Hika – Trond Sæverud

Simply a concept album!

Trond Sæverud (1962, Bergen) is, like his grandfather Harald Sæverud, an extremely gifted musician. Having chosen the violin as his instrument Trond exposes a rare talent for the shaping of phrases in music, combined with an openness to ‘spur of the moment’ ideas in his music making. In Einar Røttingen (1963, Bergen) he has a fellow musician fully capable of supporting the long arches, and also game for the creative de-tour when and if it happens. The duo has worked together for years and are very active doing concert tours both in Europe, Japan and USA. The 1997 tour marking the 100th birthday of Harald Sæverud was very successful both in Japan and the US.

On this recording called Hika (Japanese for “under the skin” and “elegy”) Sæverud and Røttingen focus on an artistic vein connecting 100 years, five composers and three continents. Five very different pieces of music with one clear trait in common: the music seeks its voice rather in the quality of sound than in pitch. This is not to say that the determination of pitch is of no importance in these pieces, but that aspects like timbre and general mood take precedence. There are those who claim that Edvard Grieg’s music became important for many of the composers to come after him in spite of his use of Norwegian folk music rather than because of it. It may be appropriate to add that very often it is specifically the mood of the folk music that has inspired Grieg, and that his mastery in realizing these moods within the world of art music is what has inspired later composers.