Folk and fusion with Lucie Horsch, Susanne Fröhlich, Michelle Holloway, Finn Collinson and Dominik Strycharski spotlight on TARF, a concerto by Nicholas Olsen and remembering Markus Zahnhausen
The Recorder MagazineAUTUMN2022•QUARTERLY£6
NO This was written specially for you and your new Helder Evo Tenor recorder. As it was commissioned explicitly for a Scottish summer, it contains everything from bleak skies to the Scottish “taps aff” sunshine. The form takes its cues from Vivaldi’s traditional three-movement structure – thinking back now, we were both quite keen on exploring that overlap between the Baroque and the contemporary, and form was one way to delve into that.
LR You mentioned Vivaldi as an inspiration here: could you unpack that a little bit further?
NO I think that crossover really was the starting point for the piece in lots of ways. There are some technical elements that are reminiscent of the Baroque style, for example the trills used in the first movement. I also wanted to pace my music as Vivaldi often did, with a fastslow-fast movement structure to give the music an arc and a satisfying symmetry. Musically, I played around with some of the ideas of Vivaldi’s Summer, and I was keen to incorporate them at least as a fleeting moment or feel –
LR Nick, to begin with, it would be great to hear how you would sum up what your new piece is about.
Summer a new concerto by Nicholas Olsen
In February 2022 Nicholas Olsen’s new recorder concerto Summer was premiered by László Rózsa and The Glasgow Barons in Glasgow, Scotland. The piece is part of the series Four Seasons in One Day for four different solo instruments (accordion, violin, bass clarinet, and recorder) and string orchestra, commissioned by Paul MacAlindin, the conductor of The Glasgow Barons. A recording of Summer featuring the performers who premiered the piece is available on YouTube. Nicholas and László interviewed each other to exchange their thoughts on the piece, their collaboration, and the performance.
The three movements are birds, grey, and peak. They portray the pigeons and seagulls that preside over the Glaswegian high street, Sauchiehall Street, the typical Glasgow overcast weather, and finally the population of Glasgow headed off to find their summer at the west coast beaches, the Scottish mountains and beyond.
NO László, when I decided that I would like to write for the recorder, I just mentioned “recorder”, and I was keen to hear about any options in terms of sizes and models –you brought to me various ideas afterwards, but you were particularly keen on the Helder Evo Tenor recorder. Why?
LR Were there any recorder-specific challenges that you encountered when writing the piece?
NO Music is littered with influence, and some of my biggest inspirations stem from post-minimalist music, in particular Louis Andriessen, who was no stranger to the recorder. The final movement of Summer, although not minimalist, uses musical material very sparingly. The second movement is also a bit like a pallet of colour –the idea of grey was interesting to me. I don’t have the synaesthetic ability to see colours in music or vice versa, but I believe it is important to consider colours and imagery when composing.
NO The most striking thing which stood out of me was the potential for subtlety of tone colour. For example, the alternative fingerings and tonguing of the repeated ‘A’s in the first movement. It was also really interesting to hear the microtonal scope of those alternative fingerings. I think figuring out that you can’t rely on dynamics when writing for recorder was intriguing too – it made me think about how we orchestrate and how we used the recorder within the ensemble.
LR Were there any specific characteristics that you found interesting to explore when writing for the recorder or while researching recorders?
NO When you got the call from Paul MacAlindin that he had commissioned a concerto for recorder, what were your initial thoughts? LR First of all, I was very excited to hear about the project, and the entire concerto series concept seemed intriguing. The work of The Glasgow Barons and Paul’s other endeavours, which contribute so much to the revitalisation and cultural life of the neighbourhood of Govan, have been something that I have followed from a distance and found very inspiring, so I was pleased to be approached by him to be the soloist for your work. Also, the fact that I had been asked to be involved in a commission that was so recorder-centred, yet where the initiative had come from a non-recorder player, was a refreshing experience. And finally I was simply very glad to be involved in making a further contribution to the expanding concerto repertoire of the instrument.
NO You have worked with lots of new music before, but this commission was perhaps a little bit different, as it
108 The Recorder Magazine for example the third movement’s semiquaver passages with repeated notes. Even the idea of a recorder soloist is a little play on that Baroque connection!
LR So let’s talk a little more about recorders! You mentioned that there were Baroque ideas following from the recorder – was that the main motivation, or were there other reasons too?
NO That was a big one. To be honest, I think I was probably a bit afraid of writing for recorder. Composers generally have a good grasp of the instruments they play and those within the symphony orchestra. I wanted to branch out of that comfort zone a bit. I also love watching BBC Young Musician and have always loved the recorder repertoire –Ende by Andriessen and Black Intention by Maki Ishii stick out as particular highlights to me.
LR I remember that in our very first conversation about the piece, it came up that we both had an interest in playing with the tenor range as the solo line within the orchestral texture. Having thought about this idea afterwards, it seemed to me that there would be two aspects that I hoped to suggest and explore. Firstly, the concept that there would not be any swaps between recorder sizes within or between the movements, but that instead one model would be used throughout, and yet no compromises in range or expressive versatility in tone quality would need to be made. Secondly, I was keen to suggest an instrument that blends well with modern strings and that can likely carry through the orchestral texture. The Helder Evo seemed to have the characteristics that would fulfil these criteria, and, in the end, I found that the model corresponded really successfully with your musical material!
LR So these are some of the Baroque elements in the concerto – what about some other stylistic influences?
NO I trusted your gut on quite a lot of things – you would look at a draft and say “that will be fine” but I know we did have a plan B for some aspects, for example adding string mutes and dropping to solo strings or changing registers of the ensemble to make sure that we didn’t lose the recorder in the texture. In the end though I don’t think we had to make any of those changes!
NO How did you feel before walking into the first rehearsal?
Did you have any concerns on your mind that you wanted to address as part of the process?
109 came with a title attached to it, and the expectation was that it was about summer. Did the piece function for the recorder in a way that it felt like summer, and did you feel “summery” by it?
LR The piece feels specifically Glaswegian “summery” to me, which, let’s face it, is not what one traditionally associates with that particular season … This brings me to one of my favourite aspects of the concerto, which is that conceptually it plays in a somewhat ironic manner with traditional themes – the grey sky and coldish air of the second movement representing a summer dusk comes to mind, or the first movement where birds are evoked, but not the gentle songbird kind you may hear on a lovely summer morning, but instead quite fierce and belligerent urban ones.
László Rózsa studied at the University of Music and Theatre Hamburg and the Royal Academy of Music, London. He performs as a soloist and chamber musician with the Dunedin Consort, la Nuova Musica and Oxford Baroque and is also a member of Ensemble 1604 and Scots Baroque exploring new music, improvisation and folk. He has a PhD in historical musicology and researches performative and sociocultural aspects of early modern Italian music. Nicholas Olsen studied at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and is currently a doctoral researcher at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. Projects have included performances and collaborations with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Ensemble Modern and Glasgow New Music Expedition. The centrespread features the solo part of the second movement, Grey, of the concerto. Thank you to Nicholas for sharing with TRM readers!
LR To play a new work together for the first time with the ensemble after the individual preparation is always a thrilling experience, so I very much looked forward to that. You already mentioned a few corners where we thought of a plan B ahead of the rehearsals, but otherwise I was confident the material you provided for us would work really well. My only other “concern” was a general one which is familiar to all players – I just hoped that I would be able to do justice to the piece!
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