“the alchemy of total opposites”

September 7, 2021 11:54 AM

Soprano Jóna G. Kolbrúnardóttir sings Jóhann Jóhannsson’s “Odi et Amo” from the album Englabörn, accompanied by the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra. Usually when the piece is performed, the Latin poem by Catullus is sung by a computer and played off a tape.
posted by Kattullus (13 comments total)

Always on the lookout for new modern classical music especially if it's something a singer can work with. Thanks for posting!
posted by Sheydem-tants at 4:11 PM on September 7, 2021 [1 favorite]

Are you saying that arts in Iceland is… a land of contrasts?
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:43 PM on September 7, 2021 [2 favorites]

Took me by surprise how she bowed to the audience, turned and bowed to the orchestra, and then practically dashed off the stage. She certainly deserved to bask in it longer than that!
posted by jamjam at 10:57 PM on September 7, 2021 [1 favorite]

sometimes the best posts have the fewest comments. look at all the layers that's going on in this and they're a lot. first of all there is a version of Johansson's piece on YouTube and you can hear more of the echo of the computer play from the tape it's quite interesting. so this piece of music was written by Johansson and it's quite striking to be honest and he composed it for a play by Sigurjonsson. the computer version of The voice really does reflect the tone of cattulus' poem but what is really striking is the score to this piece it's in Latin and it goes into a marvelous mixture of confliction desperation and melancholy but not a melancholy that induces a great sadness. the live version is exceptional I really like it as as far as the human voice the tonality resonated with the computers lag from the tape and it brought out of beauty. I'm not sure of the play and it's theme so I'm really only going off the poem in the music but using the text we have the poem and it is usually associated with Claudia his lover and all that happened there. Claudia is the daughter of Appius Claudius Pulcher. brother to the infamous Clodius Pulcher. The bane of both Caesar and Cicero. he was an extremely powerful man and a violent as were the times so for cattulus it must have been quite a balancing Act between love, politics and power. I think Johansson really captured more than just the poems words itself, within the music there's much more going on, many more layers... as if something imminent we're about to happen, the betrayal, confliction that overwhelming desire to have all resolved to once again have that flame. The computer voice interests me in the fact that I wonder why it was worked into the play and I don't have that information so. the personal melancholy is learning that the composer of this piece is no longer with us.

for the first time in a comment I've actually used my real voice in that speaky little box thing, had to make a few corrections but hey this is my voice
great post.
posted by clavdivs at 11:08 PM on September 7, 2021 [11 favorites]

I enjoy Jóhannsson's other works as well, maybe in particular the gimmicky-sounding but interesting IBM 1401A User's Manual. He sadly passed away a couple of years ago, so there will be no new music from him.
posted by Harald74 at 12:13 AM on September 8, 2021 [1 favorite]

Kolbrúnardóttir also has a little-visited YouTube channel, btw.
posted by Harald74 at 12:22 AM on September 8, 2021 [3 favorites]

oh ! Thanks a lot, Katullus !
posted by nicolin at 1:38 AM on September 8, 2021 [1 favorite]

I was lucky enough to see Jóhannsson live a few years ago - sadly I came straight from a Christmas lunch and that and my tendency, when in a place I really want to pay attention, to shut down and fall asleep hampered my ability to give the show the attention it deserved. Great dreams, though. What I saw of it was extraordinary - Minimalism filtered through a Pink Floyd light show, and I do remember Odi et Amo - as I remember it the voice part was played from a reel-to-reel tape recorder, with a spotlight on it, so the machine became a part of the ensemble (now I look at the second link, yes, it was exactly like that). That sense of the mechanical as a character or almost a living thing runs through a lot of his work, as well as a nostalgia for the future (I'm reminded very strongly of Simon Stålenhag's work in that) - most strikingly not just IBM 1401 A User's Manual, but also Fordlandia. So it's important to me to remember that this was an aria written for a computer to sing.

On the other hand, this interpretation is beautiful, and it would be nice to think that the piece could enter the wider repertoire. Imagine if it were added to the Last Night of the Proms, for example.
posted by Grangousier at 1:46 AM on September 8, 2021 [1 favorite]

(or perhaps an aria for a tape recorder - it's interesting to note in the original version that Jóhannsson rewinds the tape by hand, and that that act of rewinding is a part of the performance.)
posted by Grangousier at 1:49 AM on September 8, 2021 [1 favorite]

A couple of other things - sorry, I don't think I've listened to the piece so many times at one sitting - firstly, although I can't keep my logical brain together long enough to analyse what exactly is going on, although the tune is a simple descending line of three-note motifs, the context of the end of the motifs seems to shift between the resolved and the unresolved by contrast with the orchestral accompaniment. Perhaps if I knew what was actually going on I'd be less impressed. The other thing - that gives a power to that first thing - is that while the soprano and orchestra are aware of each other, in the original, the voice is alone, singing to itself - as a machine, it's not capable of awareness: the band are playing to the machine, following it for timing. In ways I can't really get to on a Wednesday morning, I find that contrast immensely spiritual and moving, almost as a metaphor for cosmic love.

There's a translation of the text in it's Wikipedia entry:

I hate and I love. Why I do this, perhaps you ask.
I know not, but I feel it happening and I am tortured
posted by Grangousier at 2:03 AM on September 8, 2021 [2 favorites]

(Yes, sorry, that thing about harmonic contextualisation is something that all music does, yes, but there's a bareness to it here - the voice is doing something that to the voice is the same thing over again, but because of the accompaniment it becomes a quite different thing - that's particularly striking to me this morning.)
posted by Grangousier at 2:08 AM on September 8, 2021 [2 favorites]

After listening to both performances, I have to say I found the (original?) small ensemble performance w/ tape (and electric guitar!) to be much more moving than the version with the full orchestra and live singer. And that's nothing against Kolbrúnardóttir, who has a lovely voice, but her performance was missing the sadness and sense of isolation that the synthesized voice, played back from the tape, lends to the piece.

I'd also like to recommend the film 'First and Last Men' if you haven't seen it, which was both directed and scored by Jóhannsson. (The film is available from BFI to stream but requires a subscription.)
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 7:42 AM on September 8, 2021 [2 favorites]

Lovely stuff, takk!

For the Jóhann fans, a new collection of unreleased and unused pieces called Gold Dust came out today.
posted by myopicman at 12:25 PM on September 8, 2021 [2 favorites]