Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir: Vernacular
Sono Luminus

These days a solo cello recording often sounds like anything but when the performer in question can use effects pedals and electronic treatments to expand the single instrument into a small string ensemble. Not so this hour-long solo debut by Reykjavík-born Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir, whose instrument is heard in all its naked glory in performances of works by Páll Ragnar Pálsson, Þuríður Jónsdóttir, Halldór Smárason, and Hafliði Hallgrímsson, three of them world premieres composed for the cellist and the fourth an older work possessing strong personal resonance. The pieces truly are, in Thorsteinsdóttir's own words, “intimate monologues” that enable both performer and listener to get “up close and personal with the textures, resonance, and overtones of the cello.”

Yet while the cello isn't augmented by pedals and electronics on Vernacular, that doesn't mean it isn't handled strikingly. Often the material as composed requires the Icelandic-American Thorsteinsdóttir to use the instrument in novel ways to realize particular compositional ends. In her 48 Images of the Moon, for example, Jónsdóttir has a bowed Thorsteinsdóttir generating unpitched sounds by vertically scraping the string and brushing in circular motions. Focused attention is needed to fully appreciate Thorsteinsdóttir's accomplishments, the reward a listening experience that's often riveting.

Four works are presented, the first two by Pálsson and Jónsdóttir single-movement settings of fourteen- and fifteen-minute durations respectively and the ones by Smárason and Hallgrímsson multi-part in design. Structural differences aside, they're less melodic compositions than sound explorations that emphasize linear development and process. Exemplifying the approach, Pálsson's Afterquake, a follow-up to the Quake concerto the composer and cellist collaborated on in 2017, explores the panorama of sound effects a cellist can generate from a minimal number of pitches, Thorsteinsdóttir in this case using space, pitch-bending, and contrasts in dynamics, tempo, and texture to induce entrancement.

Jónsdóttir's 48 Images of the Moon distances itself from the other three pieces by incorporating Icelandic field recordings collected by Magnús Bergsson at night. Recorded in one take, this quiet, methodical meditation sees the separation between musician and instrument dissolve, the cello in this instance acting as a conduit of Thorsteinsdóttir's inner being and the music seeming to suspend time as she responds to the nature sounds on the field recording. The ponderous, subdued character of Jónsdóttir's piece carries over to Smárason's O, which, written for the cellist in 2017, is described as a concept piece inspired by the candle. Various actions associated with it are suggested during the three parts, from the lighting of a match and the transferring of it to the wick to the crackling of dirt specks in the wax. Adding to the atmospheric character of a piece that gradually assumes the character of a body- and cello-performed work, pizzicato plucks and hushed vocalizations, inhalations, and exhalations appear amidst the bowing.

At album's end, Hallgrímsson's Solitaire, written in 1969 but refashioned into its current form in 1991, perpetuates the intimate tone of the project in featuring five short movements centering on inner states of contrasting mood and character. “Serenade” individuates itself in using pizzicato only, whereas “Jig” does something similar with a dizzying, high-energy dance movement. In contrast to that, a palpable sense of loneliness is established by the austere, angst-ridden expressions of “Nocturne,” which “Dirge” extends with lyrical, vibrato-rich supplications.

April 2019