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Axel Borup-Jørgensen |
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was born in 1924 in
Hjørring, Denmark, but grew up in Sweden. In 1946 he returned to Denmark to
study at The royal Academy of Music in Copenhagen (piano with Anders Rachlew
and instrumentation with Poul Schierbeck and Jørgen Jersild). He explains,
that as a composer, he is more influenced by the mood of the expressive
swedish and finno-swedish poetry of such writers as Karl Vennberg and Gunnar
Björling, then by the contemporary music. In 1959 and
in 1962, he participated in the holliday-classes in Darmstadt, beeing
attracted by the "sound" of the Darmstadt-"school", in
which he found a confirmation of his own development. But he never wrote
serial music. He rather created his own mixture of the new sound with a
sometimes vegetativ style (as in "Nordic Summer Pastoral" (Nordisk
Sommerpastorale) from 1964 for orchester) or a strongly expressive style with
dramatic outbursts and long rests (as in another orchestral work "Cretaufoni"
from 1961). Since 1967 he has often used the
guitar in his chambermusic, and his sologuitar pieces (of which Praeambula
from 1974 is the first) all show a profound knowledge of the technical and
musical possibilities of the instrument. Praeambula, op
72, was written for Ingolf Olsen in 1974, and
revised untill 1976 for the grammophonerecording of Erling Møldrup (EMI MOAK
30 017 - now out of print). The work
consists of different types of motivic material, interrupting each other,
giving the impression of parrallel existense of them all, and of sudden
shifts in the music between them. The
tension between these "layers" constitutes the piece. Morceaux, op 73:2,
and Praeludien, op 76,
, represent two different ways of further treatment of the material of
Praeambula. Here the seperate types of material are allowed to be rounded off
in movements, set up with mutual contrast. In Morceaux each type appears only
once, while in Praeludien the same material often appears varied in several
movements. The
latest work for guitar solo is "Für Gitarre", op
86 (1978-79 for Maria Kämmerling).
Here the broad, dramatic chords of the opening section are interlaced with an
insisting line of triplets, forming a curve of tension, which, in the middle
of the piece, gives way to a vegetativ and almost cristalline movement. The
latter is cut off again by the triplets and chords, and this dramatic third
section concludes in a kind of recapitulation of the opening chords,
whereafter the music aproaches a static state. 3
Poems of the old China, op
103:1 from 1983 were originally
composed for mezzosoprano and lute, but the lute-part can - as in this case -
be played on a guitar with the the four low strings tuned down a major second
(D,G,c,f,b,e'). The songs are composed in a relatively simple way, the middle
song a capella. Above the notes is written: "Steady held vocal
(expresses itself mainly through the intervals), the dramatic expression is
in the lute-part ("distorted" accents, rhytmical tensions, contrasting
with the voice). Songs
for soprano and guitar on poems by Ole Sarvig, op 104
were written in 1983-84 on quotations from the poetry of Ole Sarvig.
They are highly demanding for the voice, and are far more dramatic in their
expression then are the chinese songs. But like those this work contains an
important guitar part, commenting, forming framework and reinforcing the mood
of the text. Poèsies
pour la dame á la licorne,
op 121:1 were written as late as
1986-88. The title refers to the French gobelin-series of the later 15th.
century, "The lady with the unicorn". The work is written for two
guitars. The inspiration is partly found in Rilkes "Die Aufzeichnungen
des Malte Laurids Brigge", in which the gobelins are mentioned: "Es gibt Teppiche hier, Abelone, Wandteppiche.....Wie Ruhig sie sind, nicht? Es ist wenig Abwechslung darin. Da ist immer diese ovale blaue Insel, schwebend.....Links eine Löwe, und rechts, hell, das Einhorn.....Und hast du den Spruch entdeckt auf dem Zeltrand oben? da steht: A mon seul désir.....Es ist ein spiegel, was sie hält. Siehst du: sie zeigt dem Einhorn sein Bild-" In an atmosphere of harmonics small pieces of
memory turn up - remote hunting horn signals, small fragments of a medieval
tune. Per
Dybro Sørensen
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