Penultimate Post: Torsdag: Journey to Lund ; Fredag: Farewellsdag

Hej!

My second to last adventure update (though I may post an arrival confirmation for those reading several not in my immediate family), and one with some beautiful pictures!

6/28:

For those of you who didn’t just take a course in modern British and American poetry, as I did this past semester, the title of Torsdag comes from William Carlos Williams’ collection Journey to Love.

Well, it seems sort of strange to be posting one day after my last post (apologies again for the belated update), but today and yesterday were good days, and I can only hope that the weekend will be an equally satisfying coda to this memorable ‘Monad i Malmö.’ 

I think I slept in a funny position on Wednesday night (who are we kidding? Thursday morning) because I felt all sore when I woke up. Pretty dehydrated too. The evening before, Simon had invited to me a gathering of friends in Lund, a city only a few train-stops away from Malmö; well, Thursday morning, the last thing I felt like doing was going out, but as the day progressed, I felt better and better, and it would be silly for me not to spend some time with my friends while I could (given the limited window of time for us to hang out). So I hopped on the train to Lund late in the afternoon (figuring I would get there early in case I encountered any travel difficulties, a likely enough event).  Staffan had previously recommended I go to Lund to see its ancient 12th century cathedral, so since I arrived early, I did some sightseeing before my the appointed time I was supposed to meet Simon and David at the train station.

The first church I came across was beautiful (I started walking towards it because I saw its massive spire), but it looked a little smaller than what I had imagined, based upon Staffan’s description. A red brick, neo-gothic cathedral. It turned out not to be Lund cathedral, though, so my apprehensiveness was well founded.

The cathedral and some of its more striking features...

Fortunately, just aimlessly wandering about the city, I was able to located the cathedral that Staffan had told me about (well, aimlessly wandering about the city, and making an educated guess as to where the signs reading domkyrke led). An absolutely massive, beautiful building! It was very imposing, but I think I caught it at an excellent time. I have been fortunate to see other old cathedrals, such as ones in Salisbury, Chartres, and Luca, and it's just a bit that it looked closed, because I would have loved to go inside.

The doors themselves deserve their own photo-gallery. You could do a full album of the individual scenes depicted. Certainly to be set beside photos of Brunelleschi's doors.

I particularly like this photo, in spite of the sunspot or maybe even because of it

This photo isn't connected with the cathedral, as you probably guessed, but I though it was very interesting. The whole building was accented with this kind of decoration, which from a distance looked like it's carved wood. An interesting optical illusion.

I wandered around the city a little more - Lund is full of beautiful architecture - and I think I passed an important administrative building, because I saw more interesting buildings and a beautiful courtyard as well.

This picture is actually of part of the square in Lund right outside the train station. I sat here and waited a bit for David and Simon.

Well, Simon was late, but I met David at the train station at 8 PM, and we headed in search of a pub (UEFA semi-finals were still going on, so any socialization was going to happen within the proximity of a large TV-screen). During our quest, we happened to run across Mika, the conductor of the Lund youth orchestra David used to play in (they have performed several of David's works, including a double concerto for Tuba, Double Bass and Orchestra!). He joined us in our hunt for a space with enough room for all of us (including Simon, another 4 people were to join us). Eventually we settled for an open-air extension of a pub with a pretty generic name (hence why I don't remember it). Unfortunately the way the seats were set up, I actually didn't get to know the other people that came along with Simon very much, however, Mika was seated next to me and throughout the game gave me tidbits about the teams, players, and plays which improved the game-watching experience. Though, I must admit, even for a disinterested sports-watcher like myself, it was a much more engaging game than Wednesday's. Germany vs. Italy (Italy won, 2-1), it seemed less pointless since there were a lot of offensive plays, and the first of the Italian goals was scored early in the game. Also the players in general were less melodramatic than the Spain vs. Portugal game. In Wednesday's game, anytime someone would get knocked over, they would roll around on the ground like a flipped-over beetle, grimacing and wincing. With both the German and Italian teams, for the most part when a player fell down, they just got back up again. A lot more interested in the game and less in the theatrics.

In order to circumvent my taxi bill on Wednesday, I headed back to Malmö after the game (a good choice, too, I think, my lunch for some reason was sitting like a brick in my stomach and I didn't really feel my best) and caught the bus for home. Which brings us to...

6/29:

My final 'lesson' with Staffan. It has been a rainy day but with perfect timing. It was very rainy this morning. Luckily, I had nowhere to go in the morning and took the opportunity to sleep in a little. By the time I had to go to Staffan's flat for my lesson, the weather had mostly cleared up and it was just 'spitting,' as my family puts it (which is good, it would have been miserable lugging all of the CDs I had to return to Staffan in the rain). At dinner time, when I was outside (more on that later), it was nice and clear, and now that I'm back in my flat, writing this blog entry, it's been thunderstorming. Excellent timing, as I said.

