Nachtmusik - a new double concerto
September 5th 7:30 pm Allan Gravgaard Madsen’s orchestral work Nachtmusik is world premiering. Performing artists are soloists Christina Åstrand (violin) and Per Salo (piano) along with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ryan Bancroft.
by Solveig Lindeskov Andersen, Edition·S – published August 30th 2019
It began with a walk in the dark
The initial inspiration of the work for Allan Gravgaard Madsen was one particular walk a February night in Aarhus. With a recorder in his hand, he discovered how new sounds emerged in the darkness of the night.
“For example, I experienced how the once so colourful harlequin-patterned entrance of Tivoli Friheden fated into one, grey surface, how blinking lights from roadblocks from Marselisborghallen was visible even further away, and how new sounds emerged in the night,” says the composer.
The force behind the work not only emerges from one stroll but also a life-long fascination of the night.
“All in all, the night has always fascinated me because the night can make things seem clearer and give new meaning to things, that you don’t notice during day time,” he says to Danmarks Radio (read the article here).
“Allan Gravgaard Madsen is a fully developed poet with a fascinating sense of making captivating and beautiful orchestral colours.”
Loneliness, longing, and poetry
In his newsletter, the composer wrote, that Nachtmusik arose from the attempt to explore three phenomenons, he associates with the night. Loneliness, longing, and poetry. Why that is, online magazine Seismograf explores in an introduction to the composer and Nachtmusik.
“I have had immense problems with restlessness in my life, and the night is a place for me to seek calmness and silence. The night has implicit loneliness. But for me, it is also full of the potential of the day to come. Maybe it is sentimental, but I am a bit of a romantic. I like the thought of longing and such. I just do not long for the past, but for the good which is to emerge with the dawn of the new day,” he explains to Seismograf (read the full article here).
How loneliness, longing, poetry, and a bit of romance can transform into music, one can experience September 5th.
“[…] Hypnotic. […] Allan Gravgaard Madsen has created a deeply fascinating work, which embodies compositional control and uninhibited sound beauty that can only awake enthusiasm.”
“… [Gravgaard Madsen’s] pieces satisfy the concert halls’ growing urge for new poetic pieces.” […] “Nachtmusik went straight to the hearts of the 1600 audience members.”
Søren Schauser, culture journalist, September 20th 2019
Soft and calm night
In 2017, Allan Gravgaard Madsen said to Magasinet Klassisk: “I often think about contours, foreground, and background. When something stands out very clearly in the musical imagery, and when it does not”.
This quote resonates in the composer’s description of Nachtmusik. Like the soft and calm night, Allan Gravgaard Madsen experienced with the recorder in his hand, the piece begins softly. As Madsen describes it, the piece begins with a slow ritual steady continuing forward throughout the piece. As the piece progresses, the ritual is swept in the background and in the end embraced by the orchestra.
“Bravo, Allan Gravgaard Madsen! Nachtmusik is a beautiful piece that deserves a large audience.”
“Minimal, delicate, highly concentrated.”
A podcast about working closely with the performing artists
Nachtmusik is tailored to violinist Christina Åstrand and pianist Per Salo who have been working closely with Allan Gravgaard Madsen during the creation of the piece. “It is essential for me to know the musicians to whom I write,” he says. You can listen to the process in which Nachtmusik was made on radio channel DR P1, who made a documentary podcast about the creation of Nachtmusik, airing just before the world premiere on September 5th. The podcast is called Allan Gravgaard Madsens natlige skaberværk, and portraits the co-work between the composer and Duo Åstrand/Salo during the two years, Nachtmusik was made.
Nachtmusik can also be experienced the day after the world premiere: September 6th 7:30 pm in DR Koncertsalen. The piece is 24 minutes and a part of the event called SIBELIUS & BANCROFT. See the event here.
“The music is very simple at first, almost completely uneventful – yet it seems surprising and also unconventional that the two soloists actually only play this one pitch for the first ten minutes. But it works! […] The piece ends very abruptly, and the first thing I thought about afterwards was to hear it again.”
Pictures from the premiere
“Allan Gravgaard Madsen’s work ‘Nachtmusik’ finds its poetry through very few ideas that are very boldly allowed to unfold. The three movements become shorter and shorter in the way that the more pitch and impulses that come, the shorter the duration of the music. Or, to put it another way: The less one’s ability to concentrate becomes over time, the more action the musicians serve. Well thought out, Allan!”
