Rosendal, in Norway’s stunning Hardangerfjord, surrounded by mountains striped with spectacular waterfalls, has been the home to the Rosendal Chamber Music Festival for ten years. Persistent rain couldn’t dampen the spirits and enthusiasm of the 350 or so visitors this August, many of whom have been coming year after year from across Norway, Europe and beyond. Having founded the festival, pianist Leif Ove Andsnes has decided to call it a day to focus on other his busy performing schedule and family life, so this year’s was sadly the last.
It was striking that the festival opened, following Grieg’s Cow Call on the piano from Andsnes, with a speech from Trude Storheim, State Secretary to the Minister of Culture. Oh that her equivalent might attend a concert once in a while in the UK, never mind open a festival!
Baroniet Rosendal is a manor house, built in 1665 but state owned since 1927. The majority of the concerts were in the Riddershalen, a converted barn in its grounds, with a state of the art enhanced acoustic system chosen by Andsnes himself. The system is unobtrusive, with only very occasional over-reverberation at the loudest moments – you’d be hard pressed to know it wasn’t natural, if unexpectedly resonant for a barn. Other concerts took place in the nearby Kvinnherad Church. Built in the mid 1200s, it is a striking, whitewashed church on the hill with stunning views out over the fjord to the mountains all around.
Music by Grieg was the strongest thread running through the programme – but despite the festival’s title, ‘Greig in Hardanger’, not just music he composed there, but also in Leipzig, as well as over 40 of his songs. The Leipzig repertoire was supplemented with works by Mendelssohn, Schumann and Gade. The 150th anniversary of Ravel’s birth was also celebrated, with an evening of his music alongside Clarke and Debussy.
Norwegian composer Geirr Tveitt also featured large, with Andsnes performing his powerful Piano Sonata no. 29, the only sonata of around 40 to survive the fire that destroyed most of his original manuscripts in 1970. The audience were also treated to a discussion (in Norwegian) between Tveitt’s daughter, Gyri, and Andsnes; she clearly had some entertaining stories to tell. Tenor Eirik Grøtvedt gave captivating renditions of three Tveitt songs, and soprano Mari Eriksmoen also prefaced Andsnes’ selection of four Folk Tunes from Hardanger with a darkly lilting tale of a wood nymph with a cow’s tail.
The festival also premiered three works from Norwegian composer Knut Vaage’s cycle, Tilstandar (Conditions), for countertenor and varying Baroque instruments. As festival composer-in-residence, three of his other works received performances, including a single-movement string quartet, Bumerang, performed with impressive virtuosity by Opus13. Vaage’s Oblique Glance at Haugtussa was given an intense performance by Ragnhild Gudbrandsen (voice), Hilde Haraldsen Sveen (soprano) and Knut Christian Jansson (piano). Sveen’s vocal command of range, creaks and cracks, and even yells into the piano’s body, as well as Jansson’s extended use of the piano strings were impressive, but without texts it was difficult to know what end these effects served. Jansson’s performance of From 20 Views at Opus 54 was more effective, with hints of the Grieg Lyric Pieces that inspired it layered with some of the same extended technique devices.
The period instrument Ensemble C4 accompanied countertenor Daniel Sæther in Vaage’s Tilstandar. Striking in its unusual use of the instruments, tuning was sometimes an issue however, with Sæther’s clear tone not always perfectly matched pitch-wise by the instruments. Ensemble C4 also performed some Marais from André Lislevand (viola da gamba) and Jadran Duncumb (theorbo), as well as Leclair, Marini, Scarlatti and Vivaldi’s “La Folia” Trio Sonata from the fuller ensemble. Duncumb stood out as the most animated and accomplished of these early music performers, and they added a lighter dimension to the festival’s overall soundworld.
Some concerts were supported by pre-concert talks. My Norwegian is limited to a few months of Duolingo, and only one talk was in English, but if the others followed the pattern of pianist Gunilla Süssman’s informative introduction to the Ravel 150! concert, the Norwegian speakers will have been equally well served. Programme information didn’t go beyond titles of works and names of performers (either in English or Norwegian), but there was some information on the festival website. Song texts would have been a help.