It was one of our most comprehensive conversations to date. Details would take up at least 5 pages, but we covered my plans for the immediate and long-term future, our opinions of the way new music concerts are run, the often extra-musical factors which contribute to many composers' fame (or ignominy), what are the roles of objectivity and subjectivity in the creation of a work of art, the differences between American and Swedish higher education, and what I've come to term the dixie-cup dichotomy of modern orchestral music. I will explain this last point, as it may not make sense at first. It is the issue that many orchestras are interested in premiering new orchestral works, at the very least in order to keep up with a certain quota of performing new music and to have the prestige of commissioning a work from x famous composer. However, after these new works are commissioned and premiered, they're never heard again, while the famous Classical, Romantic, and early 20th Century works which sandwich them are rotated year-round. In the current zeitgeist, new orchestral pieces are essentially dixie-cups, disposable immediately after use. I (Staffan as well) find this to be a sad state of events, because it takes the meaning out of the genre of modern orchestral music and relegates it immediately to the museum, at the same time making the actual art of music even more museum-like for its staunch display only of works from close to a century old and older. Anyway, didn't mean to get glum, but if there were even a half of the amount of time given to new works (re-playing new works) as there is to re-playing old works, maybe the older pieces could marinate a little longer in performers' minds and fingers and be all the fresher the next time is performed. At the end of our final lesson, Staffan gave me a few CDs of his own music, to which I look forward to listening.


And after that I was treated to something of a farewell dinner! It happened that Staffan and Björn-Tryggve were going to go to dinner afterwards, and Staffan was kind enough to invite me along as well. So the three us went to a cafe in the square near Gustav Adolfs Torg (where I had lunch at La Grappa) called Jospers. I was a little leery about it, since almost every main course item was above my price range, but I thought 'heck, it's my final weekend in Sweden, I'll have the rest of the summer to save up,' so I ordered a steak (I would like to note that the subtitle for Jospers was 'steakhouse,' so there weren't many other options for main courses). Sadly I don't have a picture of this steak (which was very good), as when I pulled out my phone to take a picture, it informed me that it had 1% battery life left, and was in no mood to take a photo, thank you very much. So I tucked my phone into my pocket and tucked into my meal. Very, very kindly, Staffan covered the three of us, proving he is a gentleman, in addition to being a good teacher and excellent composer. During the dinner we continued our comparisons between American culture and Swedish culture, as well as differences in climate, and traditional foods (I had to confirmed that, yes, people do in fact drink filmjölk. I have yet to see someone do it, so I am not entirely convinced). This last discussion topic (chiefly covered after we had eaten and were waiting for the check, which took forever) included one of the grossest foods I have ever  heard about or read about: the traditional northern Swedish dish Surströmming. I will quote Björn-Tryggve exactly when I describe Surströmming as "raw, rotten fish." Wikipedia's definition little better:


"Surströmming, Swedish 'soured (Baltic) herring,' is a northern Swedish dish consisting of fermented Baltic herring. Surströmming is sold in cans, which may bulge after prolonged storage, due to the continued fermentation. When opened, the contents release a strong and sometimes overwhelming odor; the dish is often eaten outdoors. A Japanese study has shown that the smell of a newly opened can of surströmming is the most putrid smell of food in the world, beating similar fermented fish dishes such as the Korean Hongeohoe or Japanese Kusaya." [Emphasis mine]

Blech! You can bet that I'm not going to make an effort to experience that part of Swedish culture before I come home. I usually consider myself an adventurous eater, but usually the correlation between smell and taste is strong and I don't really feel like subjecting my taste buds to the food judged "the must putrid smell of food in the world." Sour milk is looking so much better by comparison...

After dinner I said my farewells to Björn-Tryggve and Staffan. I'm sad to no longer be having lessons with them, a sign to me that my trip was well worth it. If I've found something difficult to leave behind, it was worth the finding. Staffan and I will certainly be keeping in touch about our latest compositions, and I hope we can continue some of our excellent conversations.

As to what I'll be doing these next two days before my departure, I have absolutely no idea. Well, that's not true, on Sunday, I pack. Strange how fast this trip has flown by, I hope the flight back flies even faster, though, I'm no fan of transatlantic travel!

Godnatt! Back home soon, just in time for Independence Day

-Trey

Tisdag: Mother-lode of music ; Onsdag: On-successful Ven-ture and a long day’s night

Hej!

Sorry about the delay in the update, but sleep called, and, as you will read, it was quite a long day.

6/26:

I had another lesson with Staffan today, though lesson is maybe the wrong word. It’s more like we hung out and talked about music, about which Staffan knows a ton! If the wall of CDs is any indication of how much music he can talk about, he is, himself, a full musicology department. From this delightful, four-and-a-half hour long discussion, came a small treasure trove of CDs for me to listen to. I like to think of that session as being a stockpiling session for the music that will last me through the rest of the summer. I just counted how many I took last time from his generous lending library: 26 CDs (or box sets of CDs), it has to be close to 40 hours of music, more than enough for me to listen to in depth for the rest of the summer and probably a good portion of this coming fall.

Some of the listening includes String Quartets, Piano Quintets, and film scores by Erich Korngold (I’m actually listening to one of them right now, from one of my favorite childhood movies, The Adventures of Robin Hood, starring Errol Flynn), orchestral works by Henri Dutilleux, the Symphonies of Korean composer Isang Yun, the complete chamber works of Joseph Suk (Dvorak’s son-in-law), the complete Dvorak String Quartets and Orchestra Overtures, Elliot Carter’s Symphonia sum fluxae pretium spei and Clarinet Concerto, symphonic works by Hans Werner Henze, Orchestral works and String Quartets by Carl Nielsen, and Brahms string chamber music. In the words of Tolkein, “Rich, abundant, varied, and prolonged.”

