Marie Samuelsson and the aspect of love
Photo: Josef Doukkali
When Marie Samuelsson enters her 60s, it marks the start of a new expressive area in her composing: music overtly exploring love in all its forms.
Physicality, Intellect, Rhythm, Force of Personality – these are the defining aspects, the watchwords, of Marie Samuelsson’s music. Physicality is felt throughout her music through its powerful sonorities, virile impressionistic timbres heard most spectacularly in the terrifyingly (and terrifically) elemental Air-Drum III for orchestra (1999), with its huge metal drum constructed from a metal air duct which sets the entire atmosphere vibrating. Indeed, the composer remarked to the present writer: “the physicality in my music is very much attached to timbre and/or sound” and timbre is something she works on as a primary aspect of every composition. Intellect, ever-present in her oeuvre, is best exemplified where it demands something of the listener as well, whether in her electro-acoustic output, the grippingly atmospheric I vargens öga (In the Eye of the Wolf, 1997), or I Am – Are You? (2001), where an onstage horn duets with an offstage sampled voice, or her acclaimed violin concerto Bastet the Sun Goddess (2004, named from the Egyptian goddess who every night killed the snake-demon Apep to allow the sun to rise next day), one of Samuelsson’s most substantial utterances. Her brilliant use of rhythm as a binding structural agent in her music can be heard in the impressive string orchestral Rotations (1997/2003), a brilliantly conceived textural fantasia on intertwining tempi and in the chamber ensemble piece Flow (2000), where the listener’s ear is taunted and caressed simultaneously. The immediacy of expression of her music, instantly recognizable as hers, is testament to the force of her musical personality, as in the mesmerizing Airborne Lines and Rumbles (2009) or Singla (2007) , arguably her finest orchestral work to date. All these elements unite in her largest work to date, the two-act chamber opera, Jorun – orm i öga ( Jorun Snake Eye; 2012-13). Lasting around fifty-four minutes, this is a deeply affecting and atmospheric tale of hope, naivety, betrayal, loss and (at length) a hard-won understanding of existence. Jorun is also the composer’s richest score in terms
of instrumental resource (despite the relative modest forces employed: a clutch of soloists, chamber chorus and chamber ensemble) and expressive depth. It marks both the high point of a period of mostly chamber composition but also the start of a new expressive area: music overtly exploring love in all its forms.
A Love Trilogy Jorun’s scale is also carried over in Samuelsson’s latest major project, one which may have particular resonance for the newly betrothed composer – well, in 2015 – as she turned 60 (in February this year), a Love Trilogy (2015-16). If love in all its forms lies at the heart of Jorun and, indeed, the micro-opera Why Would I Not Believe in Love? that followed in 2014, it is even more so in Love Trilogy. The opening work is Aphrodite – Fragments by Sappho, a radiant 21-minute cantata for mezzo soprano and orchestra, although in form it can also be viewed as a continuous song cycle, setting five brief stanzas by the Greek Poetess. One of these was discovered only as recently as 2014 and is set by her – as the centrepiece – in Jesper Svenbro’s translation (Kyprispoem). Its expressive theme, like that of Sappho’s familiar verses, is erotic love, of the possessive desire for a woman that in turn possesses the lover. In musical terms it builds on the lithe vocal lines and instrumental depth of Jorun – orm i öga, the composition which now seems an enabler for the Love Trilogy. Several extraordinary passages see some of Sappho’s words declaimed in whispers by members of the orchestra! The cantata will receive its world premiere in Stockholm on 11 March by Katija Dragojevic and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Daniel Blendulf. The central span of the trilogy is A New Child of Infinity, a smaller-scale clarinet concertino, roughly half the length of Aphrodite and inspired by a poem of the Swedish poet Göran Sonnevi, the recipient of the Nordic Council’s 2006 Literature Prize. Here, the focus is on the love of a child,
so it is no surprise that A New Child of Infinity is dedicated to the composer’s two sons. Whether this was a factor governing the choice of a smaller orchestra than Aphrodite with no clarinets – aside from the bass instrument – or tuba and only pairs of horns and percussionists, is unclear. On the page the score seems unusually sparse in texture, the orchestra used with delicacy around the whirling clarinet soloist who plays almost incessantly. That this concertino is slighter in build and duration, however, does not mean it is lesser in quality or importance to the trilogy as a whole. It was premiered in Malmö last November by Johnny Teyssier with the Malmö Symphony Orchestra conducted by Marc Soustrot.
The Eros Effect The final panel in the trilogy is still a work in progress at the time of writing, so has not been released yet. It bears the intriguing title of The Eros Effect and Solidarity, a reference to the work of the South Korean-resident North American writer and social activist George Nicholas Katsiaficas. Marie Samuelsson interprets the “Eros Effect” as “the notion that the private love spills over into solidarity, moved out in charity and become a social movement.” Added to her expressed opinion that “Hatred and violence are taking too much space in the media and in social media today, while love is difficult to approach, on a philosophical level” and it is clear that The Eros Effect and Solidarity is set to be the climax and summation of the Trilogy. This assertion will only be verified, however, at the premiere in October 2016, to be given by the work’s dedicatees, the Nordic Chamber Orchestra directed by Sarah Ioannides. Physicality, Intellect, Rhythm, Force of Personality – these have been the defining aspects, the watchwords, of Marie Samuelsson’s music hitherto. Love now needs to be added to the list. G u y Rick a r d s H ighlights
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