The repertoire in Anne Sofie von Otter’s recital in Bodø Cathedral this Saturday was truly a mixed bag. Ranging 350-odd years, from the 1650s all the way up until the very present day, spanning four countries and as many languages, and joined by two accompanists – Mats Bergström and Svante Henryson – there was really no unifying theme to the recital. Not that it necessarily needed one, or that we really minded.
Because Saturday’s recital was above all a testament to von Otter’s unique ability to tell stories through music and to convey emotions, her versatility and command of an almost dizzying array of styles; from early Baroque to contemporary, from classical to popular music. The recital started out with a Swedish section, three songs ranging from the perfectly pleasant En positivvisa (“A Barrel-Organ Song”) by Wilhelm Stenhammar to the meditative calm of Hugo Alfvén’s Skogen sover (“The Forest Sleeps”), made even more effective and intimate by using a guitar and cello instead of a piano. This sense of intimacy was kept throughout the concert, and it somehow felt less formal than your standard “piano and singer” recital.
The piece that followed was perhaps the most uneven of the whole recital: the première of Svante Henryson’s Secret Love Songs, a collection of four songs set to anonymous declarations of love found on the internet. The idiom of these songs was clearly more oriented towards popular music, with both the cello and von Otter using amplification, but in general, they worked. The first two songs were by far the weakest, with awkward melodies and generally rather awkward texts too. Still, the last two songs more than made up for the weaknesses of the first two. Especially the third song, “Flickan som aldrig smutser ned sig i sandlådan” (“The Girl Who Never Gets Herself Dirty in the Sandbox”), was truly remarkable, and was written in Swedish, which seems to be a language Henryson is more comfortable setting to music.
The following four songs by de Falla again showed von Otter’s way with words and ability to create moods. Especially effective was the lullaby Nana, with its spellbindingly silent singing. The fact she was accompanied on the guitar and not the piano undoubtedly lent the songs a more Spanish flavour, and also helped underline the intimacy of the songs, especially Nana. In general, the guitar (and occasional cello) arrangements (written by Mats Bergström) of the songs in this recital worked very well. Not only the Spanish songs – although the guitar definitely sounded the most “natural”, given their Spanish folk song roots – but also the Swedish songs, which took on a very different, more intimate quality than they usually have in their piano and singer only version. It was more like a little get-together than a serious, formal recital.