6/10:
As I'm sure almost none of you know, this weekend I considered going to Stockholm. Just on a whim. I figured I was in Sweden, so I should go. However, getting down to planning this really did hit me or grasp my attention until sometime on Saturday night. Before then it seemed a little too far away to bother with, and I had my first lesson with Bjorn-Tryggve that day and was wrapped up in trying to actually write music (let us not forget why I'm in Malmö in the first place). So, as the title of this post might have suggested to you. I did not go to Stockholm, but instead went to Copenhagen. Whereas Stockholm is a very long way away, even though it's still in Sweden, Copenhagen is a 50 minute train ride (Copenhagen airport is in Kastrup, about 35 minutes away) from Malmö. That, it's a lot cheaper, and I didn't need train reservations. Copenhagen ho!
Denmark is a pretty cool place, the home of Hans Christian Anderson, Søren Kierkegaard, and Legos! What's not to love? I intended to take a bunch of pictures, but, sadly, my phone thwarted me! I plugged it in the night before to charge it but, little did I know, the charger wasn't actually plugged into the wall socket (d'oh)! So I've got a few pictures of a few cool buildings in Copenhagen, but not that many. I promised a friend I would take a picture of Kierkegaard's grave, obviously that was now abruptly canceled due to my phone battery dying, so, apart from a venture into what appeared to be the main shopping district of the city, I stayed pretty close to the train station. This didn't turn out to be too bad a thing, though. After all, about a catapult's throw from the train station was Tivoli Gardens. The Scottish woman I sat next to on the plane to Amsterdam told me to go to Tivoli Gardens, but at the time I would it was just a garden. So, with that expectation, I walked up to the gates of what appeared to be Denmark's own version of Disneyland or King's Island. It was a theme park, you might say, since there were lots of themed sections, but the overall theme just seemed to be having a good time. It was (frankly) a little more pleasant than I remember trips to Disney Land/World/Epcot, if only because of the lack of heat. Copenhagen is close to Malmö, and it was just as cloudy and cool over there as it has been here. I didn't go on any of the rides (rollercoasters are really not my thing), I just walked around a bit, which was entertaining enough. There was a large open-air concert stage, and at various times I saw a kids' show (if you think kids' songs like Baby Beluga are strange, imagine them sung in Danish!) and a concert band consisting entirely of boys ages 8 - 10 in uniforms I swear they must have stolen from the film production of The Music Man. At a different open-air stage I also watched a commedia production, which was quite funny (all miming and slapstick), and the music for which was pretty good too - sounded a little like Tchaikovsky.
I also went to a small aquarium which they had in the gardens. It was small, but only cost of 25 dkk ($4.18), they did have a substantial number of interesting fish, as well as a separate, smaller environments for some seahorses and for an octopus, which kept suctioning itself to the glass pane; a little alarming actually. Walking around Tivoli and the bit of Copenhagen I ventured into took me a good part of the day. So, after trying some Elderflower and Gooseberry ice-cream (they offered it, so I had to try it!), I headed back to Malmö.
A fountain not far from Copenhagen station. There were a ton of really intricately wrought and beautiful fountains, even just in the small bit of the city I explored.
A really large building, near the fountain in the last picture. I'm tempted to say some sort of government building (either past or present) because of the big clock tower. I really don't know, though. There wasn't any sign I could see indicating what it was. My phone's battery died shortly after this picture.
Better late than never, I suppose. Here's a photo of the map I got when I got into the park. It'll give you some idea of the park.