6/27:

Perhaps it was my fate to only go to Helsingør’s castle concerts once, because, on some very good advice, I ended up taking a road less traveled (well, not actually less traveled, but certainly less traveled by me) up to Helsingør. This Wednesday I intended on going to yet another of Hannah’s splendid performances in Kronborg Slotskirke at 4 PM, as I did last week. However, my approach, in the end prevented me from this. There is a correlative city on  Sweden’s side of the body of water that is, I guess, part of the North Sea. This is Helsingborg (not exactly creative naming) and one can take a ferry from Helsingør to Helsingborg or vice versa in a ride which only takes around 20 minutes. Given this fact, on Staffan’s recommendation I took the train up to Helsingborg with just that intent. I even took the train up early in the hopes that I would be able to circumvent any unexpected hiccups, or at least have time to correct them. However, when I arrived in Helsingborg, and looked at the clock showing the next time a ferry was going to cross the channel, it was scheduled for 4 PM (the irony!) I might add that, that was about an hour away, so it’s not as though I arrived at the last minute and hoped to then get where I wanted to go in a timely fashion. Far from it, yet, despite my best efforts, I was within sight of Helsingør, but without an efficient way to get over there.

But, when Sweden gives you lemons...

Obviously I wasn’t just going to go home. “Adopt, adapt, and improve” to quote a hapless, bank-robber attired John Cleese. I set off into the city of Helsingborg and fortunately did not have to go far before I happened upon an amazing sight (site). An enormous fort, right by the coast. The outer fortifications and the central tower are now all that remain (the rest of the buildings were demolished in Sweden’s attempt to make Helsingborg an irrelevant military target for encroaching Denmark, this is all back in the 17th century, I believe), but they were quite impressive. Especially for someone like me with romantic inclinations for all things that could easily fit into The Lord of the Rings, towers castles, ancient stone buildings, this was a real treat. As was being able to climb the tower (on one, cramped spiral staircase!) and look at Helsingborg from the top - a breathtaking view! There was a lot of room on the roof of the tower, which I appreciated, I could stand in the middle and be a little less nervous about the height. Only a few other times have I had comparable views, such as a view of the land from the monastery atop Mont Saint Michel, or from the roof of the Duomo in Florence. Absolutely beautiful. Well worth the visit to Helsingborg (and a good thing, too, as it was the only thing I accomplished! More on that in a moment).

 Views of an important looking building (town hall?)

 The fort I mentioned in the entry

The view of Helsingborg from the rampart in the foreground in the first picture.  

 A window inside the tower, so beautiful!

 View from the very top of the tower

My trip up north had a timetable. Two of the Swedish student composers I had met when I went to London in March, David and Simon, had recently returned to Sweden from China and had arranged to meet with me that evening, so I had to get back to Malmö and find Simon’s place by around 7. That didn’t leave much time in Helsingborg, considering the trip back, so I wanted to make every minute count. Fortunately (in retrospect perhaps not so fortunately), there was a tourist information bureau nearby. It was a huge building, part art gallery (Konsthus), part music hall, part Helsingborg tourist center. I picked up a map and looked at the points of interest. One which caught my eye was the island of Ven, the worksite of the famous astronomer Tycho Brahe. It was outside the city of Helsingborg, but there were busses which led out to Råå (pronounced approximately like “roe”), and the pamphlet I had said that boats to the island went out from Råå from June-August. They also went from the farther south city of Landskron. Well, I thought, I’ll triangulate and head south as well as sightsee: head down to Råå, take the boat out, see the island, take the boat to Landskron, and take the train down to Malmö and maybe even arrive ahead of schedule, since I wasn’t coming from so far north.

My Ven-ture was not to be, however. I took the bus to Råå (a ways a way, maybe 30 minutes on the bus), and when I got to the marina, there was no indication that there was any sort of boat to Ven available. I saw the sign where I should have been able to board a boat and go on my merry way, but, alas, no boat. And the place where I guess one would have paid for a ticket for the ferry was closed, so, disappointed, I headed back to the bus-stop. That said, Råå is a beautiful town, so it wasn’t a total waste (I think the only total waste of my entire trip has been the plane-back-to-Sweden debacle). However, when I tried to get on the bus back to Helsingborg, the card-reader on the bus wouldn’t accept my card. The bus driver told me that the card didn’t have any money on it. Eek. This was definitely an issue. It would have been less of one had I been in Malmö, but in the surburbs of a city that was several hours north of the only place I had to stay, this was highly problematic. I guess I looked crestfallen or panicked enough that the busdriver let me on the bus anyway and I was able to get back into Helsingborg and catch the train back to Malmö, whatever I did it worked.

