CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Trio Mediaeval

Weill Recital Hall
Tuesday, December 4th, 2007 at 7:30 PM

Trio Mediaeval
·· Anna Maria Friman
·· Linn Andrea Fuglseth
·· Torunn Østrem Ossum
With special guest Birger Mistereggen, Percussion

TRAD. (16th cent., after M. Praetorius) "Det hev ei rose sprunge" (arr. Linn A. Fuglseth)
TRAD. (Norway/Oppdal) "Kling no klokka" (arr. Sparre Olsen)
TRAD. (Germany/Thüringen) "Gammel Maria-vise" (arr. Thomas Beck)
TRAD. (Switzerland/Einsiedeln) "Folkefrelsar, til oss kom" (arr. Linn A. Fuglseth)
TRAD. (Norway/Gudbrandsdalen) "Bruremarsj frå Gudbrandsdalen" (arr. Tone Krohn)
TRAD. (Norway/Telemark) "Det lisle bånet" (arr. Tone Krohn)
TRAD. (Norway/Vestfold) "So ro, godt barn" (arr. Tone Krohn)
TRAD. (Norway/Vestfold) "Den signede dag"
TRAD. (Norway) "Chorum"
TRAD. (Norway/Telemark) "I mine kåte ungdomsdagar" (arr. Andrew Smith)
TRAD. (Norway/Vestfold) "Springdans fra Vestfold" (arr. Tone Krohn)
BIRGER
MISTEREGGEN "Trumbeslaat" (Traditional Norwegian Drumming)
TRAD. (Norway/Vestfold) "Till, till Tove" (arr. Tone Krohn)
TRAD. "Rolandskvadet" (arr. Linn A. Fuglseth)
TRAD. (Norway) "Sordølen"
TRAD. (Norway/Telemark) "Solbønn"
TRAD. (Norway/Vest-Agder) "Lova Line" (arr. Linn A. Fuglseth)
TRAD. (Ukraine/Old Swedish Town) "Nu vilar hela jorden"
TRAD. (Norway/Vestfold) "Den elskte Jerusalem" (arr. Tone Krohn)
TRAD. (Norway/Hallingdal) "Eg veit i himmerik ei borg" (arr. Linn A. Fuglseth)
TRAD. (Norway/ Telemark) "Nu solen går ned" (arr. Linn A. Fuglseth)
TRAD. (Norway/Telemark) "Eg aktar inkje mykje hine gutan" (arr. Tiriltunga)
TRAD. (Southern Norway) "Tjovane" (arr. Linn A. Fuglseth)

Encore:
TRAD. "Danse, Ikke Grate Na"

Program Notes:

By Trio Mediaeval and Birger Mistereggen

Norwegian folk songs and medieval ballads have complemented our repertoire of sacred music and contemporary pieces since we began singing together in 1997. Although none of us in the trio grew up as folk musicians, we were nevertheless surrounded by folk music. These are songs we have known since childhood. Singing them in our native language and adapting them to suit our voices and sound has been an exciting process.

Fascinated by their beautiful melodies, harmonies, and rhythmic structures, Linn Andrea arranged some of the songs for the group, inspired by the performances of, among others, Kirsten Bråten Berg, Sondre Bratland, Agnes Buen Garnås, Berit Opheim, Unni Løvlid, the all-female vocal trio Tiriltunga, and Tone Krohn. Tone has collected many tunes from her home county of Vestfold in southern Norway (not especially known for its folk music), where Linn Andrea also grew up. We have been fortunate to work closely with Tone, who has arranged many of the folk songs in our repertoire.

One of the sound-worlds that make Norwegian vocal folk music so distinctive is the tradition of singing without words, a style known as tulling, sulling, or tralling, in which a sequence of consonants is invented or improvised by the singer. In dance music, which is characterised by rhythmic, often rapid, instrumental-sounding passages and uneven beats, singers create their own sounds using plosives and nasal consonants with relatively light vowels. A typical tralling sequence (as in “Springdans fra Vestfold,” “Bruremarsj frå Gudbrandsdalen,” and “Eg aktar inkje mykje hine gutan”) might be “tra di da di dadi damm di dadndidå.” This is very similar to the Scottish and Irish tradition known as “mouth music.” There is also a type of traditional singing known as lokk or laling, short motifs sung to call home cattle at night on mountain farms, and also an effective means of communication over long distances (as in “Till, till Tove”). With the exception of the styles of singing above, the text is an important element in the vocal folk music tradition.

In the same way that cultures, languages, and dialects vary from place to place, so do forms of musical expression. Folk music in Norway has a strong tradition of connecting a certain song or ballad to a specific place, event, or even to a specific person. In folk music, we don’t talk about composers, but we have a custom of acknowledging a performer as the source of a particular song by using the term “after,” meaning “as sung by.” We mention only the source from which we ourselves have heard and learned the tune, although it has been handed down orally for generations.

