The stage is dark and an alien hum fills the air, like that
of a spaceship coming in for landing. A lady drags her seemingly leaden
suitcase across the stage, and a monolithic image resembling some sort of great
gate, appears on the backdrop screen. Slowly a row of music stands is revealed,
like runway lights. Five musicians wander through the darkness, searching for
their places. And when they are finally seated, we arrive at the beginnings of
one of the most remarkable compositions of this year.
This is Adeline Wong’s latest opus, 'Longing', a Malaysian
premiere after it was incarnated as Lengt in Norway in 2010. This nearly fifty
minute work for string quartet, solo cello, electronics, in collaboration with
photographic art, film and dance, is what Wong referred to as a kind of “live
film”. It is also one of Malaysia’s most large-scale, extended compositions to
date next to Johan Othman’s opera Conference of the Birds from 2009.
Performing the work in KLPAC this February was Singapore’s
flamboyant T’ang Quartet with former MPO cellist Ornulf Lillebjerka, and the
creative team from Norway who worked on the original collaboration. Heading the
team is the heart of Longing, the Norwegian artist- photographer Are Andreassen
who had chanced upon Wong’s music through Lillebjerka and found in her music a
resonance with his own artistic impulses.
For the artist, the performing of Longing in KL is not just
a project, but a sort of homecoming. His links to our land go beyond Wong’s
score to his very childhood. No accident, Andreassen came to Malaysia to fill
an artistic longing of his own.
“When I came to Malaysia and KL for the first time in 2008,
I was being inspired by a Norwegian author called Knut Hamsun (1859-1952). In
his trilogy ‘Wayfarers’, one of his main characters called August was an
optimistic, dreamer kind of person, always longing for an easier, better life
for himself and the people around him.
“He was always talking about his treasures in ‘the land
beyond India’. The king of ‘Back India’, or Malaysia, was looking after
August’s treasures. August was also a sailor, who had travelled the world for a
period of time.
“This was one of the reasons for me to go to Malaysia, to seek August’s hidden
treasures ‘in the land behind India’.
“Another reason was my father, a sailor, who had told me
stories from his life travelling at sea, about Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. For
me as a kid in the early 1960s these were fantastic fairytales.
“I also felt a longing, I felt the longing between my father
and mother, and my own longing for life and adventure,” said Andreassen in an
email from an island in Norway where he is working on his latest project.
Images of longing
Andreassen’s images for the piece are derived from various
sources, from landscapes and objects from his home country, as well as a
collection of images he took when he was in Malaysia that includes the iconic
Twin Towers. From these he dissected and reassembled fragments to form brand
new images that convey completely new feelings and messages.
“I made the digital images and film in my studio, that is
beyond the polar circle on an island far north in Norway. These images are
based on photos made over a period of two years from both Malaysia and the
northern part of Norway. They are put together as a collage or animation.
“These images describe the feeling of longing, both
spiritual and material. I have used images from both modern architecture and
the lovely old rainforest and scenes of nature in Malaysia, put together with
images from the arctic part of the world I am living in, to create the idea of ‘longing’
and the question: what are we actually longing for?” he said.
The resultant artwork has stark, sometimes comical, sometimes
poignant, resonances that form the basis of Wong’s composition. “Longing is a
universal feeling. I think we as human beings should start talking about what
we are actual longing for in our lives and for our world,” said Andreassen.
According to Andreassen, the work is shaped in three parts -
travelling, arrival, and departure. Over a period of five months, the artist
emailed the respective parts to Wong so she could respond and “sense the
feeling of longing to create her version of the theme”.
Over teh halia and ice kacang, The B Side then spoke to Wong about
how she responded to the visuals to compose one of the most stunning, heartfelt
Malaysian scores of recent years.
B Side: How did you start to conceive the music for Longing,
what were your starting materials?
The work began through the solo cellist Ornulf Lillebjerka,
who used to play with the MPO and he had played in a few of my works, so he
knows what I do. And it was very casual and over coffee that he asked if I was
interested to do anything with visuals (in collaboration of his close friend
Are Andreassen). And since Are was coming to Malaysia there was a chance we
could meet up. After Are listened to my music, he liked it, and we met up, very
briefly.
And then we met again, more formally with filmmaker Knut
Skoglund, when they came to Singapore (where I was working at the time) and
Knut showed me his film, which I liked very much. There is a rhythm to how they
did it, and we all immediately got along with our aesthetics and views.
It took some time to finally get the project together. We
exchanged a lot on email: Are would send me a lot of his artwork and showed me
his style, and finally when he had a compilation of which works he wanted to
feature, he would then send it to me, and I would get an understanding of the
texture and the motif.
