THE ‘GLISSANDO-GUY’ PER NØRGÅRD
INTERVIEW
Af Rikke Krabbenhøft
Early Tuesday morning. The cemetery with its
blossoming old trees and velvety branches could
not be any prettier. It is May 2006, it is spring,
and you can smell it in the air. I walk through the
gate in the yellow wall, cross Nørrebrogade and
press the button on the door phone that says Per
Nørgård.
“Right on time; just like royalty” a voice
scratches trough the device. I am on my way up
an ordinary set of stairs to meet a, to me, quite
extraordinary man. Not only was Per Nørgård
once, like the rest of us, young and inexperienced with the ways of the world; as a young composer he has, probably with no idea of where it
would lead him, participated in the Ung Nordisk
Musikfest (UNM).
Nørgård is carrying cups and a teapot when I
knock on the door and I have to let myself in. We
go into the room facing the backyard. Per serves
me pieces of grapefruit from a bowl, and he refers to an interview with his colleague Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgren in Dansk Musik Tidsskrift;
in this day and age the interviewee is supposed
to serve something edible, which will then be
mentioned in the article.
Nordic Academy Festival in Oslo 1952
In addition to serving excellent tea and tasty red
grapefruit, Per tells me about the first time he
was at the UNM festival, back in 1952 in Oslo:
Per Nørgård: I just become part of something
that is already happening. At that age you do
not look into the historical circumstances of
how everything got started. You are just upset
if your music is not scheduled at a good concert and so on. You are very self-centered
at that age. Of course, you work as part of a
team, but it is your first presentation. And
there is a big difference between being performed at some dull afternoon concert in
some classroom on the third floor, and being
at an evening concert. That is part of the experience, because you have absolutely no
control over that, unless you are part of the
­organization.
‘The Glissando-guy’
I had such an experience with my Violin Sonata. It had made quite a stir and gave me
the nickname the Glissando-guy’ for an entire year; coined by composer Ole Schmidt and
the pianist John Winther and those guys.
The second movement has a glissando.
After moving to the G-string, up to the high
D, the violin simply slides for the next couple
of minutes to the end of the movement, with a
small accompaniment on the piano.
I ran through it in my head as I was driving
past the city square, and thought to myself:
“Damn, I’ll get complaints”, but there was
no doubt that it was as it was supposed to be.
My teacher, the composer Vagn Holmboe accepted it the minute he saw it. But you should
have seen the audience at the academy; they
almost fell of their chairs laughing.
They downright laughed?
Yes, you must remember that they had never
heard anything remotely like this. It was 1952.
Eventually, this resulted in it being accepted
in a UNM festival. You may understand my
disappointment, when I learned that it was
scheduled to be performed at 4.30 p.m. in
some classroom. Space was scarce. But still,
maybe because it was one for the first concerts, it was favored with the presence of the
director of the academy. I did not really care
about that, though.
A scolding by the director
In the evening was a banquet, and the director, Linnemann, gave a speech addressing
the youth, while we had porridge and juice.
(Hopeless! Just think, this was a banquet for
four Scandinavian countries.) He told us off.
Young composers ought to pay a lot more
Per Nørgårds skrifter. Udgivet af Ivan Hansen. Dansk Center for Musikudgivelse - www.kb.dk/dcm (© Rikke Krabbenhøft, 2006)
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attention to melody and harmony. Well, he
had heard my violin sonata and it was very
apparent what he was referring to. He did
not want us to continue in that unfortunate
­direction.
Pelle’s speech to the director
Then Pelle [Gudmundsen-Holmgren] made a
brilliant happening. He gave a speech for Linnemann, about how we had been greatly moved by his words and understood that these
were words for afterthought. Pelle would, on
behalf of all the Danish composers and musicians, at the same time like to present Linnemann with a special gesture of respect, a
Danish custom. The gesture was when you
wanted to honour a man, especially when it
was a little unexpected or sudden, you presented him with your tie. Linnemann, an elderly man, was already wearing a bow tie, but
Pelle walked up to him, took off his own tie
and put it on the director, as if he was a minister of the Crown. Linnemann could not refuse, taking it off would be offending Danish
customs. He had to keep it on, the rest of the
evening.
The piano sonata and pianist John Winther
We are trying to figure out what years Per attended the UNM, and what he had performed. We
look at his catalogue and come across the name
John Winther.
He was Per’s fellow student at the academy.
John Winther plays a key role in my memories
of the UNM. Along with Ole Schmidt he certainly was not a quiet figure in the landscape.
