,
and the section closes with a variation of A.
The second
section has a very different character. It may be heard as a lonesome soul
wandering in light, but desert realms. C) is a dialog between bass (mf, 1-2
chords) and treble (pp. longer tone rows). In D) the roles are changing: tone
fans are presented in the treble, while the bass sings slow melodies, and
variations are heard: C'- D'.
Five Easy Fiano Pieces (1971)
I. Waves II. Conaasts III. Waves IV. Bells V. Waves
This was Lorentzens first published piano composition, commisoned by the NMFU
(Nordic Music Pedagocial Union) Congress in Århus 1971. In the introduction to
the score the composer presents his special notation technique, an important
innovation of this period: graphic notations of duration (contrasts) as well as
touch (Bells). The fourth movement is probably the first testimony of
Lorentzen's preoccupation with the sound world of hells (in later works he composes
specifically for tubular bells, church bells etc.). Five Easy Pieces
are minimalistic - in so far as they operate with small and precisely notated
modules. Through patterns of repetition and displacement (especially
rhythmically, based on addition of extra notes and/or pauses) the listener is
offered new possibilities of experiencing the material. This type of minimalism
is related to other Danish works from the same period, e.g. the Tricolore
series of Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen. The short movements are demonstrative in
their effects and gesture: The absence of melody and the exhibition of single
notes in close distance or blocks of seconds (in I-IV), dynamic contrasts, and
(in V) a rhythmical -percussive brutality turns a distant predecessor like
Bartok's Allegro barbaro almost into candlelight music.
Lars Oie Bonde, 2002
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