B Side: So basically you made a musical response to the
images that Are sent you in batches?
Yes, because the images are all very different. The first
part he sent me was with the Petronas Twin Towers and structures and
landscapes. Then the second part was more landscapes and motifs, playing with
ideas of water - you know Norway and the sea are strongly connected... Are likes
water a lot.
Then in the later parts, his images are composed more of
mountains, harder images; it’s not easy to imagine what you would want to write
(based on these images), but it gives a clear guidance. In the end my music
reflects how he plays around with the images.
B Side: How were the first notes of the piece penned?
Part of it was writing for Ornulf, the solo cellist. But
it’s not meant to be a cello concerto, the solo cello is meant to be a voice,
the ‘longing’ quality of the piece. I wanted that the cellist be featured
prominently, and Ornulf too wanted a kind of soloistic quality within the
ensemble. Are told me I could write for any combination of instruments, but I
just wanted to keep it with a string quartet… but then there’s the live
electronics as well.
B Side: It is obvious the cello is special to you and this work particularly?
It’s just coincidental that I had written a cello concerto
for the MPO, and after that I befriended Ornulf as well, and I love the cello,
so I was really happy to be again writing for the instrument. For me, its like
a human voice - I hear it as a way to express myself because the range of the instrument
is so enormous, and it can go through so many temperaments.
I particularly like the higher range, it is melancholic at
the top, painful and yet has an emotional quality to it that really draws me to
the instrument. For me that is what appeals, the higher range of the cello.
B Side: How much did piece grow between the premiere in
Norway in 2010 and the performance at KLPAC this year?
The work is not just about the music but there is a
theatrical element to it. We had a theatre director, who was part of the work,
and he changed some of the dance choreography and I felt there was a section of
the music we had to change as well.
Also the placement of the section with the Twin Towers… in
Norway we started the piece with that, where the music emulates the kompang.
After we came back, we felt it worked better in the middle, so now the music
builds up to the faster section and then comes back down again. We had to
readjust that with some electronics. The extra written music was just a bit of
lengthening at the end. And Are added a few images to this new performance.
B Side: How much of the book that inspired the project,
Wayfarers, made it into the music and in what way?
It’s more of the feeling of longing from the original book.
The character in it is a very free spirited person and he travels alone, and he
goes through many adventures and meets many people. It’s what Are tries to
portray for himself. Are’s father was a sailor as well, and the book draws out
a childhood aspect for him. Longing is not really about the book itself, it’s
more about a book that Are had read that touched him.
B Side: How did it touch you?
As musicians and composers we are always travelling. And for
composers and artists like Are and myself, we work alone most of the time when
we are writing. For him its working with his pictures, for me my music, and we
are always in our own little room. Well, Are has this huge room that overlooks
the ocean - I have a normal sized room without an ocean, but the thing is we are
always alone when we work.
That is a kind of loneliness as well, cooped up in a room
and doing our own work. It’s very different from a performer who has to relate
to the audience. So the music of Longing is also about relating to how we feel
as artists, and I can understand the book and how it reflects on us; that
longing quality, the loneliness.
I mean, if I get a commission to deliver a piece in six
months, for at least three months I wouldn’t want to be disturbed too much when
I am thinking about the work. So the book relates to us as artists and how we
work.
B Side: Tracing your compositional approach in Longing from
when you started around 2000, how has your style changed, evolved?
At this point, especially with Longing, the music has
somewhat toned down slightly, its more personal now if you compare with five
years ago, when I was very interested in exploring the colours of instruments.
With Longing I wanted it to be more personal, emotional. And
not to say my style has gone simpler; it may have become more simple, but in the
heart it has become more deep. Sometimes simpler is good, the music is more
about what I feel in my heart rather than thinking of the technicalities. And
even in the more technical sections there is still a kind of deep feeling.
The thing that I am quite sure of is that I will get out of
this sound world and move to another one in a few years, but when I was writing
Longing I just wanted to do something more personal. Not that the other works
are not personal. It’s ironic.
B Side: And how do you envision your style will evolve in
the future?
I don’t know, I am sure it will not be the same, but I
wouldn’t know what will happen in a few years. I may turn to a different
direction, I don’t know. Because with this project, I suppose Are’s images also
guided me in what I wanted to do. Maybe that also influenced my sound.
B Side: What are the things that influence your work now?
I will be writing for the Mivos Quartet, a very young
quartet from America, and they’ll be touring Southeast Asia next year. I want
to do something different, possibly involving a little bit of electronics. This
is because I worked really well with the sound designer for Longing, and I am on
email with him getting some ideas on what I can do with electronics and a
string quartet.
