'- We have always done it this way, but why? asks Bente Leiknes Thorsen. She believes that one should never stop asking oneself how to compose, and constantly use different methods when creating new works.
/ 13/06/2014 / codex– We have always done it this way, but why? asks Bente Leiknes Thorsen. She believes that one should never stop asking oneself how to compose, and constantly use different methods when creating new works.
Text and photo: Kenneth Hätta
– How to compose is not a question that should be finished at any point. At regular intervals, one should ask oneself whether one is doing things the right way. One should have a self-reflective attitude in relation to both material, idea and method. This leads to refinement, says Bente Leiknes Thorsen.
The 33-year-old from Tjøme in Vestfold describes himself as an atypical representative of the composer class.
– The composer with a capital C is an old, dead man and I am neither, she says.
The diploma student at the Norwegian Academy of Music is considering applying for a fellowship in artistic development work, among other things to further develop her ability to critically reflect on her own projects.
Searching for vulnerability
– Often when you talk about method it is about the development of material. In lectures with other composers I have often been struck by the fact that they talk mostly about a brilliant idea or how they have found rhythmic and tonal structures and chord diagrams. They talk little about the context. I have always been interested in what happens in the middle.
– It would have been cool to have a concert with a commentator.
– I think my strength is play and humor and structure at the same time. It's perhaps about making people laugh and smile so that I can get closer, get a nice opportunity for vulnerability that allows other things to hit, or hit in a different way, says Thorsen.
Like many others of her generation, Thorsen's work is not just about putting a work on stage, but about discussing why one puts the work on stage – a problematization of the role of art, the institution and the audience, and associated rituals.
Away from traditions
Beginnings for sinfonietta and tape from 2007 is a work in which Thorsen tries to comment on clichés and himself. The piece begins with sounds of chairs, sniffing, turning over papers, coughing and mood swings, all written in the score. The work was created after analyses of his own and others' works and thoughts about beginnings in general. A work that is about beginnings, but which apparently does not begin, and then explains its own progress.
– A classical concert is supposed to begin when the conductor raises his hands. In other genres, it's not like that. Folk musicians tune and maybe take a couple of trots, and then suddenly they're in motion. In a fraction of a second, it goes from not being in motion to being in motion.
Although Thorsen's work as a composer is largely about sitting at home and writing music, she herself controls playback and electronics during performances.
Other of Thorsen's works do not break with the concert format as much as Beginnings, but still goes out and looks at itself, far from the string quartet format á la Beethoven.
– I think the traditional concert, where we sit neatly in rows and listen to a string quartet, will survive, but there are other ways of communicating music. I'm probably most interested in the latter, says the composer: – Take the culture of virtuosity in classical music, it sometimes becomes more like sporting achievements. It would have been cool to have a concert with a commentator.
(Article continues below the image)
Night song with noise
This summer, Ensemble Neon will premiere many small miniatures with recordings of Thorsen's children, as well as hers. night song from across the sea (2008) Air and clapper sounds in the wind instruments and strokes on wood in the strings mix with scattered whispers from the musicians. Suddenly, the voice of Thorsen's son breaks in from the tape, babbling and singing and controlling the metric of the instruments towards the end.
The structure of the work was created by Thorsen initially taking an already composed night song and stretching it in time, coloring it with noise sounds and using it as a relatively inaudible basis.
– I wanted to continue working on the relationship between recordings of children and my composed music, and with the relationship between child and parent and how that points out in the world, because it is clear – as soon as you have a child, it attracts attention. I ended up sitting down to write a long personal essay about how to work with material that is so close and private and get it put together in a good way. I subtitled myself into the work. Then I wrote the music with selected recordings in mind.
Feedback is now sought from both musicians and the audience on how these miniatures are experienced, before many more small works are written.
– It's so often that you finish writing and put it out into the world, maybe do a revision, and then the work is there. I want to work on the work over time. I have to think that it's ready for concert now, but that there are possibilities for change and that it's not set yet.
- The composer's exalted role in society is gone, and will probably never return. Now people look up to Idol contestants.
New idols
Thorsen is currently writing an orchestral piece that she had a clear idea of how it would sound before she began. She wanted to try to generate the sound image in her head on the computer, and then write it down for orchestra.
– Here I have done something I have not done many times before – I have sat down with audio software to create something that will then be translated into acoustic instruments. The danger of writing orchestral music is that the table catches. The orchestral sound is so set and stable and the music can quickly sound like anything else.
Her family is involved and Thorsen has spent a lot of time in various positions in the music world in addition to being a student, mother and freelancer. She is currently the chairwoman of the Composers' Remuneration Fund and the Ballade Association, and has a long involvement in the Norwegian Composers' Association as a board member and deputy chairwoman.
– Office is the opposite of the composing profession. You can work on a piece for years, but in organizational life you can make quick decisions and feel like you've done something. It's like with renovation, you can see results quickly, says Thorsen.
For her, it's not about turning her creativity on and off when she runs down to the smallest man from the study on the second floor in Nesodden outside Oslo.
– That's not how it works. Composing is a job. The composer's exalted role in society is gone, and will probably never return. Now people look up to Idol contestants.
The case was first published in TONO-Nytt, no. 1 – 2013