He played my Piano Sonata in one movement in Helsinki in 1954. And that is a little
interesting, because this was the very same
John Winther who was the first to hit the floor
laughing during my Violin Sonata in 1952. We
were practicing in (room) C2 – John was the
‘godfather’ of young solo artists at the academy and I felt a little honored that he came in
to have a listen to my sonata. As the musicians
get to the glissando of the second movement,
I find myself, an insulted and hurt composer,
exposed to more and more outbursts of laughter from John; eventually he disappears un2
der the table laughing. Suffice to say that there was not a lot of contact at that point.
Huge was my surprise when he shortly after
this commissions a sonata for his debut. This
was the Piano Sonata he played at the UNM. It
is interesting with the ambiguity of your reactions. He almost passed out laughing and yet
he gained respect for me.
I have some fantastic pictures for the UNM
party in Helsinki. You see John lying on a street holding a camera, taking a picture of me,
probably also lying on that street in Helsinki.
And try to imagine the other composers’ attitude toward that particular Danish form of
madness. Another picture is of him with five
cigarettes in his mouth. We were competing,
who could smoke the most cigarettes at once.
That is what the mood was like.
Relations between the four countries.
It is important to know that relations between
the four countries were particular. The Finns
were kind of unavoidable, the Swedes always
showed up wearing soft felt hats, very formal
as if being a young composer was an official
post. Intense seriousness. The Norwegians
usually wore knitted hats, sweaters and so on.
We were closest to them and there cheerfulness. I think I met Arne Nordheim one of the
first years in Oslo. That was quite interesting
since there were a lot of people at the festival I
never even met. Some of us chose to stay near
the other Danes. But this happened out of
nowhere. The program folder of 1952 did not
have pictures of us, it had brief biographies,
and I had also heard some of Arne’s work. I
had a feeling this was a very special composer. Without having been introduced I walk
up to someone and ask: “Arne Nordheim?”
and he says: “Per Nørgård?”
So, the connection was instant, and we
have kept in touch ever since. He stayed with
me – in my parents apartment – when the
UNM was held in Copenhagen.
The scandalous Danes
In my generation Danes were surrounded by
scandals. The absurdity of the era had a lot to
do with the tension between East and West.
Per Nørgårds skrifter. Udgivet af Ivan Hansen. Dansk Center for Musikudgivelse - www.kb.dk/dcm (© Rikke Krabbenhøft, 2006)
Most of my friends were communists. Being
a communist was fashionable. But so was ‘absurdification’. Some of the absurdity referred
to Moscow. I remember once at a restaurant,
John Winther got up, in public, and said: “I’ve
received a message from Moscow. I must give
comrade Schmidt a greeting from ‘over there’”. And then he raised a carafe of water and
emptied it over the head of the completely unprepared Ole Schmidt. That was the sign from
Moscow. That was what went on. You were in
a sort of strange ecstasy. There was no such
thing as cannabis back then, and we actually did not drink a lot. It was a certain atmosphere that grew out of the formality that surrounds institutions, one we could not bear.
This was before the era of ‘happenings’, before John Cage.
So you are just playing?
Yes, we are playing, or it is really a state of
mind you do not yourself perceive as playing. Because when you are playing you can always keep smiling. It was a consistent game,
practically ritualized. Completely daft, but
enthralling, because suddenly everything is
meaningful. There is a lot we do not realize,
that we are part of something we really do not
grasp. What is going on in this day and age for
instance? But we must live with our parts. It
was exciting, I think.
Private accommodation, with a witch
We were accommodated privately back then;
there was no staying in hotels. It was a particular experience to do that, for instance
you might have Arne Nordheim staying with
you. I still lived with my parents at the time,
and there was a spare bedroom. Staying at a
hotel does not compare with the strange atmosphere you experienced when you stayed
in someone’s home. Exposed to every wind,
you might say. There was no telling where you
might end up. In Oslo, for instance, I was accommodation in the home of a witch.
Of course, that sort of thing happened to
me. Why did something like this not happen
to Pelle, who never experienced anything like
that? It is just one of the things I experienced
during that time, where I thought to myself:
“What’s going on with this world?”.
I was to stay in an old house, with an elderly single red-haired lady. We were drinking tea
when she told me, pointing to a painting of a
rose turning away from the spectator behind
her, “that is me” she said, “the averted rose”.
I felt a little uneasy. And even more so when
she continued: “This is a witches’ house”.
And I said “Oh”. “But you probably won’t notice in the brief time you’re here.”
