Music lovers, just like performers, know it well: discovering a little-known or forgotten part of a repertoire always has a special flavor. A whole aesthetic world, full of promises and new emotions, opens up to us. For the Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnesthis shock occurred during childhood with the music of his compatriot Geirr Tveitt.
In a country where Edvard Grieg has been a national reference for more than a century in terms of classical music, Geirr Tveitt has developed a completely personal language, without equivalent today. Born in 1908, Tweet very early developed an interest in complex harmonies, exploring from his first compositions all the possibilities of scale and its different modes – melodic scales with evocative names: Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, lydien… Youth stays in Leipzig and Paris, during which the composer met notably Honnegger, Villa-Lobos, Boulanger or even Schoenberghelp to forge its unique style. His works reveal influences such as Bartok, Debussy or even Stravinsky.
Back in Norway, Tweet is passionate about the folklore of his country. Born in Bergen, the musician travels the fjords, notably that of Hardanger where he owns a farm in the village of Norheimsund. A territory synonymous with immensity, where the clash of the elements – ice, water, forests, waterfall – has long inspired local artists. Tweet collected numerous folk songs, which he then set about arranging and re-orchestrating into a prolific work.
But fate sometimes turns out to be cruel: in 1970, his farm in Norheimsund was destroyed by a fire and more than 80% of his work went up in smoke, drastically limiting the distribution and transmission of his creations. Only a few scattered pieces of manuscripts remain, ravaged by flames and threatening to disintegrate at the slightest touch. From then on, the composer ordered his children to throw away everything that was left – an instruction to which his daughter Gyri categorically refuses to answer. The shreds are preciously preserved under plastic, witnesses of an extraordinary creative genius, which Tweetbroken, abandoned until his death in 1981. Despite some subsequent discographic releases remaining confidential, notably on the Norwegian label Simax, the work of Tweet seemed destined to remain forever in the shadows.
This was without counting on the passionate commitment of Leif Ove Andsnes who, since the 1990s, had carried with him the desire to record a monograph entirely devoted to the composer. Andsnes then develops a program, the central piece of which is the monumental Sonata N°29 – “Eternal Sonata”.which he considers to be the most ambitious piece for solo piano ever written by a Norwegian composer, around which he combines a selection of folk songs, accompanied in some by the warm and fragile voice of his sister Solveig. After 35 to 40 concerts given over two years of international touring, culminating with an anthology date at Carnegie Hall, the pianist offers us through this recording the fascinating portrait of a singular composer, capable of giving birth to musical colors rarely heard until now.
Last February, Qobuz went to meet the pianist and Gyri Tveitt. A trip between Bergen and Norheimsund at the historic farm of Tweetto better understand the singularity of this musician. In the great cold of the fjords, the sea and the mountains meet and beauty fertilizes the most beautiful creative epiphanies.
