Der Wind bläset wo er will

Schumann’s Violin Concerto was a long, pale whisper after the first performance of Thomas Agerfeldt Olesen’s effective piece about the wind at the concert Friday night by the Danish National Symphony Orchestra.

Never have the guitar play right after the trombone. This was the doctrine at the conservatory when the concert programmes were made for the different recitals. Ears, which have adjusted to a loud sound volume, cannot switch acutely to soft nuances. This was obvious at the concert with the National Symphony Orchestra on Friday, where the first performance of Thomas Agerfeldt Olesen’s spectacular work ”Der Wind bläset wo er will” (”The Wind bloweth where it listeth”) was first played.

Agerfeldt Olesen (born 1969) illustrates everything unexpected with a gigantic orchestral machinery . He surprises and frightens with inventive effects and layers which at first grate against each other, then sound fairylike – like in a Disney movie.

Work of surprises
The mighty Mahler-hammer was crashing, the clarinets were making hissing noises when the musicians blowed into the holes of the instruments, the low strings chanted dark sounds, and the solo cellist insistingly knocked with the bow on the instrument. Like time itself, running out. There were chromatic cascades in the strings and violins shrieking in the high registers. And sudden ideas like the meditative sound of the one-stringed indian instrument and champagne bottles popping. And the wind in many forms of instrumentation before it all sounded melodic at the end.

In the front, Finnish John Storgårds was in control with free and beautifully modelled motions. Not all entries were accurate though.

Young Latvian Baiba Skride then flounced onto the stage like a blue angel with her violin. She played all the right notes in Schumann's difficult and virtuoso Violin Concerto, and made the violin whisper and the orchestra follow her like a big, chamber-musical organism.

Rather boring
Still, I was kind of bored, because Agerfeldt Olesen's stormy soundscape automatically made the romantic notes seem pale and anonymous. Neither the Latvian nor the orchestra was to blame – only the unfortunate constellation of stormy sounds being followed by quietness.

After the break Beethoven’s 2nd Symphony in D major with Storgårds in front had élan and energy. There were joyfull melodies, beautiful wind solos and shining string sculptures. But also there were too many inaccuracies and too much stumbling. As if the orchestra didn’t prepare the Symphony well enough.

From this evening, the piece by Thomas Agerfeldt Olesen will stay in our minds. If only the Danish Radio in the future would focus on the dramaturgy and on the succession, suiting the works and the ears best. Put f.ex. Schumann before the stormy bit. This evening, the combination of works was as the wind bloweth.

Christine Christiansen, Jyllands Posten, 30th of April 2011

Benieth our own skies

The world premiere on a new piece about the wind and the weather swept everybody off their feets – and the saw had its debut as instrument in DR Koncerthuset.

And the weather: at first rough, then it will clear up and keep dry.

Thomas Agerfeldt Olesens new piece ”Der Wind bläset wo er will” (”The Wind bloweth where it listeth”) is a wonderful walk through wind and weather. The fortunate listeners took the tour in DR Koncerthuset friday night. One was blown away in every sense of the word.

Where the classics like simple beginnings and then turn more complicated, Agerfeldt's new piece does the opposite: the orchestra takes off in an avantgardistic storm and then slowly finds more sentimental echoes of Chopin and more.

The strings whirl like leaves on a forest floor. The winds blow and rattle – sometimes entirely without tone. And the gentlemen at the percussion literally work at high pressure: you hear bottle corks popping and egg slicers from the back wall.

The concert hall’s most beautiful sound
Not to forget the man with the saw! The melody is fragile like a long forgotten beauty. Like a proletarian refugee. Saying the saw was the hall’s most beautiful sound up to this date would of course be noughty. Yet it was, nevertheless.

What else to look forward to on Monday's repeat in the radio? Not really to Schumann's Violin Concerto. It had stayed unpublished for over a century and quickly slides into oblivion again. But the Latvian Baiba Skride sounds more and more promising on the violin of her fellow countryman Gidon Kremer. She plays the center of the music overwhelmingly quiet and poetic, so that the ears almost have to search for the music. Beethovens 2nd Symphony shows the house orchestra in fine shape. The Finnish John Storgårds is a string player himself, and this rubbed off onto the collegues on stage. It was long since music was so much alive on stage.
But Agerfeldt was shining particularly this evening. He is far from being a......windbag.

