Author Archives: glform

New CD

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A new release: Collegamento

The recordings are primarily the result of a collaboration between the composer and the internationally acclaimed Italian musicians featured on the album. Most of the works received their premieres in Italy, notably in Rome and Florence.
Composer and musicologist Odd Sneeggen returned to composition in the early 2000s after a long hiatus during which he worked as a project manager and artistic director within both the Swedish and international music scene.
The title Collegamento alludes to the elusive interplay that arises between the music, the performers, and the audience during the act of listening.

Buy your CD from Ginza

Track list
1. Ad astra per alia porci
2. Adagio assai
3. Shapes and Signals
4. An nescis, mi fili, quantilla prudentia mundus regatur?
5. String Quartet No 1 – part I
6. String Quartet No 1 – part II
7. String Quartet No 1 – part III
8. First Piece for Alto Saxophone

 

A new piece for bass flute

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On the 7th of March my piece for bass flute, An nescis, mi fili, quantilla prudentia mundus regur?, will be premiered at the Auditorium in Rome by Manuel Zurria. The piece was written last year for Manuel and it includes singing/humming, the lyrics is an old Swedish quotation. The piece will be recorded for the coming CD later this year.

 

Background to the work’s title

The title of the work “An nescis, mi fili, quantilla prudentia mundus regatur?” (Dost thou not know, my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed?) is taken from a letter, written by the statesman Axel Oxenstierna (1583-1654) to his son Johan in 1648.

Probably the best-known Swedish quotation for the English-speaking world (even if the words have also been attributed to Richelieu; the French cardinal considered Oxenstierna to be “an inexhaustible source of well-measured counsels”). In the age of the great minister (Mazarin and Olivares, as well as Richelieu), Axel Oxenstierna served the Swedish king, Gustavus Adolphus, as Lord High Chancellor, from 1612, and was still in office at the abdication of Queen Christina in 1654.

As well as laying the foundations for the administrative system for government in Sweden, Oxenstierna was a key diplomatic influence in the Thirty Years War, and he wrote “An nescis…” as a means of encouragement for his son, then serving as a plenipotentiary for Sweden (Johan had been expressing reservations about his own capacities in matters of state) at the negotiations that would lead to the Peace of Westphalia.

Recording with Alter Ego

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Alter Ego recorded the quartet Ad astra per alia porci for flute, violin, violoncello and piano at Studio Acusticum in Piteå. One one the finest halls for acoustic music, or as the flutist Manuele Zurria stated, “the best acoustic in the world” . The recording will be part of a CD that will be released later this year. The recording engineer for this session was Johannes Oscarsson. Alter Ego, Manuel Zurria flute, Aldo Campagnari violin, Francesco Dillon cello and Oscar Pizzo piano. The piece was conducted by the clarinet player of the group, Paolo Ravaglia.

David Brutti will play

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The solo saxophone player and the member of the Ensemble Contemporaneo dell’Umbria, David Brutti, will play my pieces “Adagio assai” for soprano saxophone on the 13th of August and “Wind Up for tenor saxophone” on the 14th of August. The pieces will be performed at the Festival SituAzioni 2012 in Umbria, Italy.

http://www.davidbrutti.com

• Monday  13th of August H 21.00, Perugia, Cortile d’Onore del Palazzo degli Arienti – Piazza Italia 11 — ADAGIO ASSAI

• Tuesday 14th of August H 21.00, Spello (PG) Villa Fidelia – Via Flaminia 72 — FIRST PIECE FOR ALTO SAXOPHONE

First performance

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First piece for alto saxophone was premiered by David Brutti on the 22 of July in Sala delle Pietre Hall in Todi, Umbria. The concert was part of the festival “A Todi un’estate fuori dal comune” organized by the Cosmopoli Association.

String quartet no 1

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Year of comp: 2009
Instr: f string quartet
Duration:20
Publisher: SMIC
Premiered: 2010-12-11
Place: Stockholm, Capitol
Performers: Stenhammarkvartetten
ID-number GB6626

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PROGRAM NOTES
The starting point for the piece was to provide the four parts of a string quartet with different characters, the akin to the roles in a play. The difference is that these characters, as in an opera, can appear simultaneously. However, there are no leading roles or supporting roles, all characters on equal footing in the drama.

