Gunnar Andreas Kristinsson: Moonbow
Sono Luminus

Sono Luminus continues its promotion of Icelandic composers with Moonbow, the second album by Gunnar Andreas Kristinsson (b. 1976) and his first since Patterns in late 2013. The Reykjavik-born composer's studies have taken him beyond Iceland's borders, with a tenure at The Royal Conservatory in The Hague bringing him an MA and freelance opportunities before returning home. Whereas the material on the earlier release is arranged for viola, piano, and organ, the instrumental resources are significantly larger on the new one. Five Kristinsson works are performed in various configurations by clarinetist Ingólfur Vilhjálmsson, Duo Harpverk, Caput Ensemble, and Siggi String Quartet. Collectively, the pieces offer an in-depth account of the composer's idiosyncratic sound-world and sensibility.

Many of the pieces exemplify defining aspects of his composing style. Sometimes a work will blossom gradually from modest beginnings into a complex, dynamic whole; whereas one setting might feature episodes that evolve through dramatically contrasting moods, another will advance like a tectonic mass with layered elements moving between foreground and background. A programmatic dimension might inform one, whereas another might focus purely on the examination of a musical idea. The typical Kristinsson work neither panders nor alienates; it's instead music of formal integrity that makes no concessions to commercialism yet is accessible nevertheless.

Illustrative of his programmatic side is the opening Sisyfos, a single-movement concerto performed by Vilhjálmsson and Caput Ensemble. The title refers, of course, to Sisyphus, the familiar symbol of existential futility condemned to push a boulder up a hill only to see it plummet back down and incite him to repeat the act ad infinitum. The clarinet personifies the protagonist, as heard in the ascending patterns that determinedly push up against the ensemble, which alternates between resisting and abetting his actions. Unaccompanied piano introduces the piece with a descending line suggestive of the boulder returning to the hill's base before other instruments emerge in staggered formation, each one articulating a particular upward or downward trajectory. With tension building, Vilhjálmsson asserts himself defiantly against the others, as if by sheer strength of will Sisyphus's goal might be achieved. Interestingly, the piece collapses into near-stillness midway through to gradually build back up again, the sequence perhaps suggesting the protagonist taking a moment to catch his breath before resuming his climb. A clear sense of struggle comes through in the agitation of the playing and the combative to-and-fro between soloist and ensemble, and the programmatic aspect helps distinguish a work that on musical terms is already memorable.

For Patterns IIb, Kristinsson drew upon the Icelandic folk song “Fagurt er í Fjörðum” as source material. The piece was initially arranged for Indonesian gamelan and western instruments when created during a 2004 workshop with the Dutch Ensemble Multifoon, but Kristinsson re-scored it for xylophone, vibraphone, marimba, violin and bass clarinet when it was premiered by the Reykjavik Chamber Orchestra a dozen years later. Here we find a good example of a work that incrementally expands from a simple cell into an intricate swarm of contrasting timbres, with the violin, woodwinds, and mallet instruments all clearly separated within the performance. Like Sisyfos, the title work includes a programmatic detail (though more allusively) and, like Patterns IIb, swells from quiet beginnings into an intense construction. For Moonbow, the composer aimed to evoke musically the atmospheric phenomenon known as a lunar rainbow and wrote the opening phrases with its arcing shape in mind. That becomes the starting point for a progressively intricate web of patterns generated by the Siggi String Quartet.

The title of PASsaCAgLia B gives the game away, the composer having fashioned the material by blending elements of the passacaglia form with numbers from Pascal's triangle. Modest in length at seven minutes, the piece nevertheless makes an impression for again instantiating the composer's style and for the clear separation between the instruments, here Vilhjálmsson on bass clarinet and Duo Harpverk members Katie Buckley on harp and Frank Aarnink on percussion. Roots, the recording's sole multi-part work, closes the album with an examination of musical phenomena, specifically overtones and microtonality. Though the opening movement adds a peaceful, contemplative dimension to the album, it, like other material on the release, builds dramatically in intensity until it's taken over by the middle movement's constantly changing pitches and the third's animated, dance-like treatments. As an album, Moonbow presents a rewarding sampling of Kristinsson's work, even if the five pieces are hardly an exhaustive portrait. One expects many more will come given that he's only in his mid-forties and years of composing lie ahead.

June 2021