Gudmundsen-Holmgreen with London Sinfonietta (København)
15.10.12, z-Blog Zoë Martlew: zoemartlew.com
Selected sections from Zoë Martlew's blog "The Bridge":
......'London Sinfonietta had been invited to take part in a full evening concert of his music at the fantastic new concert hall in the new extension to the Royal Library, or Black Diamond, as its known to the locals'.......
......'So back to the London Sinfonietta’s Holmgreen immersion evening, comprised of several ensemble numbers plus heartbreakingly beautiful vocal pieces, including Song based on Dowland’s Lachrimae (on my Top-Faves-for-My-Funeral list) performed with spectacular purity and micro precise intonation by vocal ensemble Theatre of Voices, all directed by their distinguished founder Paul Hillier, who knows Pelle’s work well.
Vocal piece Song was then combined with the instrumental piece Play to produce the third completely different-sounding Company. Pelle told me he’d conceived the idea of combining the two pieces from the beginning. A cunning compositional plan, which worked.
The instrumental writing is full of typically Holmgreen-ian bangs, crunches, thwacks, jazz fall-off whoops, farty chords, repeated notey patterns and eccentric percussion kitchen freak-outs. Utterly original, the music is hard to describe, but I guess one could say that it embraces a kind of left-field minimalism. There are often very simple gestures, repeated multiple times, expressed with great clarity, and sometimes very beautiful harmonies that are rarely allowed to exist for long before being tripped up by eccentric blips of one kind or another'......
09.10.12, Jyllandsposten
(English translation below)
Klassisk - Den sorte Diamant. London Sinfonietta og Theatre of Voices, dirigent Paul Hillier. Lørdag aften den 6. oktober 2012.
London Sinfonietta lod Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreens satser boble.
Festivalen ”Music Around” ruller i disse dage for sjette gang med et hav af koncerter på begge sider af Øresund. Lørdag gjaldt det i København først en fejring af den fiffige og humorfyldte danske komponist, Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen. Musiklivets nestor, der optræder både som smagsdommer i DR2’s kulturprogram og indædt kritiker af vindmølleopsætninger på Samsø, runder de 80 år i næste måned. Mens den jævnaldrende komponistkollega Per Nørgård bliver hyldet med festivaler, indspilninger og koncerter både herhjemme og i udlandet, har fødselsdagstrommerne ikke buldret meget for Gudmundsen-Holmgreen.Ærgerligt, for sidstnævntes musik er på sin avantgardiserede måde sublim og særpræget samtidigt.
Vi fik en række satser for sinfonietta, for sangstemmer og for de to elementer i herlig kombination – serveret boblende af London Sinfoniettas eminente musikere og de fire brilliante sangere i Theatre of Voices på scenen i Den sorte Diamant.
Satserne har energiske titler som ”Run”, ”Sound”, ”Play” og ”Turn”. Flere af dem er nyskrevne, andre er et eller to år gamle. Hver sats havde forskellig besætning.
Gudmundsen-Holmgreen instrumenterer mesterligt, så alle klange træder frem, og nye tilmed opstår. Stravinsky lå under de jazzede og dansante forløb, og var der ikke også links til Ravels luftige, parfumerede klange og flader?
Med alle de lyde og effekter, den menneskelige stemme kan udgyde – fra gnæg- og bræklyde til tale, vræng og skønsang – omdannende de fire sangere den engelske renæssancekomponist John Dowlands kendte ”Flow my Tears” til improvisatorisk ukendelighed.
Dirigenten, Paul Hillier, holdt de mange tråde i det komplekse lydbillede stramt og drev satserne frem med kølig autoritet.
Bifaldet til Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen efter den store slutsats ”Company”, hvor instrumenter og stemmer tæt forenes, var en rockstjerne værdigt. Koncerten blev optaget og udkommer senere på CD.
CHRISTINE CHRISTIANSEN, kultur@jp.dk
(Koncerten med London Sinfonietta og Theatre of Voices genudsendes på DR’s P2 den 23. oktober kl. 19.30.)
