Release Date: June 14, 2019
Catalog #: RR8011
Format: Digital & Physical
21st Century
Chamber
Electronic
String Quartet
Voice
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Tacit-Citat-Ion

MODERN CHAMBER WORKS

Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi composer

Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi’s debut TACIT-CITAT-ION is a reflection of contemporary Scandinavian composition – gestural, yet empowered by painstaking attention to detail. Where other composers’ work ends, Ahvenniemi only begins. Breath sounds, glottal stops, microphone static, white noise, electronic interferences, the percussive friction of instrument bows – these byproducts of music are the backbone of TACIT-CITAT-ION, yielding a truly unique auditory experience.

Internationally educated and performed, Ahvenniemi exemplifies the new generation of musical tradition in the Nordic countries. Elements from previous musical epochs are eclectically drawn upon, such as romantic operatic singing in Dada-aria or the mix of classical and jazz elements in L’operette d’amour. Each of the works individually engages in reflecting the traditions of music and the surrounding society. The echoes of traditions are brought into the context of contemporary music through specific choices concerning scores, treatment of sound, and sound technology.

Perhaps most importantly, there is a unique philosophy behind this music which is unfussy yet avantgarde – no minor feat by any means. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the album’s eponymous track Tacit-Citat-ion, a post-modern composition for string quartet stylistically reminiscing about the ethereal qualities of composers such as Kaija Saariaho, Salvatore Sciarrino, Giacinto Scelsi, and Hans Abrahamsen. The title refers to the idea that no work appears outside of a historical context of musical codes.

It is no wonder, then, that the Norwegian Composer’s Society willingly supported the creation of this album: with its prominent intellectual quality and uncompromising melange of stylistic elements, Ahvenniemi’s compositions encompass the late-breaking zeitgeist of Nordic and contemporary European composition like few others.

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Track Listing & Credits

# Title Composer Performer
01 Dada-Aria Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi Melis Jaatinen, mezzo-soprano 4:33
02 Wuthering Modes (Not Moods) Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi BIT20 Ensemble | Jutta Morgenstern, 1st violin; Martin Shultz, 2nd violin; Liene Klava, viola; Agnese Rugevica, cello 5:39
03 Winds Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi 4:09
04 Herz beim Spinnrade Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi Silje Aker Johnsen, soprano; Ellen Ugelvik, prepared piano 5:25
05 L’operette d’amour Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi Hilde Annine Hasselberg, soprano; Manuel Hofstätter, percussion 0:38
06 Ode to a Tree Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi Joshua Rubin, Bb clarinet 4:59
07 Lucia Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi Yumi Murakami, piccolo 4:44
08 En ryslig berättelse Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi Hilde Annine Hasselberg, voice; Manuel Hofstätter, percussion 9:36
09 Banalala Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi Hilde Annine Hasselberg, voice; Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi 7:23
10 A Song for the Viola Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi Hans Gunnar Hagen, viola 3:07
11 Tacit-Citat-ion (Version for String Quartet) Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi BIT20 Ensemble | Jutta Morgenstern 1st, violin; Martin Shultz, 2nd violin; Liene Klava, viola; Agnese Rugevica, cello 7:36

Track 1 text from Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi

Track 1, 7 recorded May 10, 2018 at Nesodden kirke in Nesoddtangen, Norway
Engineer Manuel Madsen

Track 2, 11 recorded October 29, 2018 in Troldsalen, Troldhaugen in Bergen, Norway
Engineer Gunnar Herleif Nilsen

Track 3 recorded, performed, and fixed November 2016 by Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi
Electronic work, fixed media sound; Originally for 8-channel surround-sound, using Ambisonics

Track 4 recorded August 30, 2018 at Morten Qvenild Studio in Nesoddtangen, Norway
Text quotes from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Engineer Manuel Madsen

Track 5
Electronics as a loop

Track 5, 8, 10 recorded August 31, 2018 at Duper Studio in Bergen, Norway
Engineer Yngve Leidulv Sætre

Track 6 recorded November 7, 2017 at Oktaven Audio in Mount Vernon NY
Live recording with fixed media
Engineer Ryan Streber

Track 7
Electronics as amplification and delay

Track 8 text quotes from Tove Jansson “Berättelsen om det osynliga barnet”
Live recording with fixed media

Track 9 recorded, performed, and fixed March — April 2014 by Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi
Text quotes from J. G. Ballard
Electronic work, fixed media sound

Track 10
Live recording with fixed media

Artist photography Karjaka Studio 2017

Executive Producer Bob Lord

Executive A&R Sam Renshaw
A&R Brandon MacNeil

Vice President, Audio Production Jeff LeRoy
Mastering Shaun Michaud
Production Engineer Lucas Paquette

Art Director Brett Picknell
Design Ryan Harrison, Edward A. Fleming
Publicity Patrick Niland

Artist Information

Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi

Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi

Composer

To listen to Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi’s music is to become open to the possibility of hearing surprising things: in her work, and through her compositional methods, the familiar is made strange and the unfamiliar finds space to sound. One encounters quotations from music history (or are they imagined quotations?), as well as fragmented and invented languages. The listener is invited to explore the intimate and hidden, gestural and timbral qualities of sound. Working with scores, electronics, voices, and instruments, Ahvenniemi creates works that range from operatic and theatrical scenes to solo compositions.

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Notes

In the 19th Century, the singing style of romantic opera developed alongside the growing size of orchestras and concert halls. In Dada-aria, this style of operatic singing has been employed, distinct from the context of its supporting instrumental music. In this context, the vocal sounds and their emotional quality appear as naked and exposed.

