I Sommarluft

Program note for the clavichord piece I Sommarluft, premiered by Mats Persson at Svensk Musikvår 15/03/2019:

I Sommarluft

I. Ko kyoku

II. Nageire

III. In Nomine

IV. Azumagoto

V. Quodlibet

VI. I Sommarluft

Program note:

The suite I Sommarluft (In Summer Air) was started in 2017 after having returned to Sweden from a three-year-long study period in West Java, Hong Kong, and Japan. I wanted to write a piece that provided a reflection on the musical experiences I had during these years and I was particularly inspired to do this after having encountered some recent performances of Fujieda Mamoru’s music in Japan, to whom this suite is dedicated.

One of these performances of Fujieda’s music was Kame no Otanashi, a piece of 'contemporary Kagura' performed at the Nō theater at Sumiyoshi Shrine in Fukuoka. This performance included elements of ancient Japanese music, Fujieda's compositions, improvisations by Ami Yamasaki and Ko Ishikawa, and abstract electronic sounds (which were not 'abstract' but the recorded sound of fermenting shochu). Another performance was at an art gallery in Tenjin. Here, Renaissance consort music for recorders was paired with Fujieda’s compositions (for consort and clavichord) and a sound installation (this time the sounds came from plankton). I was moved by how despite the music coming from such different sources–free improvisation and Japanese music; and experimental sound art and Renaissance music–, a remarkably singular poetic vision without any divisions between the different elements permeated these concerts. This was especially inspiring to me as there seemed to have been a unified poetic mission that brought me to the studies of such diverse music as Sundanese music in West Java, the gǔqín in Hong Kong, and Japanese traditional music and Just Intonation composition in Japan. 

I was inspired to see if I could express these passions in a suite and the clavichord was the perfect instrument for it; the clavichord has a light, quiet and intimate sound that invites a detailed listening to its timbre, but that also effortlessly mingles with the surrounding smells, sights, and sounds. In this regard, it is like the European sister to the gǔqín; despite originating in very different cultures, they share a similar pathos. But whereas the gǔqín has a beautiful repertoire that emphasizes these unique characteristics, the clavichord, with only some recent exceptions, lacks this and is often confined to playing music that was primarily intended for organs and harpsichords; the role of the clavichord being that of a 'practice instrument'. The gǔqín was also not primarily a concert instrument but was used by the Chinese literati class for a very different kind of 'practice'–a spiritual practice of musical meditation and contemplation.

A common motif in Chinese paintings since the Song dynasty is the Chinese scholar (or sometimes Daoist immortal) playing their gǔqín in nature, or under the roof in an open pavilion structure, letting the sounds of the instrument mingle with the sounds of nature. In reality, however, such a setting is idealistic since the extraordinarily quiet sound of the gǔqín almost requires an indoor setting, even when playing just for oneself. A more realistic illustration of this desire to, as a musician, experience how the tones intermingle with the sounds of nature can instead be found in the art of Arimoto Toshio. 

As an artist, Arimoto had many similarities with Fujieda; he created pieces with an archaic tone that was equally influenced by European and Japanese traditions. His paintings remind one of the Russian icons by Andrei Rublev, Tibetan thangkas by Situ Panchen, the frescos by Fra Angelico, and Chinese Buddhist mural paintings. Furthermore, Arimoto loved baroque music and a recurring motif in his paintings was people playing early-music instruments (recorders, keyboards) indoors but with doors and windows open to the outdoors. The first movement of this suite is named after one of these paintings of a keyboard player in front of an opening in a wall that reveals a vast landscape of hilltops (or possibly sand dunes). Flower petals are seen floating through the room, and according to the name of the painting, she is playing an ancient song, Ko kyoku, harmonizing the past with the present.

In this suite, actual ancient music is evoked in three of the movements. In Nomine is, as the name suggests, based on the popular cantus firmus by John Taverner which gave birth to the 'in Nomine genre' of English Renaissance consort music. Azumagoto is based on, or rather is a transcription of, the wagon (or azumagoto) pattern that accompanies mi-kagura chanting used in court Shinto rituals. At one point in Fujieda's Kame no Otanashi, an ajime-saho section of mi-kagura was performed with this pattern in the wagon. In Quodlibet, a fragment from Sundanese tarawangsa, the trance-inducing ritual music, and a bass line reminiscent of one from Fujieda’s Pattern of Plants are combined into a quodlibet. In Fukuoka, I discovered that Fujieda himself was deeply into Sundanese music; he had written pieces for Sundanese gamelan and invited teachers every year to instruct the degung group he had helped organize in Fukuoka. This movement is a homage to this shared passion. A quote from Pattern of Plants is also the motivic basis for the third movement, Nageire, named after the 'informal' 'thrown' style of ikebana. In Nageire, Fujieda's motif is combined with a fragment from a piece by Jürg Frey.

After listening to Fujieda’s album of Pattern of Plants for clavichord solo, Kuravikōdo no shokubutsu monyō, performed by Satoru Sahara, one might be surprised to discover that none of the pieces were written specifically for the clavichord, but rather for (any) unspecified keyboard instrument - a practice noticeably unmodern but reminiscent of European baroque keyboard practice. Furthermore, the score completely lacks information about tuning. This move is maybe less surprising as such practice still to this day is employed in the tradition of Western art music, but is unusual to find in the music by Fujieda, who is known for his use of Just Intonation. When I asked Fujieda why this was the case, he replied that it simply was because he never knew an instrument tuner who could retune keyboards for him, so he focused instead his work in Just Intonation on instruments that he could easily retune, such as the koto. In this piece, I have not followed Fujieda in these outdated practices, but have written a piece specifically for the clavichord that has to be tuned to the specific tuning in Just Intonation called Kirnberger-Svensson. There is, however, a trace of Baroque music not only in basing this tuning upon the model by the baroque-period theorist and composer Johann Philipp Kirnberger but also in the organization of these pieces into a suite, and the treatment of the tuning as if it was a late-Baroque temperament by modulating between different key signatures, exploring their different, contrasting affects that result from the un-equal tuning.

When I composed this suite for clavichord, I imagined the kind of informal, domestic, solitary, middle-of-the-day setting from the gǔqín culture as the starting point and the music’s ideal setting; can I write a piece of music that could be played without any audience at all, just for the solitary musician’s contemplation or meditation? Can I write a piece of music that mingles unobtrusively with the ordinariness of everyday life? Can I write a piece of music fit for the woman in Arimoto’s painting Ko kyoku or the scholar with his gǔqín in those Song dynasty paintings? Can I avoid having the music create a virtual space on its own for the listeners' immersion and escape, but rather reach a state where the sounds from the instruments are like the aroma produced by burning incense, mingling effortlessly with the air and light, and then lightly being carried away by the wind as the petals in Arimoto’s painting? This aspiration is evoked in the title for this suite as well as the last movement: I Sommarluft.