After ‘topping up’ my card for my remaining few days in Malmö (seems a little silly, but I’ll certainly be taking the bus to the central station to get to the airport, as well as to get around the city for my final lessons, so it’s a necessity), I went in search of Simon’s place. I had written down directions that I got off of Google Maps, so I headed to the bus stop that I thought would take me to Simon’s. The bus took forever to arrive, and I eventually lost patience and got on a different bus that was going in the same general direction, thinking that maybe I could get a different bus from that more central location, or just walk. It’s fortunate that I did so, because on the way I passed David in the street. Happy accident! It turned out my directions were entirely wrong, so, re-oriented, I followed David to Simon’s apartment. We went from there to the Olkaféet that I went to back near the beginning of my stay in Malmö (seems like just yesterday, but also so long ago) to watch the soccer semi-finals (David insisted). It’s the first professional sports game I’ve watched all the way through in a very long time. I can’t say that it was too thrilling, 0-0 score for 90 minutes, and then finally after a rash of penalty kicks Spain finally beat Portugal 4 - 2, but it was fun to be with David and Simon. Simon’s girlfriend joined us, as did Staffan! Staffan, I think, subscribes more to my disinterest in sports, so it was nice to chat with him some more, as a way of passing the uneventful time.

After the game, we headed back to Simon’s flat again, where I was able to hear more of Simon’s music than I got to in London. I have to credit Simon for providing one of the germs in the composition of my first String Quartet. His, an excellent piece, is a set of variations, and mine also took that form. Lots of talking and the classical music piece equivalent to channel surfing, as we each mentioned pieces and composers the others hadn’t heard of, and the hours flew by! Next thing I knew it was almost 3 in the morning. Obviously the bus service had stopped for the night, so I ended up having to take a cab back to my place. Not exorbitantly expensive, but I think, for any more evenings out that might happen this weekend, I’ll try to get back in time to use the bus system. Might as well use money prepaid for the purpose of transportation than spend even more. A very enjoyable evening though - I’m only sad that the timelines of my stay in Malmö and David’s and Simon’s return from China had allowed for more time for us to hang out together. In any case, they are both excellent composers (students of Staffan, himself an excellent composer) and my leaving Malmö soon hardly means that our friendship is at an end.

More to report tomorrow!

-Trey

"Ask me tomorrow" Update postponed

Dear readership,

I fear that due to the late hour (3 AM) and the number of things I was hoping to say about the last two days, I shall have to postpone my update until tomorrow. I hope that this, effectually, anti-blog-post, does not disappoint too much. Rather it is adventures getting in the way of documentation. I'm safe and sound, though, and have enjoyed my adventures very much. I look forward to telling you about them, but after a good night's sleep.

Godnatt,
-Trey

Sondag: Internet issues, Mondag: The Long (but good) Lesson

Hej!

As the first day's subtitle may have brought to your attention, my internet has been ranging from spotty to downright bad. An unfortunate negative slope of quality since my arrival. Perhaps even my modem is preparing me for my departure. Not much to report, but the next few days look particularly promising...

6/24:

I decided to entitle 6/24 Internet Issues, but Homesick Sunday could have just as well been the subtitle, a major wave of it (I'm glad there have been no serious attacks up to this point). After waking up from a particularly bizzare dream (involving The Sound of Music on a zeppelin, Muppets, and flying to Saturn), I could have almost sworn I was in my room back home. Obviously, I wasn't, and I realized how much I missed my room at home, my dogs, my family, pizza night on saturday... No need to get sentimental, but it was sort of hard to motivate myself to do anything. I practiced a bit, but I mostly listened to music (Staffan had given me a lent me a bunch of CDs that I wanted to listen to), read, and puttered about.

During the night on Sunday and this morning, it was AMAZINGLY windy. I checked weather.com and it was forecasting 19 mph winds. The image came into my head of some Swedish version of Paul Bunyan blowing on Malmo like it was a birthday cake, the wind was so fierce! It also put me in mind of my first visit to London back in 2000 with my grandmother, mother, and sisters; I remember hearing a similar high-pitched (high velocity) wind the first few nights we were there...

6/25:

Today officially marked my 1 week until departure date. I'm going to need to tidy up a bit, the girl from whom I'm renting the apartment is coming by to collect her mail. I'm hoping waylay her to see if she can help me with the modem troubles, but I think she will be in more of a helping mood if her place isn't a shambles (it isn't, by the way, but it could use some organizing). At the moment I'm actually not using my laptop, the modem seems to have given up hope on my computer, so I'm using a 'work' laptop that the girl left behind. She said I could use it, but I'm more comfortable using my own (not mentioning the Danish keyboard). However, the Blog must go on...

Today was yet another lesson with Staffan. We began by listening to one of his pieces. I wish I could remember the title because it was amazing! I'll have to write it down at my next lesson (tomorrow, conveniently), it was 5 somethings  -songs I guess- by a German poet of whom I'd never heard before, for Wind Ensemble and Choir. It was an incredibly masterful bit of choral writing, as well as orchestration. There were many times, in fact, that I forgot that there was not a string section. The way in which Staffan used instruments was very effective, both at conveying the texts (Staffan was kind enough to give me sum ups of each of the texts) and at supporting the choir. The poet was an early expressionist, and the musical style fitted it well, in its lushness it reminded me of some of Mahler's text settings, but I mean lushness only in a good way The whole piece - about 40 minutes - was really beautiful, and I hope that it is on CD somewhere so that I can share it with my colleagues at Blair.

That was only the beginning of our lesson, though lesson is perhaps only the formal word for today's session. It was more of a show-and-tell. After Staffan's seemingly extensive turn, it was my turn, which took even longer (indeed, sharing my pieces, interspersed with discussions about text setting, the state of the modern orchestra, current trends in music, and the creative process, took up nearly the next 4 hours). I gave him a sort of directed and abridged history of the music I've written over the past 3 years, and he had a lot of interesting things to say, also agreeing with me that, after a very compositionally active school-year (8 pieces in 8 months!), may now was the time for absorption and rest, not production. He gave me a lot of music to listen to today as well though, interestingly, even though I've begun listening to this new batch of CDs, I haven't heard anything I enjoyed as much as his piece.

Plans for the rest of the week? Well, cleaning up tomorrow morning, another lesson (another lesson thursday as well), and the Swedish student composers I met in London are hoping to get together with me on Wednesday. I'll report back then!

Godnatt!
-Trey

Fredag: I found my drill... ; Lordag: Another new park

Hej! We’re reaching the final countdown, it seems. We’ve entered the single digits. 9 days until I return to the states, and I have a flurry of lessons before the end on the 25th, 27th, 28th, and 29th - I’m looking forward to it!

6/22:

I mentioned a headache in my last entry; it wasn't the Swedish music, I’ve chocked it up to the amount of different public transportation systems I’ve used in the last week: too many to expect to be perfectly well. So Friday was a sick-day of sorts. It was also gloomy and overcast until about 6 PM, so that was another good reason why I didn’t feel up to tramping about the city.

So I stayed inside. And whilst inside, a noise came to my attention that I found rather unsettling. It sounded like someone was drilling or powersawing very close-by. As in, they were trying to drill or powersaw through my wall or ceiling. Obviously, this was a little off-putting. But I didn’t really know what to do. It wasn’t constant, just would go on for a bit and then stop, go on, then stop. Eventually, I went out of my room to see if I could ascertain where it was coming from (seemingly from the room to the right of mine, or at least, generally to the right of my room); as I came out I happened to run into a woman who was also trying to investigate what the noise was, as it was making it difficult for her to listen to the radio. This lady lived two floors down, hopefully that gives you some sense of how loud this noise was. We were both very perplexed. We rang the bell of the man who lives next door (Sebastian, though what sort of heavily-duty work he’d be doing I don’t know), but no one answered. Checking both around the building and outside, we were able to determine that the noise was coming from a room in the next building over (it’s connected to ours, but it’s the A building, whereas I live in the B building). We got up to the top floor of that building and knocked on the door of the room it sounded as if it were coming from.We learned that this man was installing a projector into his ceiling, and that he was sorry about the noise but it would probably be another 30 minutes. Well, knowing how long it was going to go on was good enough for me (also that there were not people about to come crashing through my ceiling), and the noise subsided later, as promised. The woman I met was very nice, I wish I could remember her name. I know which flat she lives in, but we’d never spoken until this point. She turned out to be a free-lance cellist, who had done chamber music concerts, played with the Malmö opera orchestra, and in musical pit orchestras. I hope I see her again at some point. Not sure when I would, but maybe I’ll drop a note through her mail-slot and I could offer her some tea or something. She was in the middle of doing laundry (time-constraints!) so she had to dash off. 

6/23:

Whereas yesterday was my day of hermitage, today I went out into the world! I’ve already been to Pildammsparken several times, and I’d been to the coast (not really a park area), but I knew there were more parks hiding out in Malmö, and I was up for a walk! 

I took an entirely different set of busses than usual and struck out in a direction that was new territory for me. Mostly my trips have taken me north or west (even north and west into Denmark, such as Helsingør) but today I went east. I got off the bus in an area looked very suburban, nice and quiet, and saw the park right across the road. Or, rather, I saw some trees and a field.

Trees and fields were what this park was. Unlike the manicured look of Pildammsparken, Bulltoftasparken was more like a nature walk. There were some paved paths, but there were also lots of dirt paths as well, sort of like Redbird Hollow (for those of you Cincinnatians) or like Radnor Lake (for those of you Nashvillians, but with more freedom as to where you could walk). I walked around for close to 3 hours! Lots of different, beautiful views. It’s good to walk - sounds silly to say, but I think that sitting in one place can easily lead to stagnation, the mind just goes blank, whereas, walking, the mind wanders, it’s wonderful. It took a bit of time to get out there, but it might definitely be worth one or two other visits during my remaining time here. There were other things too, one of the fields bordered what looked like some sort of recreation center, there were a few soccer fields, and even a miniature golf-course! You probably can’t see it too clearly, and more assuredly can’t read it, but I took a photo of a large sign explaining/advertising frisbee golf! Not exactly a sport I’m fond of, but I thought it was funny.

There was a lake at the park as well, and some inquisitive residents!

"The road goes ever on and on..." (jeez, how corny of me)

Mini-Golf? In Sweden?

Some non-avian wildlife

Swedish Frisbee-golf, including frisbee grip photo examples up in the top right corner

On the way back from the park, I bought some milk, which brings up a whole bunch of different anecdotes.

