Cikada Piano Quartet // Periferien

Cikada Piano Quartet enters Gamle Munch and present to you a programme with pieces by Ewa Jacobsson and Asbjørn Schaathun:

Ewa Jacobsson Labyrinthic Explanation II (2023)

Asbjørn Schaathun Schoenberg Commentaries. On Arnold Schoenberg 's Sechs kleine Klavierstücke, op. 19 for solo piano (2010/2022 - WP!)

Ewa Jacobsson Restricted Areas (2024)

See you at Gamle Munch! Get your tickets here

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Ewa Jacobsson: Restricted Areas

Restricted Areas is a work for Kenneth Karlsson, Karin Hellqvist, Bendik Foss, and Rolf Borch, featuring electroacoustic sound composition and visual objects with sound sources. The work revolves around the experience of being obstructed, censored, or deprived of freedom.

Restricted Areas is inspired by an American pilot map from the Soviet era, which carefully delineates where one is not allowed to fly: Imagine a country where freedom of movement and artistic freedom are halted. We live in a turbulent and powerful time.

The movements are based on the zones from the map:

Movement IC-10 CAUTION AREAS

Movement IID-4 DANGER, RESTRICTED AREAS OR WARNING AREA

Movement IIIP-16 PROHIBITED AREAS

In Restricted Areas, Jacobsson uses sound that is over-processed and forbidden. The objects contain sound sources that are processed fragments of the musicians' responses to an initial electroacoustic sketch of the material.

Jacobsson works with tight frequencies in the objects, so they function as local sound sources, in contrast to the acoustic presence of the instruments and the rich frequencies of the soundtrack. Each musician has their own object. The acoustics within the objects alter the sound, and shifts in what is live from the musicians, the soundtrack, or the objects create new patterns in combination with the visual elements.

Asbjørn Schaathun: Schoenberg Commentaries – on Arnold Schoenberg’s Sechs Kleine Klavierstücke, op.19(World Premiere)

Schaathun writes about his Schoenberg Commentaries:

"Stravinsky claimed that a new piece for him started with a sense of intervals in his hands – referring to the piano, which he always worked at when composing. This was in stark contrast to Schoenberg, who never worked at the piano.

Speaking of the feeling in one's hands: Every time we play the piano music of the great masters, whether Stravinsky, Bach, or Beethoven, we must remind ourselves that we are mimicking their playing – and by physically grasping the same intervals and chords they once did, we might come closer to their way of thinking and perhaps even feeling.

This was also the case when, through an initiative by Kenneth Karlsson, I was invited to make commentaries on three of Schoenberg's Sechs Kleine Klavierstücke, op.19. (The remaining three were to be done by my highly skilled colleague, Rolf Wallin.)

The whole thing was staged such that we were gathered at Asker Kulturskole one afternoon in 2010. With the composers placed in separate rooms and a practicing pianist in between, the pieces were to be written then and there. (This parallelled Schoenberg's writing of five of his six pieces in op.19 in a single day in 1911.) With a few retrospective revisions, we actually created all six commentaries to Schoenberg's opus that afternoon, resulting in a collective opus we called Zwölf Kleine Klavierstücke – Schoenberg's six pieces interspersed with our commentaries.

In hindsight, it was perhaps not the best idea, considering that Schoenberg's pieces are some of the most distinct and characteristic miniatures in the piano literature, each peculiar, different, and yet unified by brief but highly convincing musical building blocks.

However, I did learn something from this experience: when dealing with such distinctive and well-known pieces, I quickly realized that I had to sneak out the back door; by extracting musical threads and elements that were not necessarily in the foreground and building my commentaries around them, I found there was perhaps a small chance of escaping the gravity, eloquence, and wit of Schoenberg’s pieces.

In time, this process sparked a desire in me to try writing my own commentaries on the final three pieces as well, so that the whole could emerge as a complete and independent opus. After another initiative from the indispensable performer, it became a reality.

In any case, this is the only way I dare comment on music that is so close to me, written by one of the most original composers of the 20th century.

The pieces are dedicated to the pianist Kenneth Karlsson on his 70th birthday."

Ewa Jacobsson: Labyrinthic Explanation II

Labyrinthic Explanation II is a 14-minute electroacoustic sound work; a small chamber piece without musicians, featuring a sound sculpture and film projection. The work revolves around the decay of meaning and explores the concept of knowledge. The electroacoustic composition is reflected in the film, fragmented and combined with still images that are processed and dissolved, mixed with destructive "errors" both in sound and visuals. In this way, meaning (explanations) decays.

Sound, text fragments, instrumental recordings, stills, and film are Jacobsson's own recordings. Trumpet live electronics recordings are from Hilde Marie Holsen's intervention in SCHADEN (2019) and Eira Bjørnstad Foss' processed instrument, with response/fragments from WACHIWIIWICHIWA (2021).