Chamber Music
Sway
2010
Chester Music
duration: 15mins
English Programme Notes
Rolf Wallin:
Sway
for violin, viola and cello (2010)
The word sway is one of many wonderfully multifaceted words in English, not only describing how trees sway in the wind, but also how one person can influence another.
Both meanings are applicable for this piece. In the world according to quantum mechanics – and classical East-Asian cosmology – nothing is permanent, but sways constantly from one state to another. For instance, one electron can suddenly shift from one behaviour to another in its race around the nucleus (the quantum leap). Each state has in its "belly" the seed of the other states, which can kick in without a warning.
In this piece, the three players could be viewed as electrons, never remaining in the same state for long. They sometimes are moving, simultaneously, in totally different ways, sometimes they are swayed by each other into similar behaviour.
In this piece, the three players could be viewed as people, never remaining in the same mood for long. They sometimes coexist in totally different states of mind, sometimes they are swayed by each other into the same way of being.
Just as the electrons can only move within a fixed set of movement patterns, and people have a limited register of moods, the players can only move between a fixed set of "musics". But each "music" has the other "musics" in its belly, which can kick in without a warning.
Curiosity Cabinet
2009
2 Violins, Viola, Cello
Chester Music
duration: 10mins
English Programme Notes
Rolf Wallin:
Curiosity Cabinet
for string quartet (2009)
1. Saltarello
2. Barcarole I
3. 4x4x4
4. O Schmerz!
5. Corrente
6. Vesper
7. Momentum
8. Á Propos
9. Barcarole 2
10. ¡Arriba!
11. Carillon
During at least half a millennium, kings, scientists, rich merchants and others have reserved large or small rooms to contain remarkable natural and manmade objects: unicorn's horns, wondrous corals and giant pearls, artificial nightingales, mermaids' skeletons, breathtaking artifacts, deformed creatures in glass jars. And above it all: a stuffed crocodile appearing to walk upside down under the ceiling.
These Cabinets of Curiosities were efforts to make a representation and mapping of the Universe, both its physical and mystical domains. Athanasius Kircher had this inscription painted on the ceiling of his museum: 'Whosoever perceives the chain that binds the world below to the world above will know the mysteries of nature and achieve miracles.'
I don't expect this collection of musical miniatures to achieve miracles, but I hope it can serve as a small cabinet of musical curiosity for the curious listener.
Curiosity Cabinet was commissioned by Trondheim International Chamber Music Competition 2009 as a mandatory piece.
Concerning King
2006
2 Violins, Viola, Cello
Chester Music
duration: 20mins
English Programme Notes
Rolf Wallin:
Concerning King
for string quartet (2006)
The music is based on a spectral plotting of excerpts from Martin Luther King's speech Beyond Vietnam — a Time to Break Silence, delivered 4 April 1967 at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church in New York City.
Toccatina
2006
3 (or multiples of 3) Trumpets in C or B flat or French Horns in F
Chester Music
duration: 1min
The Age of Wire and String
2005
flute, clarinet, piano, violin, viola, cello
Chester Music
duration: 10mins
English Programme Notes
Rolf Wallin:
The Age of Wire and String
(2004)
The Age of Wire and String 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. While reading the book, I 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 Age of Wire and String consists of many small miniatures, some of them very short. The piece was commissioned by Ensemble Court-circuit.
Norwegian Programme Notes
Rolf Wallin:
The Age of Wire and String
(2004)
The Age of Wire and String har sin tittel, og også satsenes titler, fra debutromanen til den amerikanske forfatteren Ben Marcus. Denne fantastiske og svært uvanlige boka beskriver en verden som er totalt forskjellig fra vår egen, men som øyensynlig har sitt eget sett av lover og logikk, konsistent, men allikevel umulig å gripe tak i. Mens jeg leste boka, kom jeg på at denne beskrivelsen passer like godt til musikkens abstrakte verden. Spesielt gjelder det for moderne kunstmusikk, som har en evne til å bringe bevisstheten til steder der ingen har vært før.
The Age of Wire and String består av mange små minatyrer, noen av dem svært korte. Stykket ble bestilt av Ensemble Court-circuit.
