”The thing that all my pieces have in common is that I always spend a lot of time on the initial stages to really get a good sense where the piece lives; what’s the atmosphere like, where are the textures and what’s the overall aura of the piece. It’s all about allowing myself the openness to find the music internally, before I start to actually notate it, because I don’t really like to sit in front of an empty page. Very early on, I’ll have a relatively clear idea about the structure. It’s so important for myself to know, roughly, where I am positioned and where I am going, before I sit down at the desk. This process is usually very intuitive, and I allow it to be that way, because then I don’t have to put myself in any sort of box. You can’t really plan how long it takes, you just have to have enough time for it”, composer Anna Thorvaldsdóttir describes her working methods as we sit down to discuss her recent orchestral scores, newly released in state-of-the-art recordings by the Iceland Symphony Orchestra on Sono Luminus.
Conducted by Daníel Bjarnason and Eva Ollikainen, respectively, the album takes include three formidable works for large orchestra, that is to say CATAMORPHOSIS (2020) and ARCHORA (2022), both organically morphing, twenty-minute monoliths, as well as AIŌN (2018), a forty-minute symphony in three movements. In her notes for all three scores, Thorvaldsdóttir refers to her music being written an ecosystem of materials.
”For me, it reflects the way I organically think of the musical material that I am working with, and how I also organically experience the music while I’m making it. It refers to the flow between different materials in the music and also to the way I notate and orchestrate it. For the performers, when they are playing the music, it refers to how they can relate to the material as receiving it and delivering it to somebody else, so that it is always morphing and always moving in and out of focus between the different groups of performers. For the audience, it means something similar; dividing their attention between the details and the overall sound image and atmosphere. So it has this broad spectrum of organic references.”
These ecosystems are also carried from one composition to the next, as interconnected musical ideas resurface in different shapes and guises throughout the Thorvaldsdóttir œuvre.
”Probably my compositional voice comes at play there, in the way I listen internally to all these textures, and it then carries through several pieces. As a creator for music, I’m always developing more techinques to communicate the ideas that I have.”
In addition to more or less traditional musical notation, Thorvaldsdóttir’s scores encompass notable variety of sounds calling forth several extended playing techniques, described in detail over two to four pages of performance instructions. Instead of mere effects, these different types of sounds are merged into the fabric, giving rise to vast musical continuum.
”I think of all these sounds, all these nuances and textures that are tactile and that often don’t have any pitches, very musically; as if playing a melody of sounds. And that is the way that I orchestrate these sounds and put them together. It is the way how I internally hear them and experience them. So they are, for me, very musical. Sometimes the sound source itself may not by very musical on its own, but I find it so interesting to put it into an ultra-musical perspective. And I really enjoy to indicate them for the performers and write them out as one would write a very lyrical melody. It can be tricky, of course, because they are noises, essentially, but it’s all about the approach and the person behind the instrument, carrying the sounds in a way that they become music.”
Among the ever-transforming textures of AIŌN, CATAMORPHOSIS and ARCHORA, melodic lines and other varieties of sound patterns form a seamless blend of texture and harmonic color, morphing in and out of each other as the music unfolds.
”From an orchestration point of view, it takes some time and a lot of work to make that happen, because you need to find the most organic ways for these processes to flow naturally, at least in my case, when you are not juxtaposing ideas, but you are merging them. It’s all about listening how one thing becomes something completely different, by means of natural progression. And that’s something I intuitively enjoy doing and it inspires me really.”
According to the composer’s notes, the core inspiration behind CATAMORPHOSIS is the fragile relationship we have to our planet. The aura of the piece is characterized by the orbiting vortex of emotions and the intensity that comes with the fact that if things do not change it is going to be too late, risking utter destruction – catastrophe. The core of the work revolves around a distinct sense of urgency, driven by the shift and pull between various polar forces – power and fragility, hope and despair, preservation and destruction.
ARCHORA, in its turn, centres around the notion of a primordial energy and the idea of an omnipresent parallel realm – a world both familiar and strange, static and transforming, nowhere and everywhere at the same time. The piece revolves around the extremes on the spectrum between the Primordia and its resulting afterglow – and the conflict between these elements that are nevertheless fundamentally one and the same. The halo emerges from the Primordia but they have both lost perspective and the connection to one another, experiencing themselves individually as opposing forces rather than one and the same.