Flying High
CLASSICAL ,THE BLACK DIAMOND: LONDON SINFONIETTA & THEATRE OF VOICES
Paul Hillier, conductor, Saturday evening the 6th of October 2012
London Sinfonietta makes Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen’s pieces sparkle
The festival “Music Around” is at present in full swing for the sixth time with a sea of concerts on both sides of the Øresund. On Saturday the first offering in Copenhagen was a celebration of the artfully humorous Danish composer Pelle Gudmundsen-Holm¬green. This Nestor of the musical scene, who appears both as one of the ‘Arbiters of Taste’ on DR2’s cultural review programme of the same name, and as an inveterate critic of the erection of wind turbines on the island of Samsø, turns 80 next month. While his contemporary composer colleague Per Nørgård is being acclaimed with festivals, recordings and concerts both in Denmark and abroad, the birthday drums have not been booming much for Gudmundsen-Holmgreen.
A shame, for the latter’s music is in its own avant-gardized way both sublime and highly distinctive.
We were given a series of pieces for sinfonietta, for singing voices and for the two elements in marvellous combination – served up sparklingly by the outstanding musicians of the London Sinfonietta and the four brilliant singers in Theatre of Voices on the stage of the Black Diamond.
The pieces have energetic titles like “Run”, “Sound”, “Play” and “Turn”. Several of them are newly written, others are one or two years old. Each piece used a different ensemble configuration.
Gudmundsen-Holmgreen is a master of instrumentation, bringing out all the sounds that are there, and even making new ones arise. Stravinsky was an underlying presence beneath the jazzy, dancing segments, and were there not also links with Ravel’s airy, perfumed sounds and surfaces?
With all the sounds and effects the human voce can muster – from braying and retching noises to speech, sneering and belcanto – the four singers transformed the English Renaissance composer John Dowland’s well known “Flow My Tears” into impro¬visational unrecognizability.
The conductor, Paul Hillier, kept the many strands of the complex soundscape on a tight rein, and drove the pieces forward with cool authority.
The applause for Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen after the big final piece “Com¬pany”, in which instruments and voices close ranks, was worthy of a rock star. The concert was recorded and will later appear on CD.
CHRISTINE CHRISTIANSEN, kultur@jp.dk
(The concert with the London Sinfonietta and Theatre of Voices will be repeated on DR’s P2 on 23 Octoher at 19:30)
08.10.12, Politiken
(English translation below)
Klassisk, 6 hjerter ud af 6
Theatre of Voices, London Sinfonietta, dir. Paul Hillier.
Den Sorte Diamant, lør 4. oktober kl. 17.00
Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreens kommende 80-års fødselsdag blev markeret med en anderledes smuk og rigtig helstøbt koncert.
I den ene side af scenen skramler fire musikeres toner nervøst af sted. I den anden side lægger fire sangere slanke havfrueagtige melodier uden ord hen over med større og større intensitet som serier af harmoniske klange.
Scenen er et glimt fra stykket "Turn" en halv time inde i lørdagens 80-års hyldest til komponisten Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen og et billede på den fantastiske dobbelthed, hans musik altid rummer. Musikken var sig selv, ny og anderledes sammensat - og samtidig helt vildt smuk på gammeldags klangskøn og klassisk facon. Den raslede og knirkede og bragede løs - og greb.
Nu var fødselsdagskoncerten i Det Kongelige Biblioteks sal sikkert også ualmindelig vellykket, fordi det var toppen af poppen, der forløste den. Gudmundsen-Holmgreen havde skræddersyet syv værker som en sammenhængende koncert til de små 20 specialister i samtidsmusik fra London Sinfonietta og de fire sangere i køberhavnergruppen Theatre of Voices. Og uanset om musikken brød frem i store, sindrigt sammensatte klange eller brudt helt ned i enkeltstavelser som små, skæve pip, var der ingen, der rystede på hånden eller bævede i stemmen. Kun når det var meningen.