Apparently in Sweden (at least, I don’t know about other European or Scandanavian countries), there is a different genre of milk which is sort of a mix between milk and yogurt. It’s not viscous enough to be yogurt, but it’s thicker than milk and is tangy (when I first had it I found it downright sour). No, it’s not spoilt. I haven’t figured out exactly what an English translation would be, but I know at least to stay away from any milk carton that has fil on it. My first day in my apartment, I bought some milk, labeled Mellanfil. Sour milk. Regular milk is called mjölk (pronounced like ‘milk,’ only silly). The last time I went to stock up on milk, I picked up a carton of filmjölk. Note the fil prefix. It was sour milk again! I was quite frustrated. But when life gives you lemons... you’re often better off than if you had sour milk. No, when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. And speaking of fruit juice, I’ve found a really interesting variety of fruit juice available in local stores: strawberry juice, blueberry juice, pear juice, nyponjus (we’ll come back to that one), and strawberry/rhubarb juice, as well as your more regular kinds. I found that, combining some of the strawberry rhubarb juice (very sweet) with the filmjölk (tangy/sour), I was able to make a kind of fruit-smoothie or fruity milkshake. It’s helping my get through my ill-advisedly bought carton of filmjölk anyway! 

Today I also decided I would try this exotic thing called nyponjus. No, it’s not Nippon-jus - not Japanese juice. It’s pronounced New-pon-yoose, and it’s rose-hip juice. Pretty crazy, right? It’s delicious! Difficult to describe the flavor, but it’s got a rich flavor without being particularly heavy. Sort of like persimmons maybe? That’s the closest I’ve come, there’s definitely a savory note in there. Apparently Nyponsoppa (nypon soup) is sometimes served as a desert, hot, with vanilla ice-cream in it! I’d really like to try that. I wonder if it’s at all available in the US. If it is, both it and Strawberry/Rhubarb juice have reserved spots in my fridge!

Some of you may be wondering, I've mentioned practice in some of my blog entries, and after a few weeks, I'm still pretty terrible at the guitar. But, as I figured I was already keeping a diary (this blog), I might as well share my first strugglings in the world of guitar. In my defense the microphone in my laptop is downright terrible for recording music, so in that sense it wasn't as bad as it sounds in the video, but there's still, obviously, a long way to go! The piece is one I found online, Andantino by Ferdinando Carulli, and it's just the first part, there's another section that's still in the workshop, not that what I'm showing is by any means polished. Be merciful...

That’s all for now! Tune in 2 days from now!

Godnatt

-Trey

Onsdag: Ons-time, to Helsingør and back; Torsdag: Listening Lesson Bonanza!

Hej!

Not many pictures, though there are some, mostly music though. That is, after all, my pretext for being in Europe.

6/20:

My day began with a time-crunch; I had to schedule laundry sometime between 11 AM and 2 PM (I was wearing the only clothes I had left after London!), I had a lesson with Björn-Tryggve at the MHS from 10:30 AM to 12:00 PM. I usually get back from these lessons around 1 PM, because of the way the bus schedule works, and I needed to leave for Helsingør before 2 PM if I were to get to the concert that I missed last week at 4 PM. Thankfully, for some strange reason, all of the rooms’ doors were open, so I threw my laundry in the washing machine in the room I reserved, and ran off to the bus-stop to get to the MHS. 

My lesson was good; shrill, but good. That day technicians were testing the school’s newly updated fire-alarm system. The fire alarm must have gone off at least 6 times during the course of our lesson, each time lasting about a minute, it was close to maddening! 

Björn-Tryggve’s specialty is counterpoint. I believe he is writing a book on the subject. Since I have already studied 16th century counterpoint with Carl Smith (one of my favorite classes at Blair!), we discussed 18th century counterpoint (the Fugue), or Baroque counterpoint, as it is also called. A concise definition of either kind of counterpoint would be difficult, both kinds of counterpoint have some overlapping principles as well as some rules which are individual to each. Both kinds of counterpoint, however, primarily rely on the principle of imitation: one ‘voice’ or line does one thing, another voice does something highly related to that (often the same shape, starting on a different note). Both 16th century counterpoint and fugal counterpoint are built around a call and response where the first voice doesn’t stop ‘calling’ after the ‘response’ has started.

Many composers have written fugues. J. S. Bach is the most famous composer of fugues for Klavier (keyboard, or harpsichord, though plenty of people perform Bach fugues on piano), but also Mozart, Beethoven, and later composers such as Maurice Ravel, Samuel Barber, and Dmitri Shostakovich. Bach is the bedrock, though, so we looked at some of the principles underlying Bach’s fugues. One of the reasons Bach is difficult to analyze is that there is a delicate balance between vertical functions (the lines’ intersections functioning as harmonies in a progression) and linear functions (the lines functioning with more regard for their horizontal direction than their vertical intersection), which makes it difficult to tell the importance of notes. Every note can be justified as being important in some way, it seems, those ‘non-chord tones’ are necessary melodic figures, and just which melodic note is part of the chord is another difficult question.

Björn-Tryggve took me through the method he teaches to students beginning to write their own Bach-style fugues. It was very succinct, and it seemed like he had really mastered how to convey the material to students. 

Of course, while all of this discussion was going on, there were the intermittent blarings of the fire-alarm. Thankfully, it stopped for a large portion of our session, only resuming as we were wrapping up.

Then I dashed home! I wasn’t going to miss this concert a second time!

My clothes were obviously washed by now, so I got back into my reserved room, threw the clothes into the dryer, then went back to my room for a hasty lunch. It seems like the dryer was pretty powerful, my clothes were warm and toasty after only 35 minutes - I decided that things could air-dry in my room rather than have to miss the concert or be locked out from my clothes because I was in Denmark. That was fortunate, it afforded me the time I needed to get Malmö Central Station and get on the train to Helsingør.

