Download Rolf Martinsson

Rolf Martinsson
– focusing on vocal music
London. The world premiere will be in Zürich
under the direction of John Storgårds in January 2015. The work will also be heard twice in
the Concertgebouw with Lisa Larsson as soloist during Martinsson’s residency in Amsterdam.
Furthermore, Martinsson has been asked to compose yet another work for soprano and orchestra,
to be performed by Larsson at the inauguration of
the new concert hall Malmö Live in August 2015.
This autumn Rolf Martinsson will
embark on his seasons as Composerin-Residence with both the Netherlands
Philharmonic/Netherlands Chamber
Orchestra and the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra. The international
successes with his older works continue.
At the same time a new tendency with
a greater focus on vocal music can be
discerned in Martinsson’s creativity,
which above all is a result of his close collaboration with soprano Lisa Larsson.
The first project that they had in common was the
Orchestral Songs on Poems by Emily Dickinson
,
which was originally written for mezzo-soprano
but adapted by Martinsson together with Larsson
for soprano. A further step in their collaboration
was the chamber work Till skuggan av en verklighet
(To the Shadow of Reality), which Larsson and the
British Kreutzer Quartet premiered last year. The
cooperation has also led to two new large-scale vocal works. First in line is Garden of Devotion, set
to texts by Rabindranath Tagore, for soprano
and string orchestra, which is being premiered in
September by Musica Vitae. The work has already
aroused international interest and further performances are scheduled with no less than seven
orchestras.
It will be followed by Ich denke Dein… for
soprano and orchestra, a commission from TonhalleOrchester Zürich – jointly with Helsinki Philharmonic, Netherlands Philharmonic, Gothenburg
Symphony Orchestra and Philharmonia Orchestra
It is indeed evident that Martinsson has once
again found a congenial musical partner in Lisa
Larsson. He is of the opinion that the optimal
collaboration between composer and soloist is
founded on a relationship in which candour,
sensitivity, flexibility and mutual respect are continually present, and he describes their working
together in these words:
“Larsson is a brilliant and devoted interpreter
of my works. She has a keen musical intuition and
a deep feeling for my tone language. Her curiosity
and interest in creating ever new musical solutions
have been a great source of inspiration for me”.
Together they have had exhaustive discussions concerning the relationship between text and
music, choice of text, phrasing, interpretation of
New opera project
Photo: Merlijn Doomernik
Photo: Mats Bäcker
Collaborating with Lisa Larsson
one as a composer has to relate to. I am very pleased
and grateful that Lisa has wanted to work on the
details. It has enriched my composing.”
The two works are quite dissimilar. In addition
to the choice of language, they are also different in
that while the texts in Garden of Devotion were
written by one author and taken from the same
collection of poetry, the texts in Ich denke Dein…
were written by three different authors – Rilke,
Goethe and Eichendorff. In this case Martinsson
and Larsson have by virtue of their selection created
a unified, composite suite of poems.
“We decided on a form in which three of the
poems afford different perspectives on love, while
the other two are depictions of nature”, says Martinsson. And he points out that as a com­poser he
“had a feeling of devoutness stepping into the writing rooms of these poets”. It is not only the poems’
qualities in respect to language and content that
have interested him, but also the culture that they
represent. All texts selected have in common that
they are taken from an epoch for which Martinsson
has a strong attraction, namely, German Romanticism and the fin de siècle Symbolism of the early
20th century. The music of these epochs, especially,
has long constituted a sounding board for Martins­
son’s musical world, and it is also discernible in the
new works, which have been attired in a semitonal
harmony characteristic of Martinsson.
Lisa Larsson
words, breathing and different aspects regarding
vocal technique and voice idioms. These discussions have then become the point of departure for
the concrete process of composition.
“For Garden of Devotion I selected some
poems by Tagore from the collection The Gardener,
and after careful consideration I selected the German poems for Ich denke Dein”, says the composer
and stresses that “the collaboration with Lisa has
been characterised by a great wealth of detail that
has almost surprised me. But if the instrument is in
your body, as is the case with the voice, then there
arises, in connection with the artistic work of conveying a feeling and a text, a great many details that
It is obvious that one can look upon these new
vocal works as a kind of preliminary study for the
new opera project that is just around the corner.
Martinsson has a commission from the Royal Opera
in Stockholm for a full-length opera. The work is to
be based on Joseph Conrad´s short story Amy Foster.
Much preparatory work has already been done and
author Stephen Plaice is finished with the libretto.
It is true that Martinsson has never written an opera
before, but his experiences from the many solo concertos, which in many ways involve music-dramatic
principles, stand him in good stead. And it is with
confidence that he sets about composing in an opera
form that is very much bound by tradition.
“Much of my vocal music already has musicdramatic undertones”, says Martinsson, who looks
forward to soon tackling this huge – but at the
same time exciting and challenging – composition
project.
Staffan Storm
More information:
www.rolfmartinsson.com