Einar Røttingen

In this sub-project I want to investigate musical expression in relation to my use of expressive means in selected piano works by Harald Sæverud. The project will focus on the composer’s highly articulated, speech-like musical language and how it can be transmitted through the piano medium. The aim is to find essential elements and attitudes that seem important for conveying artistic intentions in the score through experimentation with expressive means and investigations of my own artistic commitment and freedom.

Sæverud often revised his scores throughout his life or changed the way he communicated information to the performer. His scores can be seen as a meeting place between the composer’s artistic visions and on-going attempts at conveying them to the performer - and the performer’s search for meaningfulness in the use of expressive means. The score is the common ground and starting point for dialogue and reflections. The indications in the scores will be critically examined as well as investigating the elements which are not notated – but seem important for the expression - and in what way I as a performer involve and add my personal artistry. What does this music demand of me as a performer and what do I give back to the “intentions” of the composer/score?

Methodological approaches will involve re-collections of my earlier personal experiences with the music (concerts, recordings) and former meetings with the composer (1980s), the study of historical sources (literature, interviews, recordings), re-investigating the expressive indications in the score (articulation, dynamics etc.), looking at instrumental issues (piano sound, touch, voicing, body motion) and other elements that influence form and sense of coherence (meter, rhythm, phrasing, rubato, etc.). In addition, both the composer’s and my own use of metaphors, images or narratives will be discussed as means of understanding and characterizing the music.

The selected pieces are from Sæverud’s main piano collections: Slåtter og Stev fra Siljustøl (Tunes and Dances from Siljustøl) op.21, 22, 23 and 25, Lette Stykker (Easy Pieces) op.14 and Seks Sonatiner (Six Sonatinas) op.30. The investigations will include video/sound recordings of each piece, using different artistic approaches to see what happens to the expression using different expressive means and approaches. Documentation will also consist of texts and video-demonstrations of selected pieces, recordings/videos of concerts, a CD recording and a final text (with score/sound examples) on the research process.

Biography

The pianist Einar Røttingen is Professor of Music Performance at the Grieg Academy, University of Bergen. He received his education at the Bergen Music Conservatory and Eastman School of Music. In addition to being a regular guest at the annual Bergen International Festival and Edvard Grieg Museum concert series in Norway, he has performed extensively as a soloist and chamber musician in major cities in Europe, USA, Japan and China. Throughout the 1980s, Røttingen worked closely with the Norwegian composer Harald Sæverud and has recorded all the solo piano music in addition to the Piano Concerto with Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra (Simax). He has also collaborated with many living composers and has commissioned numerous works. His recordings include the solo-CD Avgarde with works by Knut Vaage, Torstein Aagaard-Nilsen, Glenn Haugland, Jostein Stalheim and Ketil Hvoslef and others, Hika - with the violinist Trond Sæverud in works by Crumb, Takemitsu, Messiaen, Debussy and Grieg - and George Crumb's Makrokosmos. Hika was chosen as 'Selection of the month' in The Strad in 2002. In 2005 Einar Røttingen was soloist with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra in the first performance of Knut Vaage's Piano Concerto The Gardens of Hokkaido which was released as a CD in 2010. The solo-CD Norwegian Variations, which includes Grieg's Ballade op.24 and sonatas by Fartein Valen and Geirr Tveitt, was chosen as 'Special Selection' in International Piano in 2006 and awarded 'Record of the Year' by The International Grieg Society of Great Britain. This CD is also included in his PhD dissertation from 2006: Establishing a Norwegian Piano Tradition: Interpretive Aspects of Edvard Grieg's Ballade op.24, Fartein Valen's Sonata no.2 op.38 and Geirr Tveitt's Sonata no.29 op.129. In 2007 Røttingen performed the complete 172 songs of Edvard Grieg with the bass-baryton Njål Sparbo in a series of 7 concerts as part of the Grieg September Festival in Bergen. As a part of the 100th anniversary of Olivier Messiaen's birth in 2008 he performed, among other works, Vingt Regards sur l'enfant Jesus and Des Canyons aux Etoiles. Einar Røttingen has been awarded the City of Bergen Cultural Prize and The Bergen International Festival's Robert Levin Festival Prize.