The “Dada” of Dada-aria refers to the attempt to distance the work from rationalism and intellectualism in art. The text of Dada-aria comprises a constructed Latin-Greek-Italian-like language; an imitation of an opera aria, resulting from the idea that the sounds and articulated words can themselves be beautiful.

— Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi

Wuthering Modes. Not Moods. was composed for the Ultima Festival in Oslo in 2017. It was first performed by the Améi Quartett.

The work is an attempt to turn certain musical materials—that each carry a sentimental or emotional quality—into “musical modes.” This is done by freezing musical elements and focusing on their expressive qualities, rather than by harmonically structured narrativity, and by stretching and expanding the elements in time.

— Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi

Winds was originally composed as a work for 8-channel surround-sound, using Ambisonics. The work comprises the sounds of breathing, of wind resonating in the woods, and of the fragile sounds of the melodica. The element of air moving and creating resonance is present in all the sounds. This air forms the core of the work.

Winds was composed during a residency at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida in November 2016, under the advisement of composer Natasha Barrett, the lead artist during the residency.

— Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi

Herz beim Spinnrade is an interpretation of Franz Schubert’s Lied “Grätchen am Spinnrade,” based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust. In Schubert’s Lied, Grätchen sits by a spinning wheel and grieves, as she doesn’t know whether she will ever see Faust again. In this work, the music moves from observing the scene to the inside of the experiencing body and its processes. The mechanic and expressive sounds made on the strings of the grand piano might resemble heartbeats, a spinning wheel, and blood moving through the veins. The composition is an echo from the Romantic era, and does contain elements of nostalgia — but these are heard as dissolved fragments that are observed from behind an historical veil.

— Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi

The miniature L’operette d’amour is originally a movement from a larger work, Encounters, that was composed in collaboration with Sigurd Fischer Olsen. That piece was premiered by a classical singer, a jazz singer, a classical percussionist, and a jazz percussionist in 2014.

This musical fragment playfully shows what might happen when these different traditions start to interact, and co-interpret the materiality of their musical expressions.

— Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi

The singing voice—heard as fixed sound files during the performance of Ode to a Tree—might appear as archaic, performing long vowels and bouncing from chest voice to head voice. While the title itself might seem romantic, this work doesn’t play along with the codes of romanticized beauty, neither in vocal technique nor in clarinet performance. There is a search for concreteness and nakedness of musical expression, combined with a questioning of what is ‘natural.’

The work was first performed in July 2016 at the Mostly Mozart festival by Joshua Rubin in front of the Lincoln Center in the area surrounded by large trees.

— Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi

The piccolo flute is most often used as an orchestral instrument in order to emphasize the effects of an ordinary flute. In this context, its sounds might appear as cold and penetrating. Lucia, whose title refers to the Italian word for ‘light,’ is an attempt to zoom into the richness of the sounds of the piccolo on its own terms. The use of piccolo as a solo instrument, combined with amplification, allows us to listen closely to its slight nuances: the fragile transitions from air to sound. In addition, the piccolo becomes an extension of a physical body, and allows us to be present in the intensities of inhaling and exhaling.

— Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi

The work is inspired by Tove Jansson’s Moomin story about a girl who has become invisible. Living with a lady who constantly put her down with ironic comments, she first turned pale, then disappeared out of sight altogether. One can only hear a silver bell tinkling around her neck. She is sent to the Moomin house to become visible again.

In the story, there is an ambiguity as to the source of information since the girl lacks her voice and can’t tell her own story. The musical narrative interprets elements related to her physical presence, such as intensities, nervousness, and breathing.

Three quotes from Tove Jansson’s original novel, “Berättelsen om det osynliga barnet,” appear in the work (as English translations): “Ninni was a very orderly little child,” “If people start to get misty and difficult to see,” and “[T]o talk with people who are invisible. And who never answer me.”

— Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi

Banalala, commissioned for the Only Connect festival in Oslo in Spring 2014, was composed as a reflection of the architecture and atmosphere of Tjuvholmen: a fancy and fashionable, recently rebuilt, area in Oslo. Every square meter of Tjuvholmen is defined and put to use from the joint viewpoints of functionality and aesthetic experience in everyday life. There are no incidental elements or historical layers. What happens when human beings define their surroundings completely, and then try to adapt to these surroundings, adhering to their associated expectations of behavior? Do human beings also try to turn themselves into aesthetically pleasant things? There are three spoken quotations in Banalala, all originating from the writer J.G. Ballard, who was the subject of the festival. One of the messages is that, in a totally sane society, madness is the only freedom.

— Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi

This three-minute work functions as a window to a musical world rather than a short, musical narrative. Its material could expand in multiple directions. The work arose from a project first initiated by Ny Musikks Komponistgruppe in collaboration with violinist Mira Benjamin from Montreal Canada. A Song for the Viola has, at the time of recording, been performed 20 times by 5 different performers.

— Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi

The title of this work refers to the concepts of “tacit knowledge” and “citation,” and together this refers to the idea that a musical work will appear inside of an historical context of musical codes. Tacit-Citat-ion takes some of its inspiration from works by Kaija Saariaho, Hans Abrahamsen, Salvatore Sciarrino, and Giacinto Scelsi. It reflects impressions, for example, from Abrahamsen’s beautiful work Schnee for nine instruments. The aesthetic appeal of these composers can be found in the fragile, textural, and weightless quality of the musical gestures that this relationship brings to the string quartet.

— Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi

Scores

Herz Beim Spinnrade

Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi

Lucia

Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi

Tacit-Citat-ion

Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi