“Suprema maretiei al oricarui lucru este intotdeauna inceputul”

Martin Heidegger

Ar putea fi imaginate sunete inainte ca timpul sa inceapa sau folosind o formula cioraniana, inainte de “caderea in timp” a omului? Ce fel de articulatie muzicala ar putea capata sunetul “inceputului”? Un raspuns l-a dat de curand un muzician danez, Jens Schou, intr-o compozitie intitulata “Preludiul unei dimineti mitice”. Titlul este inspirat dintr-o poezie faimoasa a scriitoarei Pia Tafdrup[1] cunoscuta si in Romania, dupa o serata de poezie, sustinuta la Craiova in 1992. Pia Tafdrup a scris un poem despre misterul inceputurilor unui timp creat intr-un singur scop: pentru ca fiinta sa aiba in adancul sau cel mai intim, moartea ca limita inexorabila. Nu este vorba de de acel inceput cand “pamanul era pustiu si gol iar pe fata adancului de ape era intuneric si Duhul lui Dumnezeu se misca pe deasupra apelor ci de “o dimineata de aprilie, ravasita de roua, atat de alba, atat de verde si totusi transparenta...”. La Pia Tafdrup este vorba de un inceput virginal in care timpul s-a oprit ca sa faca loc eternitatii unei clipe de aprilie. Creatia lui Jens Schou intitulata Preludiul unei dimineti mitice este o meditatie muzicala asupra acestei clipe, bazata pe improvizatie spontana si repetitiva. Aceasta muzica pare indatorata premisei sale esentiale, si anume tacerea. Jens Schou, observa ca orice nota muzicala are ca esenta vibratia. In cuvintele sale, “am devenit la un moment dat din ce in ce mai fascinat de a crea un tip de muzica, care nu are sfarsit si nici inceput, un fel de mantra muzicala repetata la nesfarsit si bazata pe aceeasi formula care deschide spre contemplatie. Rezonanta notelor muzicala, prelungita cat se poate de mult, se aseamana cu tonalitatea bolurilor muzicale tibetane sau cu sunetul instrumentului muzical traditional in Australia- didgeridoo. Surprinzator, instrumentul muzical folosit de Jens Schou este unul tipic european, si anume bass clarinet. De altfel, artistul danez are o educatie muzicala pe care as numi-o traditionala. Dupa terminarea Academiei Regale de Muzica din Copenhaga, Jens Schou studieaza la Viena dupa care revine in Danemarca, devenind membrul al orchestrei simfonice din Odense (orasul lui H.C. Andersen). Incepand cu 1972 primeste numeroase premii iar ulterior devine profesor la Academia de Muzica din Odense. Din 1990 formatia sa. “Linensemble” devine una dintre cele mai cunoscute orchestre de muzica de camera din Danemarca. Cu aceasta orchestra, Jens Schou participa la zeci de concerte internationale, in Europa si in Hong Kong, Vietnam sau Japonia.

Am avut ocazia sa-l vizitez pe Jens Schou intr-o seara de decembrie, in ambianta superba a casei sale, pierduta undeva in zona dealurile impadurite din apropierea micului orasel danez Faaborg.

Our Romanian readers don’t know too much about your music. How do you define this music? You play the clarinet...

I am a classically trained musician, and I play symphonic and chamber music, but in the last years I have become interested in improvisation. In jazz music there is free improvisation. I have this idea that also in classical music we can talk about improvisation. This is a kind of music which in a way is not exactly European tradition but perhaps more improvisation that is tied to the sensation or mental condition or characteristic that you feel responsible to play. That is a parallel to free jazz, but free classical music. This CD, Prelude to Mythic Morning is an example of free classical music based not on a European tone language, and also not world or ethnic music. It may sound ethnic Australian, but it isn’t. I play it on a clarinet, which function as over points and I have developed a special blow technique, which makes it possible to decipher, emphasize or distil the overtones which are always present, but hidden in the music. So this is also a technique to emphasize these overtones so that you can hear them on the basis of the basic tone. I move the basic tone and then get the overtone, and then again and again and then I can chose, make a conscious choice of some peaceful harmonic modulations and this is what you hear on the CD. It can be described as pleasant harmonic, peaceful modulations. Not classic, not ethnic, not contemporary. It has no relation to anything but a deep fundamental happiness. That’s what I do on this CD. And I try to let it develop in its own logic, by letting it follow its own logic development. There is a relation from one step to the next via basic musical sensations, but it can’t really be connected or related to any tradition, so in a way it is free flowing music with no connections to style or types of music, culture or anything else, and I really like that. As a musician I always dreamed about expressing myself in my own music without owing anything to anybody.

What about your career, your teaching, your concerts abroad?

I got my classic education as a clarinettist in Copenhagen at the conservatory. I started in 1972 and later I have played in Danish Symphonic Orchestras and it has been a traditional career, but since then I have always been very interested in new music, contemporary music and I have played it a lot, but what characterises me as a musician is perhaps that I have a lot of contact with composers and asked by me, they have written music for me and my group, the LIN Ensemble, first called Den Fynske Trio (the Funen Trio).

We have had world premieres with between 50 and 100 works. All these compositions written specially for our band have had premieres either in Denmark or other parts of the world. This has taken a lot of energy and time. The composers, by the way, come not only from Denmark, but also Sweden, Poland and England. A composer always asks, “why this composition, how can we cooperate” and then communication has started around a piece of work and the creation of a work. A composer will always try to find out, “why was I asked to write this,” - then you become a consultant on the piece of work when it comes to the instrumental part, but also more than that. I have played concerts in DK, Sweden, England, America, Germany, Holland, Asia, Hong Kong, Vietnam. In Hong Kong recently I had a big and interesting concert in the Culture House where I played with local musicians. They presented works that they had written, and they wanted us to come over and play them. This was very interesting and now we are planning their visit here next autumn.

Can you tell us the story about the Prelude to Mythical Morning? What does inspire this music? Which is the connection to the poet Pia Tafdrup and the composer Per Noergaard?

Per Norgaard is the biggest contemporary composer in Denmark. Some years ago I asked him to write a piece of work for me where I could use my bass clarinet, one of my favourite instruments - the big brother of the small clarinet. I asked him to not only write it for me, but also for me to be in the middle of a choir, a big choir such as Ars Nova, which is specialised in new music and which have sung other works by Norgaard. 6 singers on one side and 6 on the other and the resonance should be the background inspiration for this work. He did it and implemented parts with room for free improvisation, so this became composition and improvisation in one work. The text was based on a poem by Pia Tafdrup called Mythic Morning. For a long time, he had been looking for the right text for this work and suddenly found it. It is a poem with atmosphere and it is lyrics and about the early beginnings of things, growth and they could be transformed into music. Of course a composer seeks texts which can be directly transformed. It became a successful work and we really enjoy working with it. It is very complex and full of atmosphere and it will soon be released by Dacapo Records, the national Danish recording company. I got so much inspiration from playing it that I wanted to do this pure improvisation, which you can get from Dacapo Records and I chose to call it Prelude to Mythic Morning. Per Norgaards’ introduction was open to improvisation, and he told me to play almost what I wanted. I did that and I continued this idea and developed it in Prelude to Mythic Morning. So there is a direct connection to Mythic Morning by Per Norgaard to Prelude to Mythic Morning by myself. It is not written down, but improvised in a church and it can only be found in the form you find on the CD, but the whole structure of this work can be repeated at any time, the course, the atmosphere in a kind of variation.

At the background of your music there is a philosophy of eternity or the time before time started. Is there a relation of this music to your Danish cultural background?

This is an interesting question to answer. This is a condition in music or atmosphere or standstill in music. Music is a fantastic medium to express timelessness. Music is tact and tempo. Time and music can be stopped and this fascinates me enormously.... to find your way to timelessness. I have experimented a lot with this and think I have found one example: the beginning of sound and its growth and its slow development. Depth and fullness is found in the overtones and the tones are a natural phenomenon built in every sound if you like, in any sound which has a periodic vibration, oscillation. Every sound is characterized by its overtone spectrum, but this is a vertical phenomenon. Sounds are vertical and horizontal, and in each tone there is a tone scale, the overtones which are a natural phenomenon. You have the basic tone, the first octave and the quint and the 6^th octave etc. On my CD, I play the first 16 overtones, which lead to a harmonic fullness inside the tone. This phenomenon inside a tone is principally a vertical phenomenon in opposition to rhythm, which is horizontal. So if you insist on playing the overtones to the full, then you stop Time because you enter the sensation of verticality, which is a fantastic meditation in being right now. It gives you peace. This is not typically Danish or European for that matter, perhaps there is a hidden Buddhist inspiration, a way of thinking, perhaps even Zen Buddhist. And this is difficult with the sensation of time. I would like to continue with this and am at the moment preparing a new recording where for 60 minutes I will play vertical quality continuously, moving more upwards than along the plane.

Who listen to your music?

I have a small public for Prelude to Mythic Morning. This is not normally what I play. I have played church music also during services, so that is one public. Also, there is more meditative music for that kind of public. Prelude steals your time, you can’t do it quickly... you must meditate while listening, so that’s for a special audience.

Victor-Iulian Tuca,

Faaborg,

Mythic Morning

(fragment)

by Pia Tafdrup

It was a morning captured by dew,

So white, but transparent and in April.

All without warning, the garden seemed to be there

Galactically enveloped in an awake glow

With the columns of trees around the lake,

Where birds rose against each other or sang

From the willows young shoots, from birch hedges and shrubs,

From green beeches and a chosen red,

But all trees still in bud.

The fresh grass shot up on the lake shore

From withered, pale straws from last year,

And nothing moved the reeds.

It was an unknown day when the water fled

Dreamingly clear in the oval lake.

A riot of anemones sneaked down

The slope, quietly towards the water,

Down towards pilewort standing like

Shrill lightings.

But nettles showed jagged spears,

It was a morning full of damp air,

It was a very black lake which hid it,

a cruel treasure of pain on the bottom

it was a morning captured in by dew,

so green but transparent and in April

a morning when you had to touch the

old lawns close net of mosses

and feel the earth covered, remember

how it pleasurably give in softly.

It was a Nordic Fujijama ...

Translated by Jette Friis Tuca