But wait! My day wasn't over yet! Getting on the train back was quite a stressful adventure. It appeared the time I had decided to leave was the train's version of rush hour. Hundreds of people were trying to get on the train going Eastward's and I only jumped in just in time! I didn't have a reserved seat, but the area where the people without reserved seats were supposed to sit was full, so I ended up going into one of the reserved areas (no one came around to check, so I guess it was fine), at least I think it was a reserved area. In any event, I sat down across from a woman, with whom I didn't have any interaction until about halfway through the train-ride. People mostly keep to themselves on public transit (sort of the same the world over), so I listened to my iPod and she looked out the window. At one point, however, she pulled some papers out of her tote bag; I glanced down and they happened to be scores! To medieval music! Well! obviously when someone pulls out music in front of a composer, it's unwritten law that he has to say something. Maybe it's an unwritten law for my big mouth. Either way, I struck up a conversation that lasted the rest of the journey back to Malmö. It turns out that Hanna is a soprano in the Ars Nova vocal ensemble, directed by the world-famous Paul Hilliard! She had just sung in radio performances of Fauré's Requiem and Brahms' Eine Deutsches Requiem that weekend and was on her way to a concert as we spoke! She had actually missed the train she was supposed to be on and had caught the next available one, the one I was on. Luckily the train system in Sweden is in constant use and is pretty reliable. She told me she was giving a solo vocal recital (well, her and a few friends) in Heslingør, Denmark (about 20 min. West of Copenhagen by train) every Wednesday this month. I think this Wednesday I will go. There is really something great about being a musician which is the sense of community which musicians seem to have the world over. Maybe it's because of classical music's lack of widespread popularity, but there seems to be a solidarity among classical musicians which can make a sheet of paper with dots and lines on it the key to a conversation you might have never had otherwise.
6/11:
A busy day, but a busy day mostly of business. In the morning I went to the MHS to try to compose and practice a little. I got some composing done, a little less than I would have liked however. I wasn't really sure about the direction I was going in; both where I was going and whether I liked that direction were suspect. So I gave it up for the morning, knowing that having a lesson later with Staffan would help. Exchanging these sorts of ideas with someone always helps.
I took a lunch break, and then was back at the MHS for another lesson with Bjorn-Tryggve. We looked at a score by Arne Mellnäs called Transparence. Sadly, I couldn't find a performance online of this piece. It was interesting, but I think listening to Lutosławski's Jeux Venitiens if you haven't already will give you a good enough idea. A similar concept and similarly notated. Whereas the last lesson focused on orchestration as arranging, we talked this week about orchestration as composition. Though we did touch on this in our last lesson, this idea that the choice of instruments can work as a sort of grammar in the piece, the form being delineated by the timbres and their placement in the piece. Bjorn-Tryggve had a whole chart of exactly what techniques each group of instruments used and where, and split the documentation of these techniques into three main groups which indicated different recurring musical ideas in the piece. A pretty serious study. I wasn't head-over-heels about the piece, but it is certainly giving me a lot to think about as I try to start my own orchestral piece.
Fortunately, my lesson with Staffan was helpful! I really don't understand the image of the composer as a tortured soul wringing his hands at the keyboard while a candle drips wax onto his hand-inked score in a dingy practice room on the second floor of a music school. Well, at least, I can't see much music coming from that. Certainly I know that everyone who has been in the creative process has been there at some point, but fortunately, you can bounce ideas off of other people! I know that I've found this fact to be absolutely invaluable to my own creative process. Not only does it help move things along creatively but there's also a sort of shared reward, the piece comes alive because of these conversations, it's the product of a friendship, not just wringing ink out on your own. At least that's how I see it. We had this lesson at Staffan's flat this evening, it didn't make much sense for him to go to the MHS in the evening, and actually Staffan's place is closer to mine than the MHS, so I didn't mind. I only have two pictures from today, but one of them is of his absolutely enormous CD collection! It's pretty stunning actually. And he say's they're not really organized, they're ordered by when he bought them, and I guess he just puts them back in the same place every time (a man after dad's heart!). I've got a picture of that and a picture of a hot air balloon that was floating overhead as I walked to the bus-stop that would get me home. During our lesson Staffan played for me bits of Swedish classical music from the late Classical through the Romantic periods. There was some really good music which I will write more about in my next blog entry. I'm quite tired and it's past midnight, so this will have to do for today.
There are actually more CDs to the left. Another whole row.
A hot-air balloon! Yes, I know, we have them in the US too. First one I've seen over here, though.
Godnatt!
-Trey
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