Søren Schauser, Berlingske Tidende, 30th of April 2011

The music bloweth where it listeth

Once again The Danish National Symphony Orchestra presented itself as a magnificant orchestra for playing modern music. As it did when it performed Thomas Agerfeldt Olesen’s 25 minute piece ”Der Wind bläset wo er will” (The Wind bloweth where it listeth).
The 41 year old Danish composer has done a composition which awakes curiosity and wonder, caused by the many musical collisions. His intention with the piece is indeed to tear down preoccupied views on music by means of many surprising sound constellations. Which proved succesful.
The music whirled arround in the string section, it was blown back and forth by the woodwinds, the percussion made the bottle corks pop and a saw suddenly made everything freeze in meditation. One has to search a long time for such instrumentation! It will hardly become a standard repertoire piece, but nonetheless it is wonderful to listen to modern music when it is done as intelligently and examinative as in this piece.

Jakob Holm, Kristeligt Dagblad, 3rd of May, 2011

String Quartet no 5, "Plappergeister"

Intense listening
Quartetto di Cremonas ability to take command over chaos was convincing; it was a feature which also found its use in the first performance of Thomas Agerfeldt Olesen’s String Quartet no. 5 with the name ”Plappergeister”. In this piece, the audience is guided through a very varied sound scape, f.ex. a great passage inspired by cool folk music with an almost medieval touch. Suddenly paperthin trills were heard, and it felt like floating in the great nothingness of the universe. It felt like almost anything could happen, which made the audience listen intensely.
Agressive energy
The composer describes the piece as a sort of tunnel with emergency exits all along its sides. Each emergency exit leads to a space of the past and in the tunnel, there is a constant fear of collapse. Like Sjostakovich, Thomas Agerfeldt Olesen changes between the emotional and the hectic, and the at times aggressive energy gives the piece a good drive.
It must be said to be a great honour to have ones music performed by such splendid musicians. At the end, the four Italians played a piece by Haydn. They dedicated the piece to Thomas Agerfeldt Olesen, who was present at the concert, and the tribute to both musicians and composer was fully deserved.

Rachel Einarsson, Jyllands Posten 30/11 '10

Liebesbriefe for sinfonietta and three soloists

Then a short break, then Late Night Contemporary with Århus Sinfonietta.
The focus was especially on this evenings first performance of Thomas Agerfeldt Olesens ”Liebesbriefe” for sinfonietta and three soloists (voice, trombone and trumpet). The text of this very interesting piece is fragments of a letter correspondance, and part of the ”text” has to be imagined by the audience by means of musical associations. In this way, the piece is demanding for both musicians and audience. Because who is ”he”, the chattering trombonist in the background (a very well playing Niels-Ole Bo Johansen), who is the trompeter up front, who is the female singer, who is almost only talking? During different passages of the piece, one feels different types of hints for a deeper understanding from the composer: a free metrum, a more controlled metrum, a more nature-like metrum, a more ”cultivated”, a more aggressive-modern. An electronic layer enhances perhaps a more sinister aspect? Much to consume in such a short amount of time – please let’s hear it again!

Ole Straarup, Århus Stiftstidende 24/9 '10

Search for beauty
A pianist, a violinist, an orchestra. In Theaterhaus one experienced a kind of rebirth of the romantic, virtuoso concerto. Many elements such as dialogue, cadence, lyricism and dramatic passagework, themes and counter-themes, development and coda, were brought into play in Thomas Agerfeldt Olesen’s ”Steinfeld” in four movements and in Chen-Hui Jen’s programatic ”The Mind of the Cresent Moon”.
A horn refrain, repeated six times and answered by a short staccato from the pianist Rolf Hind begins an easy-on-the-ears piece that, after that its sensitive start, develops its own powerful drive. Croaking brass, full tutti, loud cluster connect together into a filmic whole that after its bubbling virtuosity is able to find a surprising end: with delicate harmonica and accordian tones it clarifies a split landscape previously dominated by tritonus in its search for beauty.

Dietholt Zerweck, Esslinger Zeitung 25/7 ‘06

Danish primeval field
Thomas Agerfeldt Olesen’s piano concert “Steinfeld” is somewhat less nice and therefore more exciting – a highly energized piece where the piano works towards an empathetic communication with the string tutti. Powerful moments, most of all harmonic clashes and tensions remain in my memory.

