#whenyouareabletobecomethepatternsoftheearth — Public Fediverse posts

Slow Roads by Ivan Vukosavljević: a loving ode to the organ

Recently the new music label Elsewhere Music released the CD Slow Roads with eight organ pieces by Ivan Vukosavljević (1986). I got to know the Serbian/Dutch composer in 2017, when I interviewed him prior to the opening concert of the Gaudeamus Music Week, as one of the five nominees for the Gaudeamus Music Award. Although his piece Atlas Slave did not make it to the finish line (Aart Strootman won), it did attract attention: ‘In Atlas Slave, Ivan Vukosavljević builds a hypnotic sound world from a guitar played with a bow’, I opined at the time.

Vukosavljević studied composition at the University of Arts in Belgrade and the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague, where he has lived and worked since 2014. He has composed pieces for the Gaudeamus Music Week, Orkest de Ereprijs and Ensemble Klang and won the Amsterdam Marimba Weekend Composition Prize in 2022 with The Ladder. ‘With very modest means and simple instrumental parts, the composer builds maximum musical effect,’ wrote one critic.

It’s an apt description of Vukosavljević’s style, which often combines electronics with physical instruments. He likes to work with a minimum of material and shares a fascination for timbre with many of his contemporaries. This is certainly true of the recently released CD Slow Roads with eight works for organ recorded in churches in the northern Netherlands. His text in the CD booklet seems to be a blueprint of his own composing. He describes our country as a ‘seemingly endless pastoral landscape. Meadows and farmland stretching in the long distance. An occasioanl church tower in the distance’.

According to Vukosavljević, the further north you travel, the emptier and quieter it becomes. Precisely in this stillness he found the five churches in which the CD was recorded. Each has an organ in meantone tuning, with the fifths tuned slightly lower so that the thirds sound purer. The resulting compilation is a beautiful amalgam of compositions exploring the possibilities of the diverse organs in slowly shifting patterns.

The CD opens with The Ladder, recorded on the organ constructed by an anonymous builder in 1531 in the Mariakerk of Krewerd. Organist Lise Morrison sets slowly descending melody lines against stacks of dissonant harmonies. Eventually, we seem to end up in an abyss with tones so low that all we hear is a deep pulsing growl. Compelling and meditative.

We recognise this descending tendency in several pieces. Like in When You Are Able to Become the Patterns of the Earth, played by Tineke Steenbrink on the organ built by Theodorus Faber in the Jacobuskerk in Zeerijp in 1651. Here, however, the underlying surface is more agile and the reflective atmosphere is pierced outbursts that recall the whining sounds of a bagpipe.

Steenbrink also performs Echo (After Sweelinck) on the organ built by Hendrick and Johannes Huys in the Antoniuskerk in Kantens in 1661. Shrill harmonies and diatonic motifs change colour in constantly shifting registers. The simple, sing-along melodies most closely resemble common church organ themes.

Although Vukosavljević does not deploy electronics this time, his eight sound explorations do create that impression. Sharp, squeaking, scraping, vibrating and other indeterminate sounds are contrasted with ultra-low, subwoofer-like roaring, formed by unearthly vibrations that may not be perceptible to all.

Vukosavljević clearly nurtures a great love for the organ. Together, the eight pieces constitute a beautiful set of etudes, forming one extended ode to the organ’s unprecedented richness of sound. Slow Roads is a welcome acquisition for any organ lover.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ooOwaMm73Y&ab_channel=IvanV

#AartStrootman #GaudeamusAward #IvanVukosavljevic #TinekeSteenbrink #WhenYouAreAbleToBecomeThePatternsOfTheEarth