Lars Petter Hagen
Lars Petter Hagen, Elisa Weizenbaum, Nora Wjech and Max F all hail from the far north of Europe, from Ski near Oslo and together they trace their path through the jungle of today’s music scene where anything goes. Hagen toys with identities, slips masterfully into different roles and confuses us with multiple statements. He introduces us to three people on his website as his “alter egos” and like Schumann’s Florestan and Eusebius these alter egos sometimes take different paths, experiment with new things and discuss what an artist can or should do in a society that – like today’s Norway – is rich and satiated and apparently no longer offers any sources of friction for creativity. “Nordic Luxury” is the theme he chose along with Trond Reinholdtsen as curator of Nordic Music Days 2009, thereby triggering controversial debate. Works are sought here that focalize the role of contemporary music after the end of the avantgarde, art as a means of social criticism towards the prosperity of Scandinavian countries and the contemporary view of Nordic folklore. One might also suppose these are the themes that stimulate his own creativity.
Though still in his early thirties, Lars Petter Hagen already plays a key role on Norway’s music scene. After studying composition at the Norwegian State Academy of Music under Rolf Wallin and Asbjørn Schaathun he attended courses given by Brian Ferneyhough, Salvatore Sciarrino, Gerald Bennett and Jonathan Harvey. He was Artistic Director at the Happy Sound Festival in Oslo and at Ny Musikk, a state-sponsored institution focusing on all activities of contemporary music in Norway. Still while studying he initiated the magazine Parergon as an information and discussion forum for contemporary music and remained its editor until the year 2000. For five years now he has been President of the Norwegian section of the International Society for Contemporary Music, a position that is associated with considerable influence in a country that, unlike the rest of Europe, has doubled its funding for cultural projects over the last few years.
His catalog of works includes instrumental music as well as electro-acoustic compositions, sound installations along with film and theater scores. One spectacular work of his, for instance, was a three-day music project in an Oslo shopping mall where he confronted a totally unprepared audience with sound installations as well as live music. In his music we find a strong reference to the tradition and folklore of his homeland. For instance, he uses the Hardanger fiddle, a bowed string instrument from the south-west of Norway which features additional resonance strings underneath four playing strings that vibrate while the instrument is being played thereby producing its characteristic sound. Norske Archiver, for instance, is a piece for chamber orchestra and electronic instruments, a tour around the music of his homeland prior to German occupation – the five movements being based on material “discovered” by the Norwegian composer. And for those who find this too reminiscent of Edvard Grieg or Geirr Tweitt, be warned: with Hagen there is always a sub-text, an ironic undertone at the very least, and his toying with nostalgia is, like his toying with identity, merely a tool in the search for his very own musical language. The fact that he would be met with confusion and rejection in a context like the Donaueschinger Musiktage – as was indeed the case – must have been clear to the highly educated and critically reflecting composer from the outset and perhaps a touch of calculated provocation did play its part here. His musical language – initially certainly complex in structure – has become more simplified over the past few years and he now increasingly works with documentary material that alienates as little as possible and aims to sound as reduced as possible. The composer himself talks here in terms of a sketchbook capturing the complexity of collective and individual identity, history and memories.
Heike Hoffmann/June 2008