I’ve been feeling a little under the weather (even more so today than 6/20). When I got on the train, a wave of exhaustion came over me, so I slept for the first hour of the train ride out. I arrived in Helsingør Central with 16 minutes before the concert started. I hoofed it the distance to Kronborg Slot and arrived just in time for the start of the concert in the Kronborg Slotskirke.

The concert was absolutely wonderful! The Slotskirke was an intimate environment with an excellent acoustic. We began and ended the concert with a sing-along of sorts, entitled Fællessang. Fortunately there were words printed on the back of the program.

The soprano whom I met on the train the weekend I went to Copenhagen was performing: Hanna Kappelin, as well as the violinist Julie Meile, and the organist/harpsichordist Søren Gleerup Hansen. They performed pieces I had never heard before. Two arias by Handel, two songs from Peer Gynt by Grieg, and a Telemann Cantata (the baroque kind of cantata, meaning a song with contrasting sections of recitative and aria). The performance was exceptional! The blend of the space, the acoustic, and the quality of the performance was wonderful! I’m sorry I missed last week’s concert, though Hanna assured me that this week’s was better. If I have nothing to do next Wednesday, I’ll certainly be going back for another performance!

I suppose this is where the duke of Kronborg would sit during services

The main stage. Interestingly enough, at least half of the concert was performed from the back of the chapel, with all of us facing forward. The organ was in the back of the chapel, so the other performers were back there too.

The organ pipes. It was a beautiful organ, though the pedals were a little clanky,  but it's an old instrument, no doubt.

I also took a few more pictures of Helsingør before I left. A beautiful castle! Just to be in the castle courtyard is very dramatic, surrounded on all sides by high and beautiful walls and windows... the train-ride back was uneventful (thankfully), and I got back home, had dinner, worked on part-making, and went to bed.

Shakespeare! I knew that something was rotten!

A swan! I took a video (which it would take forever to upload) of someone feeding the swan, as well as its mate, and at least 6 cygnets. There were pretty adorable, making little peeping noises! 

6/21:

Today was my first lesson back with Staffan since my trip to England. I had sent Staffan an e-mail (which he hadn’t received, maybe he hadn’t checked his inbox yet today, since I sent it last night articulating my new lesson plan for the rest of my stay, unless inspiration knocks very firmly on my door. I’d like to focus on listening to music while I’m over here, learning as much music as possible, opening my ears and horizons. It’s easier to listen to music than it is to write it in this sort of environment. My current living situation is not very conducive to composing, so I figure I’ll focus on something that will prove productive, rather than try to roll a boulder up a hill that I don’t have the strength to roll to the top. 

Since I don’t (and I don’t know many people outside of Sweden who do) know much Swedish classical music, our lesson today focused on Swedish composers of note. So far, just from today’s session I’ve added at least a cursory listen of the works of Allan Pettersson, Bo Linde, Lars-Erik Larsson, Karl-Birger Blomdahl, Ingvar Lidholm, Gösta Nystroem, Hilding Rosenberg, and Bo Nilsson to my list of composers I know. Maybe after I’ve done a little more listening (or as part of a final blog entry) I’ll give some sort of sum up of my favorite Swedish composers to you all, along with an excerpt or two. Even  giving only a cursory listen to these composers, as you could imagine, would take a while. 3 hours of listening! And it seemed like Staffan showed no signs of slowing down - I was astounded at the sheer volume of music he knows, in addition to the standard repertoire that most everyone gets through a music education knowing. Of course, then, one of the things I’ve learned about musicians is that many of them have specialty areas which, if you tap those wells, can increase your own musical knowledge immensely. I already mentioned feeling under the weather, and 3 hours of steady listening did not help matters. As good as the music was, I was getting a headache, so I called it a day, and will be meeting with Staffan again after the weekend.

It’s strange to think of how much time as elapsed, and how little time remains. I fly back to America on July 2nd, only 11 days from now! It’s been a lot of fun, and a huge adventure. My first excursion into the ‘real world.’ I know by the time I get home I’ll be fully ready for a really summer break. The kind I’m used to, in hot, muggy Ohio!

Godnatt!

-Trey

Monday: The Dark Morning of the Soul ; Tisdag: 'tis rest day

Hey/Hej!


This is a bit of an in-between post, as Monday was spent in England, trying to get back Sweden, and Tuesday has been in Sweden. So you get two affectations for the price of one - lucky you!


6/18:


Monday was a day I am likely to remember for a long time, and for good reason (though not for good reasons). I was sad to leave the hostel. Especially the night before, after I had finished posting, I talked with other people who were staying there from all different countries: Australia, Germany (living in Hungary), Italy, Scotland, to name a few, and it was really cool to hear some of their stories, exchange cultural quirks (the woman from Italy says that she never wants to eat pasta again, it's all she had growing up!), and just know why some other people were in London. Though London is expensive, I would have loved to stay longer, or maybe to stay in a hostel in a smaller town, then come into London if I needed to. My stay was amazing, but, as I mentioned in the previous post, London was a hub from which I branched out to the South and East of England.


