Frode Haltli / Arditti Quartet / Trondheim Soloists BENT SORENSEN - HANS ABRAHAMSEN Air

Frode Haltli, the uniquely expressive Norwegian accordionist, is heard here with chamber orchestra, with string quartet and solo, performing music by Danish composers Bent Sørensen (b. 1958) and Hans Abrahamsen (b. 1952). Haltli plays Sørensen’s It is Pain Flowing Down Softly on a White Wall with the Trondheim Soloists, as well as the solo piece Sigrid’s Lullaby. Hans Abrahamsen’s Three Little Nocturnes find the accordionist in the company of the redoubtable Arditti Quartet, “a vital institution in contemporary music” as Haltli says.

For the title composition Air, Hans Abrahamsen returned, at Frode Haltli’s suggestion, to the early solo work Canzona, revising it until it became a new piece. Of Abrahamsen’s music, Frode Haltli writes that “not one note is accidental, nor are any of the other specifications. Sometimes, this results in very complex music, while a moment later it is so simple that it seems a child could perform it. He writes music that can be on the verge of being discomforting, while at the same time it is indescribably lovely.”

Haltli acknowledges that the music of Bent Sørensen has been an influence on his development as a player. Sørensen composed the demanding Looking on Darkness (later the title track of Haltli’s ECM debut) for Frode’s first concert in Copenhagen, forcing him “to discover new ways of thinking and of playing my instrument, which I have continued to work on for many years, also in the field of improvisational music, and in other contexts than classical music.” In the same spirit It is Pain Flowing Down Softly on a White Wall challenges perceptions of what can be achieved on the accordion through tone control and nuances in soft dynamics. On the present recording, Haltli’s accordion blends into and out of the sound of the Trondheim Soloists’ nine violins, three violas, three cellos and double bass. Towards the end of the piece the Trondheim musicians take up melodicas, to create textures which seem like a ghostly echo of the accordion.

All of the music on the present disc was written for Frode Haltli, with the exception of Sigrid’s Lullaby, which derives from Bent Sørensen’s set of nocturnes for piano. “The piece flows easily into the adjacent but so different space of the accordion,” Paul Griffiths observes in his booklet essay. “The lullaby is repeated again and again, slowly dissolving in the waters of time.” (ECM Records)

STEFANO SCODANIBBIO Six Duos

Stefano Scodanibbio, contrabass soloist and composer (Macerata, Italy, June 18th 1956 / Cuernavaca, Mexico, January 8th 2012).
In the 1980s and 1990s his name has been prominently linked to the renaissance of the double bass, playing in the major festivals throughout the world dozens of works written especially for him by such composers as Bussotti, Donatoni, Estrada, Ferneyhough, Frith, Globokar, Sciarrino, Xenakis.
He has created new techniques extending the colours and range of the double bass heretofore thought impossible on this instrument. In 1987 , in Rome , he performed a four hours non-stop marathon playing 28 pieces by 25 composers.
He collaborated for a long time with Luigi Nono ("arco mobile à la Stefano Scodanibbio" is written on Prometeo's score) and with Giacinto Scelsi.
He regularly plays in Duo with Rohan de Saram and, furthermore, with Markus Stockhausen.
Since the 1990's, Stefano Scodanibbio has taught Master Classes and Seminars at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, Universityof California Berkeley, Stanford University, Oberlin Conservatory, Musikhochschule Stuttgart, Conservatoire de Paris, Conservatorio di Milano, etc. In 1996 he taught Contrabass at Darmstadt Ferienkurse.
Active as a composer his catalogue consists of more than 50 works principally written for strings (Sei Studi for solo contrabass, Three String Quartets, Concertale for contrabass, strings and percussions, Six Duos for all possible combinations of the four strings, etc.) and he was chosen four times for the ISCM, International Society of Contemporary Music (Oslo 1990, Mexico City 1993, Hong Kong 2002, Stuttgart 2006).
In June 2004 he premiered the Sequenza XIVb by Luciano Berio in his own version for contrabass, from the original for cello.
His Music Theatre work Il cielo sulla terra has been premiered in Stuttgart (June 2006) and Tolentino , Italy (July 2006) and will be performed again in Mexico City in the fall of 2008.
He has recorded for Montaigne Auvidis, col legno, Mode, New Albion, Dischi di Angelica, Ricordi, Stradivarius, Wergo.
Active in theatre and dance, he has worked with authors, choreographers and dancers including Rodrigo García, Virgilio Sieni, Hervé Diasnas and Patricia Kuypers.
Of particular importance is his collaboration with Terry Riley and with Edoardo Sanguineti. In 1983 he founded the "Rassegna di Nuova Musica", New Music Festival held every year in Macerata, Italy.