Symfoni nr. 4

Indischer Roosengarten und chineesischer Hexensee

By Leif Thomsen


    Composed 1981, revised 1981
    Dedicated to Adolf Wölfli
    1st performance on 31.10.1981 in Hamburg. The Symphony Orchestra of the Norddeutscher Rundfunk, conducted by Christobal Halffter.
    1st performance of the revised version on 11.1.1982 by the Danish Broadcasting Corporation, on the radio. The Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Michael Schönwandt
    Length 23 min.

NB  Due to the restrictive policy of the recording company Chandos not all music samples can be heard.

Nørgård composed his Fourth Symphony in 1981. It was commissioned by the Norddeutscher Rundfunk, and was performed for the first time that same year.

Just like Wölfli's pictures and writings, the symphony was composed within a relatively short period of time, about a year. It is 27 minutes long, much shorter than both the third and fifth symphonies. The symphony is an 'Hommage à Adolf Wölfli', as the preface puts it:

 

In 1912 Wölfli asked for paints and paper for a Musikbüchlein he was planning, and which was later published in 1920 under the title: Indischer Roosengaarten und Chineesischer Hexensee (Indian Rose-garden and Chinese Witch-lake). (...). However, Wölfli never finished the composition, and I have set out to realise his idea, based on his vision, but naturally within my own framework.

This double, paradoxical title is typical of Wölfli’s polarised view of the world, which shifts between idyll and catastrophe. At the same time, this polarisation is almost Chinese in nature, as no idyll exists that is not at times disturbed by catastrophe - just as the white fish has a black spot, or vice versa, in the famous yin-yang symbol.


 

Wölfli as a composer

His biographer, Morgenthaler, describes how Wölfli went about composing music:

    Musik macht der Kranke durch Tuten in eine aus dickem Papier zusammengedrehte Tüte. Auf ihr bläst er seine Weisen, die Märsche, Walzer, Polkas, Mazurkas, usw. Stundenlang musiziert er so allein in seiner Zelle. Lange muß er oft probieren, bis er eine Stelle richtig heraus hat., d.h. so, daß sie ihn befriedigt. Seine Musik mahnt an Blechmusik vom Lande. Ein bestimmtes Thema wird lange Zeit in den verschiedensten Tonarten variiert, wobei der Rhythmus wieder die Hauptsache ist. Hat er eine Melodie richtig herausgebracht, so wird sie aufgeschrieben. Dieses Niederschreiben kann auf zwei verschiedene Arten geschehen: Entweder macht er Notenlinien, meist sechs, und schreibt richtige Noten hinein, dazwischen Takte, Kreuze, Pausen, Schlüssel, usw. (...). Fordert man den Kranken auf, eine solche Melodie zu spielen, so setzt er seine Trompete an und spielt nach einigen Versuchen eine Melodie herunter mit der Behauptung, es sei die Niedergeschriebene. Ob es sie in Wirklichkeit auch ist, kann nicht festgestellt werden. Ebensowenig kann aber auch seine Notenschrift gelesen werden. Offenkundig ist, daß der Platz, den die Note auf der Zeichnung einnimmt, Wölfli mindestens ebenso wichtig ist wie ihr Tonwert: Seine Notenblätter wirken ausgesprochen dekorativ.

 

Idyll and catastrophe

Idyll contains catastrophe, and in the middle of catastrophe the idyllic will suddenly appear. In his extraordinary work, which fills more than 20,000 newspaper size pages, Wölfli portrays the sudden shift between the states of idyll and catastrophe, which makes both of them unreal and somehow distant: the world experienced as something distant from us and yet painfully close. Here is a quotation, in the original language, from one of his travel stories:

    Wihr wahren noch keine 10 Minutten lang Oben: Dah erkletertte ich an einer geeignetten Stelle Deren massiive, im höchsten Graade luxuriöse Brustwehr, wurde schwindlig und, fiel aus einer Altitude von zirka 723 Stund, in raasender Schnelle senkrecht hinuntt’r: Und fiel und fiel, bis daß ich entlich untten auf dem riesenhaften und, im höchsten Graade luxuriösen, Sannta-Maria-Steern-Riesen-Doom-Riesen-Grand-Platz radikal und total zerquetschte und, zerspritzte. Ebjä! Höhrndli ab und Toot: Mause-Toot.

Note the eccentric spelling, and the tendency to exaggerate the subject described by the use of harsh colours and expressions. And the fall: that ever-present, sudden fall into death with the just as sudden revival that always follows immediately afterwards.

 


Composition

What effect has this had on the composition of the Fourth Symphony? In the first place, there is the use of small, easily-recognisable motifs, which reappear in many places throughout the work, often in distorted forms. These motifs are sometimes new, but may well be borrowed from other composers. Secondly, there is the structure in two movements: the first movement, the Indian Rose-garden, contains something of the Chinese Witch-lake, and the same applies in reverse to the second movement. Nørgård has this to say:


    The Rose-garden is of course an idyll, and the Witch-lake a catastrophe, but what I was interested in was the mixture of these two. The Rose-garden is not allowed to break out in full flower: it is like an ethereal world of natural sounds, bird song and the peace of a sunset, torn asunder by the claws and knives of the Witch-lake. With its aggressive rhythms, its distorted Swiss popular melodies and roller-coaster glissandi, the Witch-lake cuts up the Rose-garden and vacuums the lot up, leaving nothing behind. And yet, the opposite also happens - the Witch-lake does not remain a pure catastrophe. In the middle of catastrophe, idyllic scenes appear - fata morgana with a sudden glimpse of an alpine paradise, and (at the very end, when everything is cloaked in darkness), the song of a bird.



Birdsong

Birdsong is not only heard at the end, but is a motif running through the whole symphony. As a matter of fact, though, Nørgård has chosen the melody sung by one particular bird only:

    I have been listening to birdsong for many years, recording the songs on tape and then playing them back at half speed, which shifts the song two octaves down, down to an acoustic range better suited to the human ear. Moreover, the sound is four times slower, so the tempo fits in much better with our nervous system!

    So, out of this collection I chose the African lark. With the bird's permission I composed a new ending to its song, a tail (actually the last two notes of the motif, at the ending of the text), as its own ending did not fit into the mood of the Rose-garden.