Frode Haltli: Selected Solo Works, Vols. 1-3
Svartskog Music Production

Among the many things for which 2020 will be remembered (most of them horrible) is the release of sprawling solo sets by an ever-increasing number of artists. One such is internationally acclaimed accordionist Frode Haltli (b. 1975), who's made this three-volume collection available from Bandcamp as separate digital albums. Though his recordings have lately appeared on the Norwegian imprint Hubro, this very personal project appears on the nascent Svartskog Music Production (SMP) label.

Initiating the project in May, Haltli selected new and seldom heard works written for the accordion by eight composers, ensconced himself comfortably in a local church, and, equipped with a pair of Neumann microphones, began recording, the result two hours of music by composers such as Rolf Wallin, Maja S.K. Ratkje, James Dillon, and Edison Denisov. As to be expected, the material ranges widely in duration, tone, and style, and as a result, the release collectively constitutes an encompassing personal statement by Haltli.

Largely brooding in character and somewhat labyrinthine in design, Des ténèbres à la lumière (From Dusk to Light), written in 1995 by the late Russian composer Denisov, serves as an optimal entry-point. An entirely different world is conjured in Dillon's Two Studies (2001), with the first's dance-driven devilry light years removed from Denisov's and the second's sombre aura more in keeping with it. Ratkje's Dismantled Pipes (2020) concludes the first volume with an eighteen-minute travelogue that ranges widely across diverse moods and different instrumental techniques; though the writing was in part inspired by the sounds produced by dismantled church organ pipes, it ultimately impresses as a wonderful illustration of the accordion's vast sonic potential.

Volume two presents expansive works by Danish organist and composer Leif Kayser and Scandinavian composer Rolf Wallin. Similar to Ratkje's setting, Kayser's Arabesques(1974-1975) is rich in mood and ideas, though in contrast to her single-movement epic his are explored through ten parts marked by playfulness, irreverence, and mellifluousness. Haltli's affection for the material, which he discovered at the age of fourteen, is borne out by the fastidious care with which it's executed. Equally explorative are Wallin's Seven Imperatives, whose evocatively titled parts are by turns frenzied (“Push”), fragile (“Sink”), dizzying (“Spin”), and mystery-laden (“Lean”).

Compact at twenty-six minutes, the concluding volume features settings Haltli's often performed at solo concerts, including Ørjan Matre's Nephilim Song (2012), which distinguishes itself from others on the release by inhabiting an extremely high register before descending into a whirlpool of aggressive flourishes, and Magnar Åm's On the Banks of the Eternal Second (1995), which closes the project on a largely spiritual, ponderous note.

October 2020