That was Sunday evening (6/17), so let's move onto 6/18. At 8 in the morning, I went down to the computer in the lobby to check my flight itinerary for details like the flight number and confirmation code. I noticed a small problem. My flight plan said that I was leaving on the 18th of July. Obviously that was problematic. Very problematic. What to do? I had to buy a plane ticket right then and there, which I did - the cheapest I found that didn't have an 8 hour layover in Berlin was a direct flight costing about $230. 


Considering that unfortunate beginning, I went straight to the airport even though my flight didn't leave until 2 PM, just in case. I paid for a one-way ticket on the Tube in cash, and headed for Blackfriars station. When I got to Blackfriars to buy my ticket to go to the airport (Gatwick), I discovered my debit card had stopped working. Fortunately I could pay for the train ticket in cash, so I got to the right airport, but went first to the wrong airlines. It had been the one I didn't choose between the two options I was entertaining (British Airways, I ended up going with easyJet). When the man at the British Airways desk told me that they didn't fly to Copenhagen, the floor sort of fell away from under me. Fortunately, I was able to use the complimentary minutes for the Boingo Hotspot Wifi to access my flight information and found out the correct airline (though I had to schlepp back to the Northern terminal, I had gone to the Southern terminal, which was farther away, first). 


I tried to use my debit card again. It still was not working (the first time, I thought, might have been a fluke). The reason was obvious, though, it didn't take much to see how booking a one-way flight to leave london earlier than my 'original' (mistaken) flight plan had me leaving would raise some sort of alert in the system about possible debit/credit card fraud.


After wrestling with the obnoxious Boingo Hotspot Wifi, I was able to skype-call USBank from my phone and have my card re-activated. That was a great relief, for otherwise I wasn't sure how I was going to get from the Copenhagen airport to Malmo. One relatively calm plane-ride later, I dragged myself through Copenhagen airport, about done-in by the amount of stress, frustration, and panic that I had experienced.


 I thought I was out of trouble, but getting off the train in Malmo, I somehow left my house-keys on the train, and was only just able to jump back on the train. I was all turned-around, in every sense of the word, because for an instant after the train left, I thought I had gotten on the wrong train altogether, and was riding farther away from my keys. However, I had turned around beforehand to go up the escalator, and so, by seemingly happy mistake, I had gotten onto the train I had just left (I realized this when I stumbled into one of the compartments and saw a woman sitting exactly where she had been when I left the train). One of the strangest things was that my keys were just lying on the seat, and the person sitting across from me did not so much as blink when I snatched them up and hurried out again. If she had been there the whole time, why didn't she say anything when I left them in the first place?!


It doesn't matter now, I'm back in my apartment; an unfortunate coda to a truly excellent adventure. Carving out monday like a tumor, my British invasion was exciting, enlightening, entertaining, and full of tea, 'mind the gap's, and nice people. Better to think about the excursion in terms of my two 'interlude' entries. The story had a happy ending, though its protagonist was sadder but wiser by the end...


6/19:


I took the opportunity to do nothing today with reckless abandon. I have hardly anything to report. Practiced guitar for a while (after tuning it, it was bound to go out of tune after 5 days), re-arranged the time for my next lesson (it was supposed to have been yesterday, but the debacle prevented me from being in Malmo during the time we were supposed to meet. Anticipating this, I canceled my lesson when I bought my plane ticket, a good thing too, since I didn't make it back in time for the lesson, and wouldn't have been in the mood for it anyway.


I did do something today, though. I tried to write a piece, though not the kind of piece I usually write. I This piece constitutes my second attempt at what is known as 'computer-music.' No, it's not used for video games (necessarily), but it it uses computer programs, rather than musicians and instruments to produce the piece. My piece involved 'found sounds,' meaning that I took recordings I had made of particular sounds, then organized them into a way which I find meaningful or aesthetically pleasing. Ironically enough, this piece used as some of its main material sounds that I recorded when I went to London in March, but I haven't thought of anything to do with them until now. Such is the way of almost any idea, whether electronically recorded or just half-remembered, though. You think of it (and hopefully write it down!) or record it, and tuck it away until you can find a use for it. The first electronic piece I wrote used sounds I recorded in Nashville's Centennial Park, as well as the resonance of piano strings after they had been struck. I'll include it here. It's called Water(fowl) Music, a not-very-clever pun on Handel's Water Music


I don't really have a title for the piece, but it is dedicated to Emma Dansak, with whom I have been exchanging a lot of ideas while I've been in Sweden. I've appreciated her (if only through g-chat) company, and will hopefully write her a piece she can play, not just listen to, sometime soon. Electronic Piece #2 (Piece for Emma) uses recorded sounds of carillon bells from a church bordered Trafalgar Square, sounds from the London Underground, sounds of bird's from Regent's Park, and a musical excerpt from my one of my Historical Performance Practice classes which I recorded surreptitiously. Professor Carl Smith, and violinist Luke Witchger are my unwitting accomplices in this composition. Obviously, the medium for electronic composition is very different than 'acoustic' composition. There's no notation, just the direct input of information to how it is going to sound. I used the program Audacity to construct both of these pieces. It can sometimes to really nice to work with different materials, not have to think so much about 'notes' but think about crafting sound gestures. Even if this isn't the greatest thing I write in my whole career (let's hope it's not!), it was fun, and a refreshing change.


Tomorrow, I'm going to go (at the correct time) to Helsingor to see that soprano I met coming back form Copenhagen perform.


Godnatt!
-Trey