Another unclassifiable piece by Icelandic genius Guðmundur Steinn Gunnarsson, whose strange work continues to defy rational sense and occupies its own unique branch of a tall and twisted tree.
Stífluhringurinn (CARRIER RECORDS CARRIER 082) is played here by The Caput Ensemble, on acoustic instruments such as recorder, flute, woodwinds, trumpet, strings, guitars, and harpsichord; any resemblance to traditional classic chamber music is something we can forget about within ten seconds of hearing this strange, pared-down masterwork with its white light and stark spaces. Gunnarsson is really more of a “sound organiser” than a conventional composer; he admits that he’s thinking about four “general sound categories” to shape this work, and these include an understanding of pitches and glissando, which I assume are among the basic building blocks available to a musician and a composer. There’s also something reversing the order of playing in the second piece, alluding to some grand symmetrical form. It’s fairly likely this kind of open-ended approach puts a great demand on the players and their abilities, but the Caput team are rising to the challenge like incredible mutant salmon, responding to requests to start swimming in glucose and gelatin, putting extra strain on the gills and flippers.
The main structure of Stífluhringurinn is to do with a feature in a landscape, and contains undercurrents of the composer’s ideas about the environment, the community, and even local religions; specifically it’s a pathway that connects two neighbourhoods in Reykjavik that the composer knows very well. The word Stífluhringurinn means a “dam circle”, and the site used be an industrial electrical dam, now reclaimed by nature-loving Icelandic environmentalists and turned into a “suburban outdoor utopia”, to use his own expression, proving especially beneficial to local avian wildlife but also a fountain of physical well-being and harmony to human beings, no doubt. The music on Stífluhringurinn not only takes us on a walk down this restorative pathway, and back again, but also brilliantly conveys the sense of wonder that Guðmundur Steinn Gunnarsson sensates in the face of nature’s bounty. There’s something so serene, unaffected, uncontrived about this vision, and the way the musicians play it; it’s in the simplicity and the unassuming acceptance of God’s bounty, a quality bordering on humility – which is scarce in these days of general self-assurance and aggression.
Much as I love the pastoral suites of Vaughan Williams, Delius, and George Butterworth, this modern non-ironic hands-off approach makes their work seem over-laboured, too concerned with painting every leaf on every tree. Guðmundur Steinn Gunnarsson might feel himself alienated from the modern world; his work is intended to “express his inability to adapt to the conveniences of modern society”. If such be true, perhaps we need more such refusenik souls in the world, and we ought to nurture and protect them. The UK populace has been far too complaisant in allowing housing developments and convenience shopping to reshape our environment, and look where that’s got us – bland housing estates and Tesco conglomerates everywhere.
Many thanks to the composer for sending this. With Sam T. Rees artworks, as usual; available in various LP, CD and digital packages. From 3rd June 2024.