Label: No Label

コントラバスの為のフォーク・ミュージック集!!ノルウェー出身のダブルベーシストにして作曲家、クセナキスやベリオをはじめとする現代音楽家の楽曲、また自国の伝統音楽の演奏もしたりする強者ダブルベース・プレイヤーHakon Thelin。フラメンコ音楽の音色、テクスチャー、そして技巧を反映させた3つの超絶技巧作品を軸に構成したコントラバスのための民俗音楽集。実際には存在しない架空の巨大フィドルの為のフォーク・ミュージックやら、コントラバスが持つリズム/打楽器的な可能性を探求する作品など、非常に興味深い楽曲ばかりを収録、30秒から1~2分の音楽の伝統と未来について考察する朗読を挟みながら淡々と展開する構造も面白い一枚。









Folk is the continuation of a project that began with my previous solo album Light (winner of a Norwegian Grammy in 2012), where I reflect on a musical language which I call 'a folk music for the double bass'. On Folk, the framework consists of three virtuoso works that reflect the timbre, texture and technique of flamenco music.

The other works on the CD are composed by Luciano Berio, Lars-Petter Hagen and Stefano Scodanibbio. Luciano Berio’s monumental Sequenza XIVb, in Stefano Scodanibbio’s reinvented version for bass, has musical references to flamenco music as well as drumming traditions of Sri Lanka. The Sequenza is one of the highlights within the contemporary repertoire for bass. Lars-Petter Hagen wrote Hymn as a listening-tune for bass, in what he describes as non-existent folk music for an enormous, fictitious fiddle. Geografia amorosa by Stefano Scodanibbio explores the rhythmic and percussive possibilities of the double bass, which “in this terrain proves to be a "magical instrument", in that it unites the achievements of the tradition of music for string instruments with the innovations, the disturbances, the openings (or ’openness’) of improvised music outside of the settlements of high culture (Stefano Scodanibbio)".

The music on Folk is coupled with texts written and read by Ottar Kåsa, Ingfrid Breie Nyhus, Unni Løvlid, Sarah Ludwig Simkin and Torgeir Rebolledo Pedersen. The texts reflect upon the identity of music, musician and instrument, its tradition and future, and sometimes providing deeply personal artistic associations with these.

The album cover is an artwork in itself: created exclusively for this release by Norwegian painter Helge Røed.