Phonotope 1
2001
string quartet and computer
Chester Music
duration: 27mins
English Programme Notes
Rolf Wallin:
Phonotope 1
for string quartet and live electronics (2000)
A biotope is a small ecological area supporting its own distinctive community of plants and animals, the different species dependent on each other, the soil, the weather conditions and so on in a finely balanced network. A "phonotope" would then be a musical "area", with sounds taking the place of living creatures, dependent on each other and interacting after certain rules.
This piece has no score in the traditional meaning of the word. The part material for the musicians consists mainly of 5 musical "games", with small fragments of musical material serving as "playing cards", and with a set of rules for each game. This allows the musicians a freedom of choice within clearly defined limits.
In addition to this game between the musicians, there is a game between the quartet and a computer, running a program made by IRCAM specifically for this piece, partly transforming the sounds from the musicians in real time, partly playing pre-composed sound files based on recorded sounds from the quartet.
The main formal idea is the interaction between 5 very distinct musical materials, sonic descriptions of the five elements in traditional Chinese thinking: Wood, Metal, Water, Fire, and Earth. The piece consists of 5 large parts. Each of them is dominated by its middle section, the "game", which focuses on one of the elements. Each part starts with a short computer sound introduction and ends with a relaxation. The element in focus in these sections is determined according to the Chinese system of thought on how the elements consume each other or transform into one another.
'Phonotope 1' was commissioned by IRCAM, Paris, and the Ultima Contemporary Music Festival, Oslo. It was written for and in collaboration with the Arditti Quartet.
Frap
1998
2, 3 or four percussionists
Chester Music
duration: 3mins
English Programme Notes
Rolf Wallin:
Frap
(1998)
When the Safri Duo asked me to write a short opener for their concerts, I was delighted. After their awe inspiring interpretation of my first commission for them, 'Twine', I knew I could write virtually anything, and they'd do it with the utmost elegance. It's also nice every once in a while not to be so dead serious and so Wagnerian and time consuming.
I had fun writing this piece. More than being deep art, it is a game exploring togetherness and not-togetherness.
By the way: FRAP is (of course) an anglification of the French word frapper, to strike.
Twine
1995
xylophone and marimba
Chester Music
duration: 12-15mins
English Programme Notes
Rolf Wallin:
Twine
(1995)
Two streams of sound, both emerging from the same physical substance (wood), but still slightly different: the bright and hard versus the dark and soft. Two streams twisting and twining, separating and merging, opposing and caressing. Two streams living their own separate lives, but still influenced by the other.
Too Much of a Good Thing
1995
6 electric guitars, 3 percussionists
duration: 20mins
English Programme Notes
Rolf Wallin:
Too Much of a Good Thing
for 6 electric guitars and 3 percussionists (1993)
This piece was initiated by one of Norway's leading New Wave rock singers and band leaders, the late Helge Gaarder. In the 80s I had played trumpet and made horn arrangements on some of his band's records, and in 1993 he commissioned me to write a piece for 6 of Norway's best rock guitarists and Sisu Percussion Ensemble.
Too much of a good Thing is one of my many explorations in the demanding, but exciting gap between composition and improvisation. What I have looked for is combining the punch and directness of rock music with the larger forms of contemporary score music. Throughout the piece, the players have varying degrees of freedom within frames that I have set.
The title implicitly continues "...can be wonderful". And what is more wonderful than an electric guitar? Answer: 6 electric guitars!
Three Poems by Rainer Maria Rilke
1994/2007
version for Soprano and sinfonietta or small orchestra (multiple strings)
Chester Music
1-1-1-1 1-1-1-0 perc pno soprano 2vn vla vc cb
duration: 13mins
English Programme Notes
Rolf Wallin:
Three Poems by Rainer Maria Rilke
(1994)
Versions:
for high voice and piano
for medium voice and piano
for high voice and 15 musicians (2007)
These three poems were written between 1900 and 1908, and they are very different in terms of form, subject matter, and atmosphere. Liebes-Lied is about a strong but painful love, Buddha in der Glorie, a description of religious ecstasy, quite unusual in the works of Rilke, and Sluss-stück, about death, which exists in the midst of us, in the middle of life.
