David Dalle
Thursday July 27th, 2023 with David Dalle
Finnish and Icelandic composers Kaija Saariaho and Anna Thorvaldsdottir; Haitian music; Andre Watts and Sinead O'Connor.

Today we're looking at two new releases from one of my favourite composers, Anna Thorvaldsdottir. Two albums were recently released by the small American imprint Sono Luminus, who have devoted a lot of loving attention to Thorvaldsdottir's music. One album is dedicated to her orchestral music, and the second is a compilation of Icelandic orchestral music, which leads off with a substantial composition of hers. Thovaldsdottir's music is massive and cosmic in scope, yet it is constructed with many small and subtle gestures and movements. Big like the movement of tectonic plates, but there are also moments of almost unbearable melancholy which emerge from the soundscape. It also stretches out time despite the modest length. Magnificent music! In between these two incredible recent orchestral compositions of Anna Thorvaldsottir, we will hear a work by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho. She died at the start of June this year after a very active and accomplished career. Born in 1952, she studied at IRCAM (Institut de recherche et coordination acoustique/musique) in Paris in the early 80's and became fluent with tape and electronic music. As expressed in her biography, "this experience influenced her approach to writing for orchestra, with its emphasis on the shaping of dense masses of sound in slow transformations." This description sounds equally apt for the music of Thorvaldsdottir and leads to an important point. There exists a straight line from Jean Sibelius, particularly his late works like symphonies nos. 6 and 7, through Saariaho, to Thorvaldsdottir. Sibelius' influence on contemporary Nordic music cannot be overstated. I'd like to do a show which covers this link, but it will wait for another time.