I was not worried, simply thought she was
a little Strange. I was set up to stay in an enormous room with all these Chinese dog and
Buddha figures, and some dangling things
oriental.
Then one evening, actually, when I came
back late after a concert and the after-talk,
the entire room was bewitched. Believe me, it
was unpleasant. The moment I entered, everything was sort of ‘in motion’. It was not an
earthquake, nothing moved. But the room
and all the things constantly made a sound.
It vibrated?
Yes. I certainly did not like it. I crawled to bed
and pulled the sheets up over my head. But
then it began under the bed! It is true! I have
no idea what it was, because I managed to fall
asleep. I thought I had figured it out next day.
I was a little relieved when I came back before
noon and the room was a little disquiet. That
was the lady who was acuuming. I did not tell
her about what happened during the night. It
would just get worse. You normally do not experience these sorts of things in a hotel.
It is interesting to consider what it is that
makes me remember certain things and not
others. You must keep in mind that I must
have experienced a billion things, but I only
remember some of them.
Being Schooled
Per remembers Bo Nilsson. An unschooled composer from North-Sweden, who became successful early on in his career. He wrote ‘as-if’ modernistic scores. They sounded modern, but were
not based on systems which were quite popular.
Per Nørgårds skrifter. Udgivet af Ivan Hansen. Dansk Center for Musikudgivelse - www.kb.dk/dcm (© Rikke Krabbenhøft, 2006)
3
I suspected that it would not last. Maybe
because of my background with Holmboe. I
think it sounds very reasonable that you really need to go through the classics; otherwise
they will get you from behind.
Nothing beats discipline, no matter what.
Palestina and Bach are excellent. If you have
not done fugues or Mozart quartets, like I did
with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, if you have only
written modem music, some time will pass
and the classics will turn up in your work. Sort
of like an inner-demon. Something you cannot help doing, because it is within us. It has
to get out. You have to face your demons or
they will stab you in the back.
So you must be schooled?
Yes, and that is why I think the UNM, to get to
the topic, was excellent. I am grateful to Peder
Holm and Poul Rovsing Olsen, I believe they
started it. You just take it for granted.
That is why I think the UNM was an excellent opportunity for confrontation.
With Sibelius in Finland
The next memory that comes to mind cannot
exactly be called a ‘confrontation’: Per tells me
about “almost meeting Sibelius” in the fall of
1954.
When the UNM was in Helsinki, a trip to the
musical master’s home was arranged, giving the
youth an opportunity to meet him. At the time Per
Nørgård had been corresponding with Sibelius.
He had cautiously approached his idol, expressed
great appreciation of his music, and at the same
time sent him a copy of one of his own works. Sibelius had sent a reply to the young Nørgård and
the significant letter is framed hanging on the
wall of Nørgård’s flat even to this day.
The sad thing about this story is that when
the group of young students arrives at the home
of Sibelius, and sees the ageing composer step
out unto the porch, only a single representative
is selected to actually meet and greet him. The
charming Ole Schmidt is picked out of the Dan-
4
ish group and the shy Per Nørgård dare not do
anything but stay behind with the group.
That is one of my regrets in life, Nørgård
says. Had he only found the courage to introduce himself, he would probably have been greeted
warmly.
I have learned from that period and from my
own shyness that if I am among younger composers and I sense that someone wants to talk
to me, I approach him. I know it can be very
difficult to approach someone. Even if I am
easy to talk to. It is because I have been in that
situation myself. If you can give the other person a kind nudge, it good to do so.
We have a mutual responsibility to the different generations. You often think of a person of a different age than yourself as someone you cannot communicate with. That is
why I think the UNM is an excellent idea. It is
nice that it continues. I wish all of you a great
UNM, and hope I will be able to attend some
of the concerts.
Facts: Per Nørgård has been part of the following UNM festivals:
1952: in Oslo, with a sonata for violin and piano.
1954: (March) in Stockholm with quintet for
flute, violin, viola, violoncello and piano. op. 1
1954: (October) in Helsinki with a Piano sonata op. 6 in one movement performed by John
Winther.
1955: in Copenhagen with two works: First performance of Aftonland, for mixed choir opus 10
and Diptychon for violin and piano op. 11.
Noter
Interview med Per Nørgård, ved Rikke Krabbe­
høft, til trykt program for Ung Nordisk Musikfestival i København 2006. Interviewet oversat
til engelsk af Mia Akselsen.
Per Nørgårds skrifter. Udgivet af Ivan Hansen. Dansk Center for Musikudgivelse - www.kb.dk/dcm (© Rikke Krabbenhøft, 2006)