The work with the songs was a part of a process that occupied me a lot for a period. Is it possible to approach the melodic element in a new way, after many years of letting it live in the shadows of other musical elements, such as rhythm, timbre and form? This is a possible solution.
ning
1991
oboe/Cor Anglais, violin, viola, cello
Chester Music
duration: 15mins
English Programme Notes
Rolf Wallin:
Ning
for oboe/cor anglais, violin, viola and cello (1991)
The title and concept behind the piece comes from David Grossmann's novel "see under: love", in which he among other things describes a man who joins a school of salmon on its way through the oceans. He swims, eats and sleeps together with them, and gradually he understands the forces that make this large group of fish swim almost as one body.
One of these forces is a cohesive joining force called ning. In my oboe quartet, the four instruments act very much like fish or birds in a group, sometimes moving fast and close to each other, with one clear direction, then all of a sudden the group dissolves to four separate individuals, finding their own paths within a wider area, but still dependent on one another. 'Ning' is the fourth in a series of pieces where I use so called fractal mathematics in the process of composition.
Stonewave
1990
Chester Music
Versions:
6 percussionists
3 percussionists
solo percussion
Chester Music
duration: 12mins
Commissioned by the Flanders Festival
English Programme Notes
Rolf Wallin:
Stonewave
(1990)
For a long period after 1989 I was deeply involved in some peculiar mathematical formulas called "fractals". These formulas, used in the fast growing field of "Chaos theory", are relatively simple, but they generate fascinating and surprisingly "organic" patterns when shown graphically on a computer screen, or played as music.
One should think that such a mathematical approach would lead to sterile and 'theoretical' music. The sound world of 'Stonewave', however, is not one you would associate with math books. The steady, insistent pulse, and the use of sequences put squarely up against each other or divided by long rests suggest an invisible ritual. A ritual for what?
Well then, let it be a ritual for the exorcism of some 'evil spirits' which now ride our part of the world under the name of Liberalism, making people the servants of the Market Forces instead of vice versa.
'Stonewave' is therefore an incantation, as it seems that only divine forces can save European culture from a political system that proclaims the Jungle Law as the guiding principle in social and cultural life.
...though what made it has gone
1987
mezzosoprano, piano
Chester Music
duration: 15mins
Commissioned by Hilde Torgersen and Kenneth Karlsson
English Programme Notes
Rolf Wallin:
..though what made it has gone
for mezzosoprano and piano (1987)
The text of the piece is taken from the poem 'Whoever Finds a Horseshoe' by the Jewish-Russian poet Osip Mandelstam, who died in one of Stalin's prisoner camps in 1938. I have used the lines in the original Russian text that spoke most strongly to me, both in terms of meaning and in terms of musically interesting sound combinations (the Russian language is full of them!). For those of us who do not understand Russian, small fragments of the English translation are heard now and then to give us hints of the multifaceted pictures of this fascinating poem.
Mandala
1985
2 pianos, 2 perc.
Chester Music
duration: 15mins
English Programme Notes
Rolf Wallin:
Mandala
for 2 pianos and 2 percussionists
Although Mandala is an early piece of mine, it embraces many of the ideas that still fascinate me as a composer today. This can be found, for example, in the ebb and flow of energy throughout the piece. By juxtaposing the precision of mathematics with the freedom of guided improvisation, the piece moves with its own internal logic, through differing and contrasting energy levels.
A Mandala is a symmetric geometric picture used in Buddhism and Hinduism as a means for meditation, most often a square design around a centre. The five sections of this piece constitute a journey through a mandala in which the long silence (the focal point of the piece) in the third section represents the centre of the figure. The piece is symmetrical in shape, but the music is changed by travelling through the quiet middle point.
Topologie d'une cité fantôme
1982
clarinet / bass clarinet, horn, piano, violin, cello
Norsk Musikforlag
duration: 15mins
Two Poems by Rolf Jacobsen
1982
Mixed choir a capella
Norsk Musikforlag
duration: 7mins
Elegy
1979/2006
Chester Music
solo trumpet and organ/piano
English Programme Notes
Elegy was written for the funeral of my sister Erna, who died all too early. The funeral took place in the beautiful 800 years old stave church of Lom, Norway. I played the trumpet.
Brass Quintet
1979
2 trumpets, horn, trombone, tuba
Norsk Musikforlag
duration: 9mins