Trio Mediaeval is especially indebted to the group Tiriltunga, who have greatly inspired us through the years. The first time we heard Tiriltunga together was in 2000 during a school concert tour, listening to the car stereo while driving mile after mile through the desolate north-Norwegian landscape. We sang along and tried to figure out the different parts, ornaments, and style of tralling, and Andrew Smith subsequently transcribed a few of Tiriltunga’s arrangements for us. It was probably during that tour that we started to think seriously of putting together an all-Norwegian program and inviting percussionist Birger Mistereggen, who specializes in traditional Norwegian drumming, to join us. We had worked with Birger on several occasions in the past and were intrigued by the various textures and rhythmic grooves which the drum, Jew’s harp and other percussion instruments added to our vocal performance. Even though this is an unusual constellation, we like the way these instruments act as a counterweight to our voices.

In Norway the use of rope-tensioned drums probably goes back as far as medieval times. Around 1628, when Norway founded its own independent army, each regiment aspired to have drummers of its own. The military connection meant that the drum became a highly respected instrument, and drummers were frequently engaged to play for weddings, dances, and other celebrations. Thus the military drum tradition also became a folk music tradition. At weddings the drummer would play the bridal procession to and from the church; he would announce and welcome the guests as they arrived, and on the second and third days of what was usually a three-day wedding feast, he would wake the guests in the morning for a new round of celebrations. These traditions lasted into the 20th century (as late as 1940 in some parts of the country) but slowly disappeared along with the old military system. Had it not been for Johannes Sundvor’s transcriptions of Norwegian drum music, written down between 1915 and 1935, very little of it would have survived.

Until the mid-19th century, very little folk music had been collected and transcribed. In 1848 Ludvig Mathias Lindeman began compiling music from the rural areas of Norway at roughly the same time that several prominent fiddlers also set about collecting and transcribing material. It was a period of fervent searching for a national identity following Norway’s independence from Denmark in 1814; composers such as Lindeman, Johan Halvorsen, and Edvard Grieg bridged the gap between folk music and art music, incorporating traditional elements in their compositions and bringing folk music to the attention of the urban, educated middle classes. The origins of folk music are doubtless more international than Norway’s 19th-century nation builders would have liked to admit. The hymn Veni Redemptor Gentium, for instance, from the millennium-old Einsiedeln manuscript, has assumed the guise of a Norwegian religious folk tune in our interpretation (“Folkefrelsar, til oss kom”).

We would like to see this performance as our contribution to a living, oral tradition; although these songs bear our musical imprint, they are colored by all those who have performed and passed on the music before us.


Copyright © 2007 by Trio Mediaeval and Birger Mistereggen

Trio Mediaeval
·· Anna Maria Friman
·· Linn Andrea Fuglseth
·· Torunn Østrem Ossum
The brilliant Scandinavian voices of Trio Mediaeval specialize in a diverse polyphonic repertoire that features medieval music from England and France, contemporary works written for the ensemble, and traditional Norwegian ballads and songs. Founded in Oslo in 1997, Trio Mediaeval developed its unique repertory during intense periods of work at the Hilliard Summer Festivals in England and Germany between 1998 and 2000, and subsequently with Linda Hirst and John Potter.

Trio Mediaeval made its US debut in June 2003, performing two sold-out concerts at New Haven’s International Festival of Arts and Ideas. Their first US tour followed in February 2004 with concerts in Boston, Chicago, New York, and Washington DC’s National Cathedral. Return tour highlights include performances in New York’s Carnegie Hall and Brooklyn Academy of Music, Washington DC’s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, as well as engagements at San Francisco Performances and Spivey Hall, and a taping for NPR’s St. Paul Sunday. They have sung in cities across the country including Denver, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Ann Arbor, and Minneapolis. Their 2007–08 season includes engagements in Portland, Seattle, Boulder, and a return to Carnegie Hall’s Early Music in Weill Recital Hall series. This season, the trio will introduce works from their third ECM recording entitled Folk Songs featuring special guest percussionist Birger Mistereggen.

Trio Mediaeval has performed throughout Europe, giving concerts and radio broadcasts in Austria, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, and the UK in such venues as the Oslo Concert House, the Vienna Konzerthaus, and Wigmore Hall.

The trio delights in performing new music and collaborates with a multitude of contemporary composers, including Gavin Bryars, Piers Hellawell, Roger Marsh, Ivan Moody, Paul Robinson, Thoma Simaku, Oleh Harkavyy, Bjørn Kruse, and Andrew Smith. In 2005, the trio premiered Shelter in Cologne, Germany. This joint production of Bang on a Can composers Michael Gordon, Julia Wolf, and David Lang; German new music ensemble musikFabrik; and Ridge Theater received its US premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM).

In 2005, Trio Mediaeval’s highly anticipated third recording, Stella Maris, was released on ECM Records. The album features 12th- and 13th-century music from England and France as well as the world premiere recording of Missa Lumen de Lumine by Korean composer Sungji Hong. Trio Mediaeval’s first CD on ECM Records, Words of the Angel, immediately charted on Billboard’s Top 10 Bestsellers List and was the April 2002 Stereophile “Recording of the Month.” The group’s second recording on ECM, Soir, dit-elle (2004), features Leonel Power’s Missa Alma Redemptoris Mater alongside works by Gavin Bryars, Andrew Smith, and Ivan Moody, and met with similar critical and commercial success. Trio Mediaeval has just recorded their fourth album on ECM, a collection of Norwegian folk songs, which is scheduled for release in 2007.

With special guest Birger Mistereggen, Percussion