It will be quite different, probably a fast work, but I
think some of the harmonies I really like from Longing will be used. But I am
imagining a very fast paced work. Just an instinctive response I think (for the
new work).
And Are and I have been talking about how recording
conversations, how people talk, and transferring that idea to writing for
string quartet… based on rhythms of everyday life. That’s just one of the
thoughts.
I am not sure yet (if this is what I will eventually do). I
am just experimenting with the idea. It will be one of the inspirations for the
new quartet. After all, we learn from nature - for example rain, it has its own
rhythms. I like anything that’s natural.
That was what I really discovered doing Longing, that both
Are and I like natural sounds. Everything (in the electroacoustic sounds) we
did for Longing was natural, all live sounds, and we recorded those live sounds
and made changes to them electronically. So I am very interested in natural sounds
at this point.
B Side: What about the musical trends of today, the
influence of the ‘schools’ of composition?
I think it is more interesting what we do outside the
schools. We can’t always just move with the times. I think my approach to
composition will always change, but as composers we should always stay true to
what we believe in.
Longing Glances - a quick tour of Wong’s fantastic musical journey
Wong, who graduated from the prestigious Eastman School of
Music in the US, first made waves in the local new music scene with the jagged,
urgent rhythms and lush textures of her chamber piece Synclastic Illuminations
in 2003. Since then, the city has heard her full orchestral tour de force Steel
Sky (2004) and the rivetting cello concerto Snapshots (2005), and finally her
soulful work for small orchestra and wayang kulit Empunya Yang Beroleh Sita
Dewi (2007).
Having taken a full time position at the Yong Siew Toh
Conservatory in Singapore had slowed Wong’s output somewhat, and Longing marks
her return to composition with a vengeance. The music has her trademark
harmonic and textural energy and kaleidoscopic colours, with an added boldness
in lyricism embodied in the solo cello’s long, singing lines.
In Longing, the solo cello leads the work with the string
quartet providing the canvass that moves from harmonic and rhythmic backdrops
to question and answer responses to the soloist. The live music is channelled
through a mixer where Wong and Andreassen add electronic processing and prerecorded
sounds to broaden the palette of colours.
Images projected on the screen interplay with the musicians
and a solo dancer, who provides a commentary of her own, giving the work
multifaceted dimensions.
Wong’s musical language has always been accessible, and
Longing takes this to a new level that is at once modern, borderless, and yet
recognisably Malaysian. The solo cello moves between furious, bristling
gestures of Snapshots and Bachian aria phrases of her early theatre score Five Letters
For An Eastern Empire, with a strong flavour of Malaysian modal harmonies.
The performance begins with an extended electroacoustic
soundscape lasting about 8 minutes as various images emerge on the screen,
opening with a monumental arch, perhaps the 'doorway' to the piece.
In the Norway premiere, Lengt, the section drawing on the
kompang rhythms starts the journey once the musicians are seated, as various
percussive effects weave complex patterns that play with images drawn from the
Twin Towers and various architectural structures.
What follows is a remarkable section drawing inspiration
from the azan, as sorrowful downward slides on the quartet usher in the solo
cello’s meditative solo, the music blooming into a shimmer of oscillating
figures on the quartet. The cellist sings an extended soliloquy that shifts
between contemplation and sharp interjections, as the protagonist's thoughts
ebb and soar.
The next section introduces a sort of chorale for the
strings that has a luminous beauty, reflecting the cooler images on screen
composed of stone landscape and water and providing balm for the wringing
introspection before this.
Like wisps of wind the quartet singing oscillating figures
whips the soloist into flight in the next section, and the movement gathers
momentum culminating into an intense flurry of repeated figures, before
crashing down into the second extended solo for cello, who pauses to ruminate
on deep song-like lines climbing slowly up to an unearthly explosion of
harmonics.
In the final section of the piece the dancer’s foot stomps
provide a counterpoint to mysterious sounds from the quartet and electronics
and bursts of notes, in a generally alien soundscape. The final climax begins
to unfold as the strings gather momentum and the textures thicken, sending the
music spiralling into ecstatic heights.
As the music explodes into the stratosphere, the solo
cellist pulls everyone back down to earth with his moody, introspective lines,
while the quartet sobers up and echoes him with its mellismatic textures. There
is an aching, plaintive quality to the music now, a hint of regret at the glorious
moment having passed.
With its spiritual, meditative quality like a prayer, the
reverent atmosphere slowly dissolves, leaving the solo cello to end the work
once again reaching from below to climb higher and higher, but this time
cautiously and contemplatively, ending the work in an unresolved statement -
perhaps there will be more journeys to take, more roads to explore, and more
tales to tell.
- The B Side, Dec 2012
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