Oslo Sinfonietta conducted by Christian Eggen has made a strong impression on me with their CD “Faces”, out last year (2000).

All the composers on the album are young Norwegians, born in the 1970s. Let me just insert one little complaint here; there are no bios on the composers, or for that matter on the performers. I find in very rewarding the at least know when all these people were born, something about what they’ve done before and so on – but here is no info! Strange! Okay, maybe art should speak for itself, but this is going a bit far, isn’t it?! However, the CD cover contains an URL to which you can venture for further information : www.nymusikk.no/faces.

Instead of bios and useful info he company has decided to publish a sort of half poetic, half essayistic text by Svein Jarvoll, that doesn’t have any obvious connection to the music…

The first piece is Bendik Hagerup’s “Confusion Worse Confounded”, which has an interesting, jolting kind of motion built in to it. It swaggers, jolts, hops, staggers across the plains, towards some irresistible fate of no worries… It is an intricate chamber piece of our day, with an interesting array of instruments, wind as well as percussion, piano and bass. It is miniature of the present, evolving into the future each moment. Charming! Clever!

“Psalm (Narrative Studies)” by Trond Reinholdtsen is a little longer with its almost ten minutes. This too is a piece of many sudden, erratic events, where much is happening in the percussion. It’s rhythmic in a peculiar way, as it slowly moves over into a birdsong-like quality, as if we were transported into a secret garden of no particular time. The harpsichord and the marimba (I think) join forces with flutes and plucked guitars to fashion a very original, sensitive web of sounds. There is something French-Finnish in this piece, hinting at Kaija Saariaho and Jukka Tiensuu – but we are in the beautiful country of Norway! The kettledrum moves in and takes over momentarily, but dies down and leaves the scene bubbling with sparse methane gas seeping up through the swamp, when little elves emerge through the mist blowing their little golden wind instruments. There is magic here, spells being cast, dreams coming true…

Eivind Buene is next with “Deaths and Entrances” in three movements, admittedly directing my thoughts to “the Tibetan Book of the Dead” with its instructions for the Bardo state, in between lives. It’s a mighty and full sound that hits, overwhelming, a little too much, but suddenly the wall of heaviness is broken down by little tingles of triangles, in turn followed by a soprano saxophone – played by Torben Snekkestad – that resembles “Symphony No. 16” by Allan Pettersson, in which Frederick L. Hemke played alto saxophone. The structure, the winding staircases, the sudden joyous exclamations from the mountaintops, the sudden inward glances, the tripping over carpets – it’s all there. This is expertly played by Snekkestad! Adventurous music! Not a dull moment!

Lars Petter Hagen teams up with “Nudes” in four movements. Guitars, piano and oboe, plus percussion makes for a trickling, flowing movement of small feet, ghost feet, through the fern of the forest meadow. Again, like in “Psalm” by Trond Reinholdtsen before, the atmosphere is that of a spellbound forest, a dreamy state of the little ones ducking away behind rocks and tree stumps. I wonder how it is that these young Norwegian composers can emerge in these troll-forest-guises. It is inspiring, though, and when the mezzo-soprano voice of Tuva Semmingsen appears, there is little doubt; this stuff is the stuff that spells are made of. Intriguing, re-listenable! The vocals are almost sound-poetic, reminding me of some of Swedish composer Karin Rehnquist’s stuff, thereby also revealing that this borders on the ancient singing style of “kulning”, which was a means for women up in the Northern Scandinavian wilderness in summertime - minding and herding cattle – to communicate across the valleys or to call the cows home for milking.

A composer with the mighty name Maja Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje concludes this surprisingly interesting and listenable CD from Albedo. The title is “Waves IIb”, whatever that might mean… It sounds aleatoric at first, in a micro interval glissandi, backed-up by darker forces, brown notes – and it starts banging loudly – until the glissandi continues and a many-facetted structure builds up, moving like Luciano Berio’s “Eindrücke”, but slower, more carefully – ominous, mighty, yet slender… and synthesizer sounds accommodate themselves in a Stockhausen self-evidence of intent. This can be scary, let me tell you. Identify with this, and you’re going to have dreams at night… I see walls, forests, dark valleys, moving figures across hazy moors at dusk – and somewhere someone waits by a campfire or by a TV set – and the rest is violence! Tingling of percussion sound like reeds by the lake in the wind, where the bitterns hide, making themselves thin and narrow… This is probably the most intriguing and interesting, inventive piece of the CD. Let’s hear much more from Maja Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje!

The playing by the Oslo Sinfonietta is nothing short of magic! Irresistible!