Although conceived as one-movement entities, both CATAMORPHOSIS and ARCHORA have various sub-sections indicated with titles inscribed in the scores, marking subtle transitions from one passage to the next.
”In the music, there’s always a journey or my own internal narrative. So these subtitles in the score refer to those narratives. For myself, it is mostly to give the performers an indication of where they are positioned in the journey of the piece atmospherically. I don’t ask these sub-atmospheric indications to be indicated in a program or anything. Rather, they serve those who like to take a closer look at the score and for the performers to have a sense of a narrative along a journey.”
From a practical point of view, section titles, alongside all those detailed notes embedded in the scores by Thorvaldsdóttir are also there to save rehearsal time, which can often be rather limited for a completely new piece of music.
”For me, at least, this is one of the most important points. You don’t want to leave things that people will have to ask, so that’s why I always go back and think is this clear enough, am I going to get questions about this, because sometimes we have only two or three rehearsals. For a new piece that’s not a lot, therefore clarity is so important, both in the notation itself and also in conveying the atmosphere of the piece.”
Written as symphony-scale orchestral work in three parts, AIŌN conveys an extended musical arch unfolded in the course of its three movements, titled Morphosis, Transcension and Entropia, inspired by the abstract metaphor of being able to move freely in time, of being able to explore time as a space that one inhabits rather than experiencing it as a one-directional journey through a single dimension.
”From a musical perspective, I found very early on that I had these three blocks that have different characters but some references to each others as well. Then there are these atmospheric inspirations from the notion of being able to experience time as space, visiting different time periods in an instant; not from memory but by actually going there. How does your experience change as you go to different places on a time-scale which is, in this case, a space. It was very organic how these three movements came together, to form this overall piece.”
According to the composer, in case of AIŌN, the indication of symphony in the score is more about placing the emphasis on the scale of the piece rather than anything else. Its forty-minute timespan is indeed noteworthy in the realm of contemporary orchestral music, where commissions for large-scale works do not come by that often.
”I know, and I have another one upcoming in a couple of years! So I am super-excited, because I really love the long form and I really like to spend a lot of time focusing on different elements on this longer journey. It is quite unlike writing a ten-minute piece. They’re both interesting mediums, but when you have this longer time-scale, you have to deliver completely different things; you have to make it worthwhile. I love it! It is wonderful to tackle such a huge piece that it is.”
Speaking of extended time-scales, Thorvaldsdóttir had another big piece premiered by Claire Chase at Carnegie Hall in May, namely the first performance of her forty-five-minute Ubique (2022-23) for flutes, piano, two cellos and pre-recorded electronics.
According to the composer’s note, the the music lives the border between enigmatic lyricism and atmospheric distortion. Through a combination of sounds, pitches, and textural nuances, low deep drones envelop lyrical materials and harmonies that breathe in and out of focus throughout the progress of the piece.
”The way I think musically comes always from the same place, but [compared to the orchestral scores] it orbits very different material, of course, within very different atmosphere. It is eleven parts, all of them coming together form this whole unity. The first performance was really nice experience, and I’m so happy to be a part of her mammoth project, the Density 2036 madness that she’s doing.”
Just two months earlier, Rituals (2022) for string quartet was premiered in Copenhagen by the Danish String Quartet, followed by further performances in the US, Canada, Germany and the UK. As suggested by its title, Rituals muses on the ideas recurrence and change of perspective throughout its twenty-one-minute musical arch, which is also, coincidentally, cast in eleven parts.
”They’ve been playing it for a few months now, but my first time with them was only at the Aldeburgh festival some weeks ago. I had had one rehearsal with them on Zoom, but that’s not the same. Oh my goodness, they are so good! They are such wonderful performers, and it was such a treat to hear them live. They were playing superbly on Rituals.
I like being inspired by the people who commission me, simply because they are amazing performers with different energies. You can have, for example, people from five different string quartets, and they are all amazing but different. I love embracing the energy and the aura of the performers. That’s something I really value to have there in the background of my pieces.”
As her inspiration carries on, Thorvaldsdóttir’s forthcoming projects are to include her first entry to a medium hitherto absent from her multi-faceted catalogue; the concerto.
”I actually am about to start writing a cello concerto. Which is super-exciting. I’ve had a number of requests over the years to write concertos and I feel this is the right time. It is a different way of thinking from most of my other orchestral works, but I found the cello to be the most natural instrument for me to do my first concerto, because that’s my original instrument. So, I am really excited about that, and I know I will be doing more concertos.
It’s not that I’d been opposed to doing concertos, of course not, I’ve just been focusing more on the orchestral format on its own. It will be different for sure, but it will also be me.”
Delightfully, several orchestral scores by Thorvaldsdóttir, have found their place in the repertoire. Pieces like METACOSMOS (2017), AIŌN, CATAMORPHOSIS and ARCHORA all make their appearances in programmes throughout the symphonic sphere, allowing the music to grow from performance to performance. Similarly, a lot of her chamber music and instrumental works have become cherished items among an ever-expanding pool of performers.
”It is such a wonderful thing to be able to experience, and I am so thankful for that. It’s nothing you can ever plan, though. It’s amazing to have all these different performances, because every single orchestra and conductor bring their own character to the music. I love that!
As my pieces get carried on by different performers, they live on to become their own things. In the initial stages, their trajectories depend on the relationship one has with the commissioner – how close do we know each other and how much we work together – but eventually they start to follow their own paths.”
Sometimes great performances take place under unusual conditions. The world premiere of CATAMORPHOSIS in January 2021 was given in the middle of pandemic lockdown by the Berlin Philharmonic under Kirill Petrenko, whereas more recently, Hannu Lintu stepped in for Ollikainen to conduct the UK premiere of AIŌN at the Aldeburgh Festival in June.
”Ah, it was really great! I could not believe the alignment of stars that Hannu could actually do it on such short notice. It was a great experience with the BBC Symphony.
As for CATAMORPHOSIS, Petrenko and I had wonderful talks throughout the whole rehearsal period. We spoke every day, sometimes twice a day. And they sent me recordings from rehearsals. So it was as great as it could possibly be. I was very thankful to everyone, who went out of their way to make everything work.”
Alongside concert performances, recordings play crucial role in making contemporary music available for listeners everywhere. Although there are still many organizations in the business relying on reiterations of the standard repertoire, others have chosen to pursue more adventurous goals.
”It is so great that the Iceland Symphony, Sono Luminus, and Daníel, Eva and me, have been able to do these albums. They make a wonderful statement and show how important it is to do this and that it is possible to do this. There’s still so much contemporary classical music to be discovered and hopefully projects like these also inspire other orchestras to release contemporary music.
It also makes such a difference to bring contemporary music to the concert hall, the audience will trust that programming committees are doing wonderful jobs. People are going to trust that you are not just bringing something that is not worth bringing. It is about trusting your audience to trust you. I find it very sad when contemporary music at times seems to be hidden somewhere in a program.”
From a composer’s point of view, having new music ever more firmly integrated in orchestral programming is obviously of utmost importance to Thorvaldsdóttir.
”Of course I like it when we have more contemporary music in a program. Many festivals can do this freely and that’s always such a treat! But we also have to keep in mind the logistics of seasonal orchestral programming, where it can be tricky sometimes to program more than one contemporary piece in one concert. But whenever it is possible, it’s always just magnificent.
I do also like when things are mixed and you have different time periods within a single concert, because usually things are programmed with attention and everything fits very well together, which is really wonderful. So I like both. I like these different aesthetics. Of course, as a contemporary composer, I have to favor it a bit to include contemporary music in a program, and we should really all want that. To have more visibility for contemporary music, especially with orchestras, because in order for the genre to grow and continue into the future, composers must be able to work in the medium. Otherwise it will only become a museum, in a way.”
With circa fifty pieces entered in her catalogue over the past twenty years or so, the composer’s ongoing journey has given rise to ever-expanding, multi-faceted output. Although, at its very core, a lot of the essentials have remained as they were, knowledge and craft have certainly kept on mounting over time.