Susanne Benda, Stuttgarter Nachrichten 25/7 ‘06

A pianist, with cluster chords and energy paves the way through extremes of orchestral colour. A violinist with the scenery of momentary glass-tones swarms around the silvery light of the moon. And a rapper that blasts such powerful interjections that a whole orchestra begins to simmer and boil. These are three moments from RSO Stuttgart’s concert in Theaterhaus with Jonathon Stockhammer on the podium.
A tri-tonal core cell marks the begining of Thomas Agerfeldt Olesen’s disguised piano concert entitled ”Steinfeldt”. Tritonus as a pattern for contrast and tense multi-layered work. Different idioms - pianoed, jazzy, harmonica-like criss-cross their way in relation to each other. A refined sense of muscular bodies of sound and sharply cut changes. Pianist Rolf Hind works with a virtuoso decisiveness at the centre of the marbled sound-whole, accompanied by aids such as cluster boards without being engulfed by the orchestestral mass. A struggle for contour in the border areas of heterogene formations.

Stefan Kister, Stuttgarter Zeitung 25/7 ‘06

Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta... There is so much energi in the new orchestra piece ”Königswinter” by 36 year old composer Thomas Agerfeldt Olesen [...] After the concert on Sunday in the Danish Radio Concert Hall, he is likely to be one of Denmarks most thrilling composers. This evenings few listeners got everything the heart and brain could wish for: Rhythms that kept going for a suitable amount of time. Melodies that stopped in time. And so on. The fact that the Five Danish Chamber Ensembles repeated the performance was almost marvellous. On the other hand, it didn’t get substantially better the second time. You felt the weakness of the constellation of ensembles, which usually don’t play together. But my sincere gratitude to all of the involved. My gratitude for “Königswinter”.

Søren H. Schauser, Berlingske Tidende 31/5 '05

“She asks questions that make him feel unsure, Afterwards, in bed, she makes him feel sure again.” This is the tragic story of Marlis and Viktor, She has recently been in mortal danger. He saved her. Now they are driving round in the south of France – Aix en Provence, Antibes, Avignon .. to make love and be cultural so to say. But the illusions slowly fall. And one day it goes so badly that we only hear Viktor’s version of events. It is his memories that are projected up on the hall’s enormous thought-screen. It is his thoughts that poet Thomas Krogsbøl recites. And it is his feelings that Thomas Agerfeldt Olesen has set to music. The latter is the best – these dreamy glasslike tones, umba rhythms that cut into your heart. You could go on and on (….). The women in the audience laugh and they laugh aloud at all of us men and our need for small, stupid affirmations.

Søren Hallundbæk Schauser, Berlingske Tidende 21.4. ‘04

A well-polished bombardment of the senses
Viktors Golgotha is a different kind of theatre experience where recital, film, music and scenography melt together sharply and seductively.
”Viktors Golgotha” at Den Anden Opera in Copehhagen is a fine example of a complete Gesamtkunstwerk where speech, film and music together become greater than the sum of their parts. On the other hand the piece based on Max Frisch’s novel demands the full attention of the public because its bombardment of the senses is massive. For that reason the performance isn’t suited for first-time-theatre-goers but rather for the more seasoned users of velvet seats. The work is based on a reading of the novel ”Sketch of an accident” from the collection ”Tagebuch 1966-71” whilst the film and music sway in and out of the story like a kind of commentary framework.
The work is recited by Thomas Krogsbøl, one the authors from the lyrical workshop ”Øverste Kirugiske”. Krogsbøl quite consciously places emphasis on presenting rather than acting Viktor - the only person we effectively hear talk.
Krogsbøl’s priest-like vocal quality means that the other art forms are able to act as a commentary expression, not least Thomas Agerfeldt Olesen’s exciting, newly composed music. Together with the recital the Poul Ruders inspired music forms a seductive, finely woven mosaic even if the experience as a whole is rather comprimised. Led by Thomas Søndergaard, Athelas Sinfonietta Copenhagen are responsible for the music and in this regard one can speak of a positive experience, even though Signe Krogh’s simple and interesting scenography consciously works with a minimal view to both the conductor and the orchestra, despite them all being on the stage.
All of them, including the reader are hidden behind an enormous, partly destroyed shell that acts as a screen for Anders Elberling’s film. It confronts the audience visually with Viktor’s (the main protaganist) memories of a fatal car accident in France that left his girlfriend dead. From that perspective the whole piece is a long love story that slowly but decisively develops into a tragedy. The form of the scenography underlines that the whole piece plays itself out as memories in Viktor’s head, a storm of pictures acting as a fine expression of multi-layered and fragmentary pictures that often allows memories to flow in over each other. Viktors Golgotha is quite simply the avant garde of the civilised theatre within its noble and aesthetic borders, a different kind of theatrical experience where recital, film, music and scenography become one and together something different. On the other hand the final product has become so well polished that it has lost a little of its danger even though its raw, sensing aspects are more than apparent. If you have the taste for trend-setting within the realms of the respectable this is a must.

