Bjorn supremacy:
asamisimasa interviewed Interview : Abi Bliss
Anders Førisdal of Oslo ensemble asamisimasa tells hcmf// about performing six-string pioneer Bjorn Fongaard and Simon SteenAndersen's latest spectacular. "Simon's put himself out on a limb with this one. I think it will surprise people, in a good way," says asamisimasa's guitarist Anders Førisdal of Buenos Aires, Simon Steen-Andersen's new chamber opera, which receives its UK premiere at hcmf// 2014 from the Oslo-based ensemble and Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart.
There's a unique blend of people here who are doing free improv one day, writing pop songs the next and composing contemporary music on the third Surprise? Anyone familiar with the Danish composer's audacious, playfully literate experiments with genre and convention such as Black Box Music, which received its UK premiere at hcmf// 2012, knows to expect the unpredictable. So when a member of an ensemble whose links with him stretch back to the start of the millennium says such a thing, it suggests Steen-Andersen won't be using the enthusiastic reception that greeted his work at hcmf// in recent years as an excuse to rest upon his laurels. He has a really intense creative energy, Førisdal adds, which is filtered through his scores and music so you can see how he's working with the finest details of instrumental practice in a really creative way, changing the smallest details and finding really incredible solutions. Having previously performed a portrait concert of SteenAndersen's work at hcmf// 2011, asamisimasa's return to the festival also offers a chance to enjoy further fruits of longstanding relationships in the form of works by James Saunders and Øyvind Torvund, as well as shining a spotlight upon the experimental guitar compositions of Bjørn Fongaard, one of Norway's lesser known musical pioneers. It's a typically wide-ranging offering from the five-piece ensemble - currently comprising Førisdal, percussionist Håkon Stene, Ellen Ugelvik on keyboards, Kristine Tjøgersen on clarinets and cellist Tanja Orning - whose palindromic name stems from a
misremembering of a good-luck mantra chanted by a character in the Fellini film 8½ . Ever since their origins at Oslo's Academy of Music, where school friends Førisdal and Stene teamed up to perform music by German composer Mathias Spahlinger, asamisimasa have been keen to cast their gaze further than the admittedly rich musical landscapes found in their own country. In Norway there's always been a lot of support for Norwegian music, and for commissioning works from Norwegian composers, which is quite unique, Førisdal acknowledges. However, they knew from the early days that the familiar cycle of commissioning a Norwegian composer, touring the subsequent concerts and releasing a CD of the work via the Norwegian Society of Composers' label wouldn't be enough for them. No-one was doing things like Spahlinger; there were no regular Lachenmann or Ferneyhough performances; we were also very interested in Nicolaus Huber. We latched onto that central European critical tradition, in a sense, he says. Yet although asamisimasa are determinedly international in outlook, Førisdal still appreciates the opportunities and diversity of the Norwegian contemporary music scene, citing Øyvind Torvund, Maja SK Ratkje and Lars Petter Hagen as part of the special scene that has grown up, particularly around Oslo. There's a unique blend of people here who are doing free improv one day, writing pop songs the next and composing contemporary music on the third day. We can blend repertoire a bit more freely than groups from the continent; we can pick and mix any way we like and present very broad programmes. Such
Bjorn supremacy: asamisimasa interviewed
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It's a sound-world that I think is unique for the time, a more Norwegian mix between Harry Partch and Giacinto Scelsi
repertoire draws parallels across the decades of the last century, ranging from La Mariée mise à nu par ses célibataires, même Erratum Musical (1913), Marcel Duchamp's mysterious score for an unspecified musical 'machine', to Trond Reinholdtsen's PowerPoint operas and multimedia works, from Stockhausen to Shlomowitz and Ferneyhough to Lucier. When asked to introduce Bjørn Fongaard (1919-80), Førisdal describes him as one of the most explicitly experimental composers in Norway in the 60s and 70s. Having refretted his electric guitar into quarter tones, Fongaard developed his own set of playing techniques using preparations and a bow and experimented with multi-track recordings in his own home. It's a sound-world that I think is unique for the time, a more Norwegian mix between Harry Partch and Giacinto Scelsi, working with sound rather than traditional melodies and motifs. He was a genuine experimentalist, he says. Although prolific, Fongaard worked with just a handful of performers: He was kind of a loner in Norway. He wasn't shy but he wasn't one to push his music around, Førisdal says, noting that as a result he had no direct followers to evangelise for his music after he died. He got a bit of bad press after his death; some people said he was writing too much music rather than really good music, that the music suffered from that. But I think his music from the 60s is unique, especially Opus 62, 3 Novasjoner. It's three short pieces that are really intense and are like an electric guitar orchestra. Førisdal sees echoes of Fongaard's approach today in composers and musicians such as Torvund and Lasse Marhaug. He has himself spent the past two years working on new
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versions of the 60s guitar/tape works 3 Novasjoner, Sinfonia Microtonalis and Galaxe, recording a CD which launches at asamisimasa's hcmf// concert. Instead of slavishly recreating Fongaard's recordings, he worked from the scores, whose sound-creating instructions ranged from general descriptions to the highly detailed. ‘He developed this style of notation that's not well explained anywhere, and which is very specific and unique in a sense, he recalls. I had to go around looking at various scores and sources, deciphering little pieces here and there. Once finished with hcmf// 2014, asamisimasa's next projects include the release of an album of Øyvind Torvund's work, and Private Music, a collaboration with Matthew Shlomowitz, Johannes Kreidler, another longtime associate, and Portuguese composer Luís A. Pena, about the private and public spheres and how they go together and how this is reflected in musical life. Plus there's more Spahlinger. What has always fascinated and attracted me is the power, ambition, and inventiveness his music expresses, Førisdal enthuses. A cycle of new works is pencilled in to be premiered by asamisimasa at next autumn's Ultima festival in Oslo: a commission that both echoes their origins and marks yet another step in the ensemble's rise.
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Buenos Aires hcmf// shorts: asamisimasa asamisimasa: Fongaard / Ferneyhough
Fri 21 - Sun 30 November 2014