Et af de høje højdepunkter var "Song", hvor Theatre of Voices på sublim vis sønderdelte den begsorte klagesang "Flow my Tears" af 1500-tals-komponisten John Dowland. Roligt og minutiøst blev de melankolske vers hugget op i atomer, så de ellers engelske ord på underfundig vis kom til at sige "nå", "nok" og "av" og alt muligt andet overraskende som afsløringen af en ukendt nutidig kode. Og så samlede det hele sig hen ad vejen i en grumskøn, messende gravskrift over trøstesløsheden med knirkende halslyde og smertelige konstateringer i sjælden forening.
Og begge ensembler spillede og sang med et musikalsk overskud, man skal lede længe efter.
Gudmundsen-Holmgreen har i mere end 50 år skridtet randområderne i musikken af. I parentes bemærket er det så meget sjovt, hvor central hans musik virker. Værkerne er udformet stringent og systematisk, så der er god plads til alle de anderledes klange, uden at man hægtes af på tilskuerpladserne. På den måde var de syv stykker lørdag bundet sammen af et lille iltert motiv, to stykker sandpapir gnedet mod hinanden som en skurrende lilletromme og helt rituelle markeringer med raslende slagtøj. Enkelt og let forståeligt.
Fødselsdagskoncerter i 80-års klassen er tit noget med at se tilbage på et langt liv og med hyldest af kunst, der har været. Lørdagens værker er alle skrevet de sidste par år og virkede mere som en interessant begyndelse på noget nyt.
HENRIK FRIIS
HOMAGE TO CREAKY BEAUTY
Theatre of Voices and London Sinfonietta
Cond. Paul Hillier, Black Diamond, Royal Library, Saturday
Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen’s upcoming 80th birthday marked by a concert of rare beauty and consistency
On one side of the stage notes played by four musicians jangle nervously along. On the other side four singers overlay this with slender, siren-like, wordless melodies of greater and greater intensity in cascades of harmonious sonorities.
The scene is a glimpse of the piece “Turn”, half an hour into Saturday’s 80th-birthday tribute to the composer Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen, and exemplifies the fantastic dualities always exhibited by his music. The music was quite simply itself – new, and idiosyncratically built up, but at the same time incredibly beautiful in its own classic, old-worldly, euphonious fashion. It rattled and creaked and roared along – and moved the listener.
Certainly the birthday concert in the Black Diamond hall of the Royal Danish Library was probably also extraordinarily successful because it was the top of the pops that gave it life. Gudmundsen-Holmgreen had tailored seven works into a continuous concert for the just under 20 specialists in contemporary music from the London Sinfonietta and the four singers of the Copenhagen ensemble Theatre of Voices. And no matter whether the music surged forth in great, ingeniously assembled sheets of sound or was broken all the way down into single syllables as small, irregular cheeps, not a hand shook, not a voice faltered. Except when it was meant to.
One of the extreme high points was ‘Song’, in which Theatre of Voices sub¬limely divided the pitch-black lament ‘Flow my Tears’ by the 16th-century composer John Dowland. Calmly and meticulously, the melancholy verses were chopped up into atoms, so that normally English words came out sounding like Danish monosyllables – nå, nok and av – and all sorts of other surprising things, like the deciphering of some unknown present-day code. And then, along the way, it all came together again in a harshly beautiful, chanting epitaph of desolation in a perfect union of creaky throat sounds and tormented utterances.
And both ensembles played and sang with a musical energy rarely encountered.
For more than 50 years Gudmundsen-Holmgreen has been stalking the peripheral areas of music – in view of which it is intriguing to note how central his music seems today. The works are rigorously and systematically designed, so they leave plenty of space for all the more unusual sounds without turning off audiences. In that respect the seven pieces in Saturday’s concert were linked together by a small, gritty, rhythmic motif, two pieces of sandpaper rubbed together like a grating snare drum, and quite ritualistic emphases with rattling percussion. Simple, and easily comprehensible.
Tribute concerts in the 80th birthday bracket are often about looking back on a long life and paying homage to an art that has been. Saturday’s works were all written over the past few years, and seemed more like an interesting beginning to something new.
HENRIK FRIIS