With ten concerts, including over 50 works, it is only possible to pinpoint a few highlights, the first of which has to be Timothy Ridout and Andsnes’ incredibly intense performance of Shostakovich’s Viola Sonata (50 years to the very day since the composer’s death). Ridout’s taut, passionate playing drew out every note, yet his crying solo, as if from a distance, at the opening of the finale was achingly impressive. Andsnes’ rocking fifths in the opening movement and hammering chords in the finale matched Ridout’s intensity, and their quiet ending, with the long held viola note over the resolved major chord, was grippingly moving.
In contrast, the most energetically joyful highlight was when Opus13 were joined by Johan Dalene and Oda Holt Günther (violins), Ridout (viola) and Julia Hagen (cello) for a blistering account of Mendelssohn’s Octet. The enhanced acoustic and their enthusiasm raised the volume to extremes in places, but the sheer exuberance and obvious pleasure evident in their performance had the entire hall rapt.
These moments putting musicians together who had perhaps not played together before produced a special freshness of energy. So we had Dalene, Ridout and Hagen joining with violinist Sonoko Miriam Welde and Andsnes for a luscious account of Louis Vierne’s Piano Quintet, with its almost Mahlerian-scale opening movement, hints of Shostakovich in the finale infused with galloping terror. And in the tiny Red Room of the Baroniet, pianists James Baillieu and Yulianna Avdeeva produced moments of pure fun in two of Grieg’s Norwegian Dances. Here, with limited sightlines in the packed salon, I was lucky to spot that a mirror on the side wall gave a perfect view of the pianists’ faces, clearly having a great time.
Mari Eriksmoen communicated her Grieg with operatic drama and a bright yet powerful tone throughout, and when joined by strings, woodwinds and piano for Ravel’s Trois Poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé, her voice took on a silky smoothness to match the slinky clarinets. Tenor Eirik Grøtvedt was the real vocal revelation, however. He showed incredible bravery when producing a tremulous, fragile pianissimo at the top of his range, such as in the second of the Op.26 songs, Jeg reiste en deilig Sommerkvæld (I walked one balmy summer eve). Yet he also had huge power when needed, as in the fervent climax of En Fuglevise (A Birdsong). In his Duparc set, his heartbreaking fragility in Soupir was astonshing, with misty tones on the piano from Avdeeva.
Other highlights included a spirited rendition of Grieg’s String Quartet by Opus13, a movingly prayerful Bagatelle by Silvestrov from Avdeeva, and Ridout and Baillieu’s impassioned performance of Rebecca Clarke’s masterful Viola Sonata. Cecilie Løken’s haunting Syrinx segued seamlessly into a sumptuous performance of Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro, for which she was joined by Björn Nyman (clarinet), Opus 13, and Ida Aubert Bang (harp). That Ravel concert concluded with a richly intense, at times frenzied reading of the Piano Trio by Dalene, Hagen and Avdeeva.
The final piece of the whole festival was Dutch composer Louis Andriessen’s Workers Union. Composed in 1975 for any group of instruments, it has no determined pitch as such, but strict rhythms, and here the performance was led by five percussionists, with Kjell Tore Innervik at the helm driving the pace and directing the repetitions (again, not determined in the score). Gradually, other groups of musicians joined, building to a point where there were around twenty or so of the week’s performers together on stage (Andsnes and Avdeeva sharing a piano). The combined forces created a wild energy, capturing the adventurous spirit of collaboration that had run throughout the festival.
At a dinner to end the festival, Andsnes spoke movingly about what it had meant, and expressed genuine, individual thanks to all the people who had made it happen over the years. In his quiet, gentle way, he demonstrated a sense of the visionary leadership that has clearly built something very special in this beautiful part of Norway. Thankfully, Baroniet Rosendal are looking forward, planning for two weekend events next year, with Andsnes remaining as artistic adviser, so classical music will surely remain an important part of Rosendal’s cultural life.
Nick’s press trip was funded by the Rosendal Chamber Music Festival
