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Ketil Bjørnstad Devotions
by Stuart Nicholson
Where the Ketil Bjørnstad gets his energy is
anybody’s guess. Dubbed Norway’s Renaissance Man for his critically
acclaimed work in music and literature, the 55 year-old pianist is
currently celebrating the release of Devotions. It’s the
latest in a series of elegantly crafted tone poems that include
Grace, Before the Light, The Nest, Seafarer’s
Song, Floating and the epic three volume solo piano set
Rainbow Sessions for Universal’s EmArcy label that have
brought him an international audience for his haunting, moving and
melodically intense music.
Devotions follows
on from where 2005’s Floating, his first album in the
orthodox piano-bass-drums configuration, left off. On it he is
joined by bassist Arild Andersen and drummer Alex Riel, but this
time the trio becomes a quartet with the addition of Wolfgang
Puschnig on bass clarinet and flutes. “I enjoyed Floating and
it would have been easy for me to make two or even three more albums
as a trio,” says Bjørnstad. “But bringing in Wolfgang Puschnig’s
instruments widens the soundscape, and after Floating I’m
more conscious about melody, what are the possibilities. So for me
it is to find a balance between a very intimate approach and
expression I want and exploring further the possibilities of melody
than ever before.”
Like so much of Bjørnstad’s work, Devotions
is like a soundtrack for a movie yet to be written. Evoking
powerful musical imagery through the tightly woven elements of
composition and improvisation on “White (The Innocence),” “Red (The
Passion),” and “Black (The Sorrow)” – inspired by Edvard Munch’s
painting “The Dance of Life” – and pieces such as “The Moon Arising”
and “The Tree in the Courtyard,” the unifying theme of the album is
the bitter sweet memories of places and associations of time gone
by.
“For me it is more like a short story with the
titles giving a little hint of the story line,” he says. “The
private house which becomes a private concert hall – you listen to
music in this flat or in that house. I remember my old flat in Oslo,
where I was listening to some important players and I can still see
the rooftops and the sky, and how important this small flat was for
me and my music. You are playing music during the night and the
morning comes and there is something is different in the music and
there is also the fascination with people so close to each other in
a city but not knowing anything about each other.”
Over the years Bjørnstad says he has come to
realise how important melody, its variation and development, are to
his music. “I have come to realise what I can do, and what I can’t
do, and so I concentrate on what I can do,” he reflects. “I like
there to be very distinct melodic content, not just on the themes,
but during the improvisation as well. What has developed in the
later years is a more conscious collaboration with the recording
engineer Jan Erik Kongshaug in his famous Rainbow Studio here in
Oslo and I feel that he is able to record something very close to
the perfect piano sound. I know I can do things that will be heard,
the dynamics and the overtones will be there, so you dare to play
less notes.”
The recording studio is where Bjørnstad defines
his music, “For me the studio situation is very important, I know
many of my colleagues – musicians – they have concerts first and
then they can say, ‘Okay we go into the studio and record it.’ For
me it starts in the studio, when the music is very fresh and new,
rather than going on tour for many weeks to prepare and then
go in the studio, because I believe you loose the first magical
feelings of the music. I bring in new material and everything is
very fresh, very new and extremely vulnerable, so for me the studio
production is extremely important so I prepare a lot for it.”
Throughout Devotions, the elements of
simplicity and purity in Bjørnstad’s music and the way he and his
musicians respond to them are often impressive in their momentary
effect. With Puschnig’s flutes and bass clarinet adding an ethereal,
floating quality to his music, Devotions opens a fresh
chapter in Bjørnstad’s musical odyssey. Arild Andersen on bass and
Alex Riel on drums shape the music from within, with Andersen’s
haunting bowed acoustic bass providing a hint of “ambient” shading
on three titles. “There were so many surprises the way the music was
created,” reflects Bjørnstad. “With four people the energy of
wanting to try out things and go further was so exciting.”
But ultimately Devotions success lies with
the touch, the intensity and the transparency of Bjørnstad’s piano.
Somehow he manages to suggest a tension between the temporal art
form of music making and art itself, an aspiration of timelessness
that can be found throughout his best work. There is hard earned
musical wisdom in this music as Bjørnstad condenses powerful
emotions into small spaces. A Renaissance Man yes, where the joy of
music surfaces in his literature and the writer’s storytelling
privilege surfaces in his music.
(This text is a press release by Universal/Emarcy,
2007)
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