Henrik Hellstenius

“Catch Light” is a portrait of the outstanding violinist Peter Herresthal, and features performances of four new violin concertos specially written for him. The title track is composed by Nils Henrik Asheim, whilst the other works are by Gisle Kverndokk, Henrik Hellstenius and Jon Øivind Ness. Also featured on the disc are the Oslo and Bergen Philharmonic Orchestras, the BIT20 ensemble, and the percussionist Peter Kates.

Norwegian violinist Peter Herresthal was born in 1970 and is recognised as a brilliant and inspired performer of contemporary music for violin. He enjoys a close relationship with Denmark's leading composer Per Nørgård. Peter has also given the Norwegian and Spanish premieres of Thomas Adès’ violin concerto Concentric Paths, and its Australian premiere at the Melbourne Festival with the composer conducting. Peter Herresthal is professor at the Norwegian Academy of Music Oslo and visiting professor at The Royal College of Music, London. He will curate a concert series at the Bergen Festival from 2011 to 2014.

Although all are contemporary pieces, the four violin concertos on this new CD are very different in character. In every one of them Peter Herresthal has been directly involved in the creational process, and in this way different aspects of his unique qualities as a musician are reflected in each work.

Solo bass player with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Dan Styffe launches his third solo album with brand new repertoire for the instrument. Nine composers, including such well-known names as Pärt and Vasks, allow Styffe to really excel together with a handful of the foremost Norwegian musicians today.

Legendary bass-player Gary Karr writes in his introduction to the booklet: “Styffe has focused on a sonic exploration that draws out of any ordinary sound system colors and nuances one could have never imagined possible.” This autumn Styffe gives concerts and master classes in Paris, Leipzig, Trieste and Wroclaw, and during the Ultima festival in October he is premiering a concerto for double bass together with the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra.

The mesmerizing masterpiece Spiegel im Spiegel by Arvo Pärt is of course no less than a classic, and Styffe was given the green light by the composer for a version for the double bass. The Kadenza by Teppo Hauta-Aho is among the most popular and performed works for double bass today.

Several of the pieces on Bass Trip are commissions made by Styffe, and they all explore different territories of the double bass. Jon Øivind Ness unleashes primal forces in his duo for bass and viola Gust, and Henrik Hellstenius stages a mysterious drama for bass and percussion in Ombra della sera (Evening shadows). The Hymn by Lars Petter Hagen is described as “a piece of non-existing folk music for an enormous, virtual, Hardanger fiddle.” The title track of this release is by Peteris Vasks, himself a bass player. It moves from ‘larger than life’ deep power to the utmost beauty in the melancholy little waltz at the end. In the score the composer directs that the melody can be whistled or sung by the player, but we felt that this beautiful moment called for something quite singular. With the composer’s blessing we gave the vocal part to Susanna Wallumrød, known from Susanna and the Magical Orchestra (Rune Grammofon). The result is a perfect end to an exiting and rewarding trip into new music for double bass in splendid performance.

Henrik Helstenius’ music is lively and animated, with an interaction between musical elements that has a strong dramatic element, a reflection of the fact that Hellstenius has worked a lot with music for theatre and dance. The listener experiences an immediate sense of an underlying melodic, even lyrical, sensitivity, either directly or indirectly present.

Hellstenius’ close collaboration with the violinist Peter Herresthal and percussionist Hans-Kristain Kjos Sørensen have resulted in two concertos. In “Readings of Mr G” instrumental and theatrical elements are combined. The percussionist is not only a musician, but speaker also; an actor in the widest sense. In the beautiful violin concerto “By the voice a faint light is shed” Hellstenius creates the illusion of a temporal paradox, in that the music has a forward-moving development, but twists and turns will inevitably return us to the point of origin, revealing what the composer calls a ‘spiral form’.

“Hi Ophelia!” is the title of the third scene in Hellstenius second opera: “Ophelias: Death by Waters singing”. Even though this excerpt is removed from the dramaturgy of the opera, the music’s transient textures, vital pauses and melodic tendencies nonetheless convey the innocent Ophelia’s dreams, expectations and hopes of the future, before she is reduced to a pawn in the struggle for power.

A close connection to theatre also exists with the works Book of Songs and Imprints, both sets deriving from work Hellstenius has done for choreographer Ingun Bjørnsgaard’s productions. In Ombra della sera various musical fragments of the Italian composer Luigi Nono are the basis for the work, allowing Hellstenius’ unmistakable flexibility, marked, gestural lines and extrovert temperament, to function almost like an active counterpoint to Nono’s music.