The piece consists of three “acts”. In act one going on an animated conversation, in act two arises as to any kind of exhausted reconciliation with a sad undertone. Act three takes up the tone from the first act, but with some comedic elements interspersed in the dialogue.

The musical result was guided towards becoming a music where the series of tones and the expression became central. Sonorities and playing techniques became less important as techniques of composing.

Listen: String Quartet No. 1
 
……….

Utgångspunkten för stycket var att ge de fyra stämmorna olika karaktärer, att likna vid rollerna i en teaterpjäs. Skillnaden är att dessa karaktärer, precis som i en opera, kan framträda samtidigt. Det finns dock inga huvudroller eller biroller, alla karaktärer får lika stort utrymme i dramat.

Stycket består av tre ”akter”. I akt ett pågår ett animerat samtal, under akt två infinner sig någon form av utmattat försoning med en sorglig underton. Akt tre tar upp tonläget från första akten, men med några komiska inslag insprängda i dialogen.

Det musikaliska resultatet styrdes mot att bli en musik där själva tonmaterialet och uttrycket blev det centrala. Klang och speltekniker blev mindre viktiga för styckets koncipiering.

String quartet no 2

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Year of comp: 2011
Instr: f string quartet
Duration: 14
Publisher: SMIC
Premiered: 2012-06-12
Place: Florens, Villa Romana
Performers: Quartetto Maurice
ID-number: GB7874

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PROGRAM NOTES
The second quartet of Odd Sneeggen was written in late 2010 and early 2011, therefore directly after the première of the first string quartet.

What lingered on from the performance of the first quartet was a set of sounds that was interesting to explore; this had nothing to do with the material in the first quartet as such, rather, the new work was influenced by the actual sounds of the instruments.

A starting point in the composing of the second quartet was bypass the use of so many new, or extended, techniques in terms of the tone of the work, with a special effort being made to expose the quality of the “pure tone”. Many of the parameters which decide the form of work are based around the Fibonacci series – these include time signatures, tempo and duration. Numbers are also governing elements of the tone material.

Radio Dramas

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There was another time…

Odd Sneeggen and Johan Berke

A radio drama (Hörspiel) which turns to the Lucia tradition in Sweden for inspiration. Composed by Johan Berke and Odd Sneeggen following on from their studies of the various traditions active in Sweden during the 19th century. Their approach was to investigate the origins in folklore of what, since the 20th century in particular, has turned into an annual celebration all over Sweden. Such origins point, in fact, to significant differences with the current middle-class way of understanding the tradition.

The figure of Lucia in folklore has associations with Lucifer and many strange things happen on the night prior to the Lucia celebrations (typically December 13), and the Devil – or his conspirators – appear frequently in a variety of forms. Stories originating in Västergötland, which provide the basis for this radio drama, point to a Devil figure known as Lusse-Per; specific superstitions and instructions about to make it through the night of Lucia unscathed vary from one district to another.

In addition to such stories recounted by means of dialect, the play consists of a specially-written saxophone quartet and music for piano by Odd Sneeggen and other music and various audio adaptations by Johan Berke. Berke has also written the story that weaves together the music and recorded local stories about what happened on the night of Lucia.

Excerpts from the radio show “Lucia celebrations in Habo”, which was first broadcast in 1949, are also included in the sound tissue.

First performance: Kaleidoscope (a radio programme on Swedish Public Radio), Tuesday, December 18, 2007.

 

There was another time, Part 2

Odd Sneeggen and Johan Berke.

During the magical midsummer night, anything can happen – especially if you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time… Maybe there is some truth in the folklore. Who wrote our history – and why? How far really is the future?

Such questions emerge in this piece, There was another time, Part 2, specially written for Kaleidoscope: a dream play meditation for radio about the Swedish midsummer tradition by Odd Sneeggen and Johan Berke.

First performance: Kaleidoscope (a radio programme on Swedish Public Radio), Monday, June 22, 2009.