”My music comes still from the same place tat it always has, and this has always been important to me. On the other hand, I’ve learned so much about how to structure and to map out the things that I want to do, and I definitely feel a big difference there. At a certain point – quite early on – I found this very good way for myself to sketch and the music that I was hearing and making. And it got easier to carry the music. It was getting a bit much having to remember everything all the time, because it takes quite a long time to write music and you don’t want to lose anything along the way.
Then it is about using your knowledge of the instruments, to find the best ways to orchestrate this music that you hear; the textures, harmonies and nuances. This is where a lot of time goes into various technical aspects. I am actually a little bit obsessed with this process, because I really like to work out organic ways of thinking about orchestration. For example, many years ago, I basically lived inside the grand piano for months and months, because I was exploring the different textures and possibilities. And I really got to know a lot about how you can generate different things on the instrument. Practice, practice and working a lot; that’s really how it comes together in the end.”
Although Thorvaldsdóttir’s scores assume their shape and hue after thorough examination of materials at her disposal, the process may still take some unexpected turns.
”It’s very interesting. You map things out and you know, roughly, how the piece is going to be, and then all of a sudden, it’s gotten this life of its own and also somewhat a will of its own. I’ve had these experiences where I had decided how things should go, material-wise, and at a certain point, the piece just refused. You can’t really explain it in a different way. So I had to change it. I love that! That’s exactly the process; I’m a servant to the material.”
Once Thorvaldsdóttir’s pieces are finished, they tend to remain so without revisions in hindsight.
”I’ve never actually done that. I think the main reason is that I do spend so much time in the process to make sure that everything is exactly as I want it to be that when I hand out the music, I am actually quite certain that this is the piece. But that being said, because there’s so much information, there’s always some small things that of course get fixed; a dynamic mark missing in one voice or something, but I never rewrite anything.”
Ever since her childhood days, Thorvaldsdóttir’s road to composing followed a seemingly organic trajectory.
”I was always thinking musically as a child; singing and making songs. And then I found the cello and started studying really passionately. I took it so seriously that I was sure that I was going to be a cellist. Then, at a certain point, when I started to notate music for the first time, I just knew that it was something I had to do, so I did a lot of it, and then it just really took over. I started practicing the cello less and less and spending more and more time in composition. It was rather organic, so I don’t feel like I decided to become a composer. I just found that this was something I really wanted to do.
I was very shy about it, I never wanted to show anyone anything, until I was encouraged to show what I was doing. That helped out a lot, actually, because it’s hard to initially take the step to show people what you do. I’m thankful that I got the encouragement; it all grew form there.”
In becoming a composer, teachers play often important roles, even though there are some things that cannot really be taught, at least not in any traditional sense.
”The role of a teacher in composition is as diverse as the number of composers, because it varies so much what each and every person needs to get out of their studies. Of course you have to have a strong musical urge and passion to create music and to go into that field, and I believe a lot in organic talent as well of course. I don’t think anyone really goes to studying composition if they don’t have this fundamental, burning urge for writing music. So you don’t really teach anyone how to make their music, you teach them how to approach various things; how to orchestrate, how to learn about the instruments and how to structure and work on various technical elements in their music. And then you encourage the things that need encouragement; some composers need encouragement to meet their deadlines, others need to calm down. I don’t want it to come out the wrong way, but you don’t teach anyone how to become a composer, you teach them how to grow their potential. For each composer, it is then their job to take what they need from what they have learned and to leave other things behind.”
Anna Thorvaldsdóttir photographed by © Saga Sigurdardóttir
As years go by, the composer’s awareness of her Icelandic roots tends to grow stronger in terms of perception and identity alike.
”I know that my roots in Iceland are very strong; I always feel very Icelandic, so that is a very big part of my identity, and I think it always will be, even though I have lived abroad for many, many years. I wasn’t thinking so much about this ten or twenty years ago, but it does amplify within over time, in a sense.
For example, in Iceland you can generally see quite far on the horizon and there is a lot of open space. In England, where I live, it is very different. There are so many trees and they’re usually quite close and enveloping; that is wonderful in its own way of course, but the sense of space is completely different. So I can easily identify that part of myself as probably very Icelandic; all this space that I need and that I feel internally. Probably this is, in one way or another, present in my music, although it is of course very difficult for oneself to identify a musical trend and how it is translated to where you are from. ”
© Jari Kallio
AIM - Adventures in Music 
Leave a comment