Anna Thorvaldsdottir: Aerial
Sono Luminus

Originally issued in 2014 on Deutsche Grammophon, Anna Thorvaldsdottir's well-received Aerial returns in a newly remastered form and with an additional piece, Aura, performed by LA Percussion Quartet, augmenting its original six. The Icelandic composer has been a key part of Sono Luminus's roster since 2015 and has been featured on the label alongside Daníel Bjarnason, Nordic Affect, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, and others as exemplars of the country's contemporary classical music scene.

Were one coming to her music for the first time, Aerial would serve as an excellent entry-point, not only for offering a solid, nearly seventy-minute overview of her compositional style but also for using multiple ensemble configurations to illustrate it. On the one hand, we hear her music adorned in full orchestral garb via Iceland Symphony Orchestra's performance of Aeriality; on the other, it's heard in pieces arranged for piano and electronics (Trajectories), harp and percussion (Tactility), and in a variety of arrangements for acoustic instruments. When each piece features a different set of musicians and instruments, the appeal of the recording is heightened.

The collection is very much emblematic of her style. Melody isn't the driving force; instead, atmosphere, mood-building, and texture are paramount. Each setting presents an intense, immersive sound-world that unfolds with deliberation and at a slow, often glacial pace. Press text accompanying the release refers to her music as an “ecosystem of sounds,” which aptly captures the way it develops into a dense field of vibrantly alive elements. To label her music gloomy is perhaps overstating it, though it can be foreboding.

While its arrangement calls for seven brass and four percussion instruments, into - Second Self (2012) is performed by percussionist Frank Aarnink, hornist Stefán Jón Bernharðsson, and trombonist Sigurður Þorbergsson and thus involves overdubbing. Effectively establishing the tone for the recording, the music enters on an atmospheric wash of metallic reverberance and low-pitched horn drones and then congeals through a quasi-nightmarish zone for eight bone-rattling minutes. With Ró (2013) performed by CAPUT Ensemble, the instrumentation shifts to woodwinds, percussion, piano, and string quartet, but the musical character instated by into - Second Self remains firmly in place on this second example of Thorvaldsdottir's writing. Skeletal tendrils intertwine like stubborn plant life in a setting where rustic strings keen alongside flute and bass clarinet drones. The later Shades of Silence (2012), scored for for violin, viola, cello and harpsichord and performed by Nordic Affect, presents woozy convulsions characteristic of the composer using baroque-styled instrumentation.

If there's a go-to piece on the album, it's Aeriality (2011) for the terrific realization given it by the Iceland Symphony Orchestra under conductor llan Volkov's direction. Recorded live in February 2013, the performance is one of immense power, its force volcanic and its sweep epic. As elsewhere, a dense force-field is generated, with an orchestral supernova of shuddering strings punctuated by timpani, brass, and dissonant woodwinds. The composer also appears as performer on the release by accompanying pianist Tinna Þorsteinsdottir with electronics for the cryptic, ever-creaking soundscape Trajectories (2013). As composition titles go, however, it's Tactility (2013), a ponderous meditation performed by Duo Harpverk, that best captures the essence of Thorvaldsdottir's sound. To call her music uneasy listening isn't off-the-mark, though its discomfiting qualities aren't so much off-putting as fascinating. Think of it as music less designed to soothe than unsettle.

August 2022