Entrevista con Magnus Granberg


Esta es la entrevista que realicé al compositor sueco Magnus Granberg con motivo del lanzamiento de su nuevo CD "Despairs Had Governed Me Too Long", interpretado por el ensemble Skogen. Es el tercer CD de Skogen para el sello Another Timbre. El primero, “Ist Gefallen in den Schnee”, fue para mi la gran sorpresa del 2012 y acabó aupándose al primer puesto de mi lista de favoritos de ese mismo año. En el verano del 2013 apareció el CD “Rows”, en el que en Skogen interpreta una composición de Anders Dahl. La entrevista se realizó durante la primera semana de febrero.

JS: If I had to explain your music to a friend here in Spain, how should I describe it? Improv, modern composition, EAI, comprovisation, ...

MG: Well, I guess you would know your friend and his or her previous knowledge about music better than I would, so in that respect I think you would be better suited than I to explain it! But the highly specialized categories that you mention imply that your friend would be quite well acquainted with various branches of contemporary music, and if so I guess that you could say that the music, among many, many other things, is to a certain extent informed by certain musics within all of these categories. But the original idea was, on the one hand, to create a space where there's room for many different ways of working and existing as a musician and a human being, and on the other hand, to try to integrate these ways of working, to create a music and performance practice which draws no clear distinction between such categories as composition and improvisation.

JS: All three of your discs for Another Timbre were recorded in two sessions on Nov 10 and Nov 12.The music on the three CDs is not very different and easily recognisable as Skogen. Are you creating a "musical style of your own", based on an iteration piano, strings, percussions and electronics subtly played?

MG: Well, the discs were all recorded in November, that's true, but our first release on Another Timbre (Ist gefallen in den Schnee) was recorded in November 2010, and the last two were recorded on the same day in November 2012. Our second album on AT is a recording of a piece by Anders Dahl called Rows, whereas the first and third records contain pieces of my own. The instrumentation on all three records is more or less identical, and I guess that instrumentation, timbre, and the general dynamic level and performance practice within the ensemble all definitely contribute to the perception of a certain similarity, even though I don't think that these aspects of the music necessarily set it too much apart from other musics in this field. When it comes to my pieces, I think that other stylistic traits such as tonal and rhythmic modality, as well as certain rules governing the intervallic structures of the chords and the melodic fragments, might be equally important as instrumentation and dynamics when it comes to making the music stylistically concise and easily identifiable.

JS: I generally don’t like music played by large ensembles. I always feel that with “many hands in the kitchen”, there’s no room for everybody’s sounds. But Skogen is an exception. It never sounds like there are so many players. What is your secret?

MG: I guess one reason the music doesn't come across as being cluttered (though I guess for some people it still very well might!) is the simple fact that the density of musical events is comparatively low. I myself am very fond of the idea and practice in, for example, Javanese gamelan music, where some of the musicians, depending on their instrument, may just play one, two or perhaps four strokes during musical cycles which sometimes may last for several minutes. Japanese Gagaku music is another East Asian orchestral tradition which partly works in a similar way, I think. Other reasons may perhaps be found in the instrumentation (which is predominantly made up of decaying sounds) or the way the acoustic material is distributed throughout the tonal spectrum. And, if I may say, the sensible and intelligent musicality of the players, of course!

JS: In the last 20 years, improvised music has created its own path, far away from jazz, and it has been in constant evolution. Where do you see this music in 2020?

MG: Yes, the development of improvised music from, say, the mid 90s onwards was quite expansive. Though I do think that in the last eight to ten years or so we have seen improvised music going through stages of consolidation, and some people might even say stagnation. On the other hand I think that during the last decade we’ve also have seen an increased mixing or breaking up of disciplines within the general field of contemporary music, for example how improvisers have teamed up with composers and interpreters of what one might call the post-Cage or Feldman continuum, or how improvisation has become an important element in certain artistic practices otherwise quite closely related to electro-acoustic composition, musique concrète or text-sound composition. Methods and materials associated with certain disciplines are combined in different ways than before, I think. And I guess these two tendencies, consolidation and classicism on the one hand, and a continuing breaking up, mixing and reassembling of methods and materials from different musical traditions on the other hand, might be something we will still hear a few years from now. And hopefully some surprising new input as well!

JS: The last track on “Rows”, which is one of the last tracks recorded by the group, is quite different to the rest of your music. Sparse strings over “white noise”, no piano... in my opinion a beautiful way to end the CD. Could that be a new path for Skogen in the future?

MG: Well, that piece is of course Anders Dahl's piece, and a very beautiful one indeed. I think there is a little section on our new record which shares a similar instrumentation as the one you mention. But yes, that is actually one of many possibilities that could be interesting to explore further!

J
S: Would you consider recording a solo piano CD? Or an all acoustic “small group”, without electronics?

MG: I've never thought about recording a CD of solo piano music, actually! But it would be an interesting challenge, I think. I'll definitely take it into consideration! But I do have plans to record a couple of pieces for a somewhat smaller, all acoustic setting later on this year. I'm very much looking forward to it!

JS: Which music or musicians do you listen to at home?

MG: I listen to quite a lot of music at home actually, and I tend to go through periods where I listen quite intensely to specific musics. Earlier this year for example, I was listening a lot to recordings by Indian rudra veena players such as Asad Ali Khan and Zia Mohiuddin Dagar and his son, Bahauddin Dagar. I also recently had a period where I listened intensely to Sun Ra's early recordings, things from the mid to late fifties. And last month I've actually listened to a lot of piano music: Bach's keyboard music performed by Rosalyn Tureck, Tim Parkinson's piano music performed by Philip Thomas, and a very beautiful recording of Aldo Clementi's music for one or two pianos performed by Mats Persson and Kristine Scholz. Captivating, inspiring and truly wonderful music!


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