Lars Wredstrøm, Børsen 20/4 ’04

Sketch of a fate
Viktors Golgotha at Den Anden Opera is both relevant in its subject and innovative in its form.
In classical Freudian analysis the patient should lie on a couch whilst the psychologist sits discreetly behind the head section in order to sharpen the therapist’s ability to listen to the patient talking about his or her inner life. This structure can be compared to Thomas Agerfeldt Olesen’s new music drama ”Viktors Golgotha”, based on Max Frisch’s novel ”Sketch of an accident”. This so called ”collage of memory” was premiered at Den Anden Opera in Copenhagen. In ”Viktors Golgotha” both the lead male and the members of Athelas Sinfonietta Copenhagen are placed behind a fragmented film screen. The audience are placed in the figurative position of being the therapist listening to a thriller of a story taking place between the dreamy scenes on the screen and what the actors are doing behind it.
It isn’t a traditional form of opera Thomas Agerfeldt Olesen has written but is rather a spoken monologue created in close co-operation with the ensemble, made up of strings and a small amount of percussion. It is an understandable choice that comes with a better understanding of Max Frisch’s surrealistic, fascinatingly sensitive and erotically charged works. Frisch is best known for the novel ”Homo Faber” but also in the writing that forms the basis for the piece one finds a superlative representation of the crises of a modern man’s life. All the small mental movements and moments of doubt are so precisely formulated that they don’t need to be sung at all. A small pause, a special emphasis says it all.
In Viktors Golgotha a pair of lovers travel by car through Europe. The story of the narrator and the lead male melt together in Thomas Krogsbøl’s spoken monologue. The pair should really turn back but the journey leads them further and further through France. Viktor becomes evermore unsure about the whole project and the girlfriend’s constant commenting ”are you sure?”. The woman in Max Frisch’s novel plays an important but more passive role. She is both innocent and the indirect cause of all the accidents. On the stage of Den Anden Opera she is silent, fashionably dressed on the screen with long light hair and sunglasses. Legally the man at the wheel when the accident happened carries no blame but Viktor has to live with a hidden sense of guilt for the rest of his life. Martyrdom in the couple also plays a role.
Thomas Agerfeldt Olesen has made beautiful and very present musical drama. Musically the instrumental part stays consciously minimalistic. Krogh’s scenography and Buadayia del Klaxon’s picture and film production are beautiful, effective and well thought out. It could be that the spoken role, woven together with the score could get better with time but all in all it is a very present thriller, innovative in its form and deeply relevant in its psychological/existential theme. ”Viktor’s Golgotha at Den Anden Opera is well worth the money.

Ida Hvidt, Kristeligt Dagblad 21/4 ’04

It is no wonder that Thomas Agerfeldt Olesen has fallen for Frisch’s discreet, distant multiple layers of meaning. That is well understood when you hear the new portrait release by dacapo that coincides with the premiere of ”Viktors Golgotha”. Apart from the earlier “Die himmlischen Heerscharen” whose ghost-like nostalgia must have been inspired by Bent Sørensen, most of the works bear his characteristic fingerprint; a raw, edgy, abrupt surface that, with its often drastic tonal inventiveness, covers a depth of subtlety. ”All as one” is pure comedy, a zoo where the animals are set free amongst each other in an unreconcilable cauldron of different voices. The humour is harsher in ”Tonkraftwerk” a monster of pumping, stumbling and creaking machinery that occasionally quietens into a balmy dusk. The last of two ”Dedications” for piano trio is like a child that steadfastly refuses to follow that grown-ups rules, “Zwei Zwölftontänze” for piano flirts with jazz “Von Schwelle zu Schwelle” are four, delicate, colourfully expressionistic songs.

Jan Jacoby, Politiken 20/4 ’04

With its subtitle ”A collage of memory” Viktor’s Golgotha is a theatrical production of Max Frisch’s fine novel ”Sketch of an accident”, beautifully translated by the composer Thomas Agerfeldt Olesen. The 35 year old composer has reflected upon a psychologically well-described everyday drama with a sensitivity for its subterranean pain and mildly ironic distance. With seven string instruments and two percussionists that make use of specially made lyre instruments embued with a heavenly tones of sunshine, rustling leaves and sub-tropical well-being. The music sways between a relaxed sense of peace and dissonant stomach knotting. It can be pure atmosphere and an emotional foundation of sound but it can also be talkative, gesticulating, impatiently inquisitive and appealing. Sometimes it sticks like a burr to the reader’s words and becomes a lump in the throat.

Jan Jacoby, Politiken 20/4 ’04