World premiere recording
listen to the album recording
Nachtmusik - concerto for violin, piano and orchestra
World premiere recording with Duo Åstrand / Salo, Ryan Bancroft (conductor) and the Danish National Symphony Orchestra
Want to hear more night music?
I have made a playlist with some of my favorite pieces of night music. Enjoy!
“You sink into a fluffy-light, quiet repetition of a single note, an E, so quiet that at first you barely recognize it, [..] and slowly towards the end it grows into the gentle embracing caress of a whole symphony orchestra. Trance-like listening experience.”
Interviews
Local community
After the premiere of Nachtmusik, I talked to my local news paper growing up: Viborg Stifts Folkeblad.
We talked about how important the local music scene has been to me growing up and my musical development: The music lessons at Hald Ege School and Viborg Katedralskole, MGK at Viborg Music School and singing in Viborg Cathedral with the choirs there.
Something that was not included in the article was also the concerts with classical music in Viborg Musikforening, the collaboration with now closed Det Jyske Ensemble and the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra’s annual concerts in the Viborg Cathedral School Gym hall.
Especially the concerts with live symphonic music in the local community have left traces to this day. Thank you!
“[…] gripping new double concerto by Allan Gravgaard Madsen.”
“It is fascinating to hear how Madsen interweaves the sounds of both instruments into a harmonious whole.”
Aarhus by night
10 days before the premiere of Nachtmusik Seismograf.org published an interview with me made by Jens Cornelius. The interview is in Danish.
Night wanderer
One night in the end of August 2019 I went for a 4-hour walk with journalist Mie Haugaard from Politiken / iByen around Copenhagen.
All jokes aside
Frederik Bjerre Andersen from the Danish Broadcasting Corporation and I talked about the premiere of Nachtmusik and many other things. The interview is in Danish.
After the premiere of Nachtmusik, I talked to my local news paper growing up: Viborg Stifts Folkeblad. We talked about how important the local music scene has been to me growing up and my musical development: The music lessons at Hald Ege School and Viborg Katedralskole, MGK at Viborg Music School and singing in Viborg Cathedral with the choirs there. Something that was not included in the article was also the concerts with classical music in Viborg Musikforening, the collaboration with now closed Det Jyske Ensemble and the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra’s annual concerts in the Viborg Cathedral School Gym hall. Especially the concerts with live symphonic music in the local community have left traces to this day. Thank you!
One night in the end of August 2019 I went for a 4-hour walk with journalist Mie Haugaard from Politiken / iByen around Copenhagen. We did the walk in occasion of the first performance of my double concerto Nachtmusik. Click on the picture above to read the interview.
Frederik Bjerre Andersen from the Danish Broadcasting Corporation and I talked about the premiere of Nachtmusik and many other things. The interview is in Danish.
10 days before the premiere of Nachtmusik Seismograf.org published an interview with me made by Jens Cornelius. The interview is in Danish.
“Madsen’s double concerto is original and powerful.”
“Allan Gravgaard Madsen takes a single note for a nocturnal walk in a world full of noises to pretty compelling effect.”
Podcast
Shadowing
Radiojournalist Mikkel Bøgeskov Andersson followed my work with Nachtmusik for 1,5 year – from the first meeting with the two soloists Christina Åstrand (violin) and Per Salo (piano) to the first rehearsal with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra three days before the premiere September 5th with Ryan Bancroft conducting.
The 65-minutes long podcast is in Danish, but if you want to give it a listen anyway you can do it on the link below.
“This excitement about what is to come, as well as a sparkling relationship between passivity and activity, is incredibly well excecuted by Allan Gravgaard Madsen.”
facts:
- Commissioned by the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and Duo Åstrand / Salo.
- First performance: Duo Åstrand / Salo, Ryan Bancroft (conductor) and Danish National Symphony Orchestra @ the DR Concert Hall, Copenhagen, 05.09.19.
- Instrumentation: 2.2.2.2 / 4.3.3.0 / timp / perc (3) / hrp / strings (12.10.8.6.4)
- Duration: ca. 24:00
- Received a Special Recognition from the Danish Arts Foundation December 2019.
- Release on CD and digital download by Dacapo Records December 13th 2019.
- Nominated for a Carl Award / Carl Prisen 2020 in the category ‘Composer of the Year – large ensemble’