Through collaborations with conductors and soloists of international standing, the Bodø Sinfonietta has established itself as a high ranking ensemble of flexible and enthusiastic musicians. They now release a portrait of the internationally profiled Norwegian composer Rolf Wallin’s music, including a brand new concerto for fiddle and sinfonietta – folk music interacting with contemporary musical idioms.
Fiddle and sinfonietta meets up in “Imella”
With her liberal and unconventional blend of traditional folk music and modern musical expressions, Susanne Lundeng creates her own characteristic and unique sound. When Bodø Sinfonietta commissioned the concerto “Imella” (‘in-between’) from Wallin, he describes it as a dream come true: “to combine the drive and direct expression in folk music with the possibility art music has to transport the listener on a journey through large and shifting landscapes. Above all, the distinctive logic one finds in the melody and tonality in much of Norwegian fiddle music is very similar to some of my own methods of composing.”
The Age of Wire and String
The work borrows its title, and also the titles of its movements, from the debut novel by the American author Ben Marcus. This wonderful and highly unusual book describes a world totally different from ours, a world that defies earthly laws of nature, but that still seems to have its own set of laws and logic, consistent, yet ungraspable. Wallin found that this description fits equally well to the abstract world of music, especially modern art music, with its ability to transport our mind to places never visited before. The piece was commissioned by Ensemble Court-circuit.
Three Poems by Rainer Maria Rilke
“The poems are very different in terms of form, subject and atmosphere. Liebes-Lied is about deep and strong but painful love, Buddha in der Glorie is an account of religious ecstasy very unusual for Rilke, and Slußstück is about death, existing right in the midst of us, in the middle of life. I had for many years wanted to expand the original piano part to sinfonietta, so I was very happy when this became reality when Bodø Sinfonietta premiered this new version at the Nordland Music Festival.”
