Nyhus grew up surrounded by folk music, and studied classical music. Her doctoral research project, “Playing with traditions”, has focused on examining how these two performance traditions relate to each other. Does it focus equally on playing them in relation to each other?
What do you think about in that connection?
How do you view the concept of the work in the two traditions?
“I read an interview with playwright Jon Fosse a few years ago, where he described his plays as ‘an outline of a universe’, where the texts are highly detailed but can also be interpreted very broadly. I think this description could also apply to the way a fiddler relates to a tune.
“The tune exists as an outline, with clearly defined details, but is still open to change when it is played. It is different each time, from fiddler to fiddler and from district to district. Almost like you recall a fairy tale. You remember the core of the story, and some essential features that you find important. Not primarily word-for-word, or sound-for-sound, but the gist of the musical material – a core of an idea.
How have you yourself made use of the “outline” metaphor?
“I have brought that image with me, and have used it from different angles, according to the needs of the music, of course. In ‘Villarkorn/Stille-stykkje’ it felt natural for me to try to learn the verses ‘by ear’, so to speak, so they could spin – like dancing to a fiddle tune. But how could I do it without the work losing its own identity?
“With Lasse Thoresen’s ‘Solspill’, composed in 1983, I wanted to try to approach the work as though it were an ‘outline’ in that sense. How could I explore its internal structures and ideas even more deeply? ‘Solspill’ consists of variations on a folk melody.
Nyhus tells about a lovely image described to her by a folksinger: he always tried to place his own identity in the background in his performances, as though he were wearing a mask in which his own voice merged with all the older voices that shared the same tradition.
In the course of the past year you have recorded three CDs, a trilogy of folk music for the piano. All these recordings are part of your doctoral research project, but how are they connected?
“The three recordings represent three different directions taken by my project. The first addressed it from a contemporary point of view and by working with composers. I wanted to generate some new pieces within the Norwegian folk-inspired piano repertoire, and to see what approach contemporary composers would take to this this aspect,” she says.
The second direction she refers to is classical interpretation, where she alludes to her work with “Solspill” and “Villarkorn”, and her view of interpretation as the passing down of oral traditions. The third and final direction explores how the piano can sound from a folk-music perspective. The work she has done in this last area emerged as the recording Slåttepiano.
On the first CD, Abstraction in Folk Art, you recorded two works that you commissioned from Øyvind Torvund and Asbjørn Schaathun. Why did you choose those two particular composers?
What was the approach taken by the two composers in these pieces?
“Øyvind created a conceptual, playful work, which refers to abstract elements in folk music. The concert version features two slide projector screens showing both abstract pointillist paintings and abstract folk-art ornaments. And the same goes for sound: modernist and pointillist music can be heard side by side with asymmetrical rhythms and tonalities.
Did your work with these two pieces influence your further work on your doctoral research project?
“Yes, absolutely. The entire process and the discussions with Øyvind and Asbjørn, and also with composers Erik Dæhlin and Lasse Thoresen, were very important for me. I had to put into words what it was about folk music that interested me, and convey it to them. This also helped me clarify my own mindset, and that was something I could bring with me into my playing.
The second record is called Stille-stykkje, and consists of Olav Kielland’s neoclassical work “Villarkorn”, with the subtitle “20 stille-stykkje” (“20 Quiet Pieces”). Why did you decide to make a new recording of this?
What did you focus on most when you reinterpreted this work?
You decided to include yet another new work on this recording – a piece by Erik Dæhlin. What was your reason for this?
Ingfrid Breie Nyhus and Erik Dæhlin working with the concert installation performance Avstandsriss at Nasjonalbiblioteket in 2014. Photo: Felipe Ferraria.
What do you think Erik Dæhlin’s new work has added to your doctoral research project?
Are their ideals clearer than those of the performers?
How much room for manoeuvre did you have with Erik Dæhlin?
Folk music on the piano?
Some people would not regard the piano as a folk instrument, and would be surprised that it is possible to play folk music on it. What conclusion have you arrived at?
“Misha Alperin was one of my co-supervisors, and his first questions when we began our discussions were: ‘Inspired by folk music – what does that mean?’ and ‘Folk music on the piano – is that possible?’ We kept coming back to those questions. Misha told me that he had always wondered whether it was possible to play folk music on the piano, and had decided that it wasn’t. I thought the same thing, that it would always be ‘something other’ than folk music – a different style, a different language, a different genre.
What was your approach when you arranged these fiddle tunes for the piano?
“I had already been exploring a framework for solving this problem for a while. Searching in the transference between instruments – Hardanger fiddle to grand piano – and the possibilities or impossibilities this implies. Just the process of translating fiddle tunes to the piano involves so many changes that other references and associations arise automatically. Sometimes, for instance, the tempo has to be changed radically for it to work, otherwise the motif that forms the basis of the tune acquires a completely different nuance. I have listened to a lot of fiddlers as sources, searching for a personal understanding of the core of the tunes so I could decide how they should be played on the piano.