Meet Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen

Gudmundsen-Holmgreen: Flow My Tears 02/03/14 | Purcell Room 0844 847 9940 | southbankcentre.co.uk | londonsinfonietta.org.uk

Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen A pivotal and unique figure in Danish music, Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen combines black humour, a Beckettian sense of absurdism and sound as mere sound (musique concrète) to achieve a “new simplicity”. With influences ranging from Renaissance polyphony to jazz and the Baroque, Gudmundsen-Holmgreen openly embraces contradiction, combining sounds of everyday life with simple and clear instrumental writing - firmly establishing himself as one of the most influential composers of his generation.

Could you explain how you came about adopting a “new simplicity” in your music?

Around 1960, the music of composers such as Stockhausen, Boulez, Nono and Ligeti came as a shock to both myself and the collective of Danish composers of my generation. After a couple of years we felt imprisoned by serialism in all its aspects. “New simplicity” was a reaction and also a refreshing start of new experiences.

Nevertheless, in the middle of the sixties I was more attracted to the “saying no” of the Beckettian model.

Black humour was a possibility in the new fields of simplicity too. But later, by the end of the sixties, I wrote some extremely simple works inspired by the painter Piet Mondrian and “concrète” poems. Those ideas were a relief to me!

What is it about the author Samuel Beckett that inspires you?

Around 1960 I saw Endgame by Samuel Beckett at the Royal Theatre. There were not many people in the audience, and less so after the intermission, but I was nailed to my seat in a state of shock. I looked into an unknown, terrifying but also beautiful world of extreme courage. A strange experience that shock can have such an elevating effect. Situations and words denying, reducing but also playful in a sophisticated, merciless way, a kind of humour - black as it is called - but in the bottom of it: empathy and beauty. The buddhist repeats his “no” untill he reaches his “yes”.

How did you discover your love for music?

My father was a sculptor and I really liked the purity and sensuality of his work. I brought those experiences with me. As a teenager I was deeply impressed by some of he great violinists who visited Copenhagen at that time and I decided to try playing the violin. I really enjoyed it but

began rather soon to get my own ideas on how music could be made and sound. We got a piano and I started from zero. After some studies with my beloved teacher Professor Finn Høffding I decided to be a composer. Since then musical ideas have been haunting my mind.

Can you describe the inspiration behind your pieces that we will be performing in March?

I got an invitation in 2009 from the Sacrum Profanum Festival in Cracow to write for the London Sinfonietta and Theatre of Voices. I wrote three pieces: one for London Sinfonietta (Play), one for Theatre of Voices (Song) and one for a combination of the two (Company) in which the two former pieces are played at the same time on top of each other. Song is based on John Dowland’s wonderful Flow My Tears. In the beginning it is not very obvious but by degrees it becomes clearer. As a finishing consolation the Dowland melody is transformed to a mild but fragile A Major. These works are the backbone of the whole programme. Sound I and II may be considered as introductions.The first one only using the consonants and the second only the vowels of the Dowland Song.

Pelle’s playlist “My musical language could be connected to Stravinsky, Webern, Mozart, Monteverdi, Gesualdo, Ockeghem...

Here are some recordings from my private collection.”

Edgard Varèse The Complete Works Bent Sørensen La Notte Axel Borup-Jørgensen Marin Igor Stravinsky Dumbarton Oaks Guillaume de Machaut Messe de Nostre Dame Listen to Pelle’s playlist and discover more of his influences at londonsinfonietta.wordpress.com Photo © Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen