Interview, Johan Dalene on Nordic Rhapsody

After a highly-acclaimed January 2020 recording debut with Tchaikovsky and Barber's well-loved violin concertos (hailed by BBC Music Magazine for its 'freshness, vitality and interpretative charisma'), Johan Dalene – like the world in general – found his performing plans upended by the events that unfolded through the year.

One result of this was that he and pianist Christian Ihle Hadland found themselves with plenty of concert repertoire prepared, but no outlet to perform it – which is, in part, where his latest album Nordic Rhapsody (released on 5th March) found its beginnings.

I spoke to Johan about this album, and about the factors that both unify and divide the music of the Nordic nations in Europe's north.

The works you’ve chosen to perform on this album represent a fascinating treasure-trove of North European Romanticism – where did the idea for Nordic Rhapsody first come from, and how did you select the pieces to include?

It’s partly linked to recitals I had been giving, or at least intending to give; Christian Ihle Hadland and I were supposed to play some concerts with these pieces over the summer of 2020, which we didn’t get to do. So having played these pieces before, it was nice to be able to come together and play them in this context and record them.

We’re not actually a longstanding duo, incidentally – I hope we will perform together a lot in the future, but we have only done a few things to date. A few piano trios, and that sort of thing, but not very much at all. He’s fantastic – it’s very easy to play with him.

Sinding’s 1889 Suite ‘im alten Stil’, while clearly not a simple pastiche, draws on elements of Baroque music in its structure. Five years previously, Grieg had composed his well-known Suite ‘Fra Holbergs tid’ which does something similar; do these two works represent a broader trend among Nordic composers of this period that led them to look back to earlier eras, or are they just a coincidence?

It’s interesting to consider. I wouldn’t say that either of these composers composed in a neoclassical style or had any special interest in Baroque music, at least not to the extent of often being able to hear it in their music. They both studied in Leipzig, but whereas Grieg was always writing in a very Norwegian style I think Sinding was perhaps more German in the way he wrote, like Liszt and Schumann.

The thing about the Holberg Suite is that Grieg always wanted to write in his own personal way, and I think maybe he was trying it out to see if his personality could work in a different style. It’s possible that this was what inspired Sinding to do the same: that might be why one can hear the Baroque elements in Sinding’s Suite. But yes, maybe it is just a coincidence after all.

There’s a story about the Sinding piece that when it was first performed, in a concert at his home with a small gathering of famous composers, Grieg was one of them, while Sinding played the piano part and Johan Halvorsen the violin. It’s fascinating to imagine – but at any rate, we know that they definitely met.

The very definition of the term “Nordic” is sometimes contested – other expressions are sometimes used depending on the context. Do you think there are any musical factors that bind together the composers on this album, beyond the simple geographical facts of where they worked?

Absolutely. In many of the composers from the Nordic countries – particularly during this time when they were very inspired by Nordic folk music and by nature – you can hear those common factors. The folk traditions are different from country to country, of course, but still, there are similarities. And I think you can hear this in a lot of the pieces on this album.

We sometimes speak of this “Nordic sound” in composers: I don’t really know how to describe it but I think that part of it is this influence from folk music, and also a touch of melancholy. Many of the composers on this album, such as Stenhammar, were friends with one another – Stenhammar was a good friend of both Nielsen and Sibelius – so I’m sure they all inspired each other and discussed their music.

There’s an element of trying to find national identity: all of these composers were important for their countries’ identity, perhaps particularly Sibelius, simply through becoming so famous.

Finland tends to be seen as slightly separate in some ways from Scandinavia and the Nordic regions; how distinct do you think the Finns Sibelius and Rautavaara are from the other composers featured?

You can hear the difference even in the spoken language of Finnish: whereas Swedish, Norwegian and Danish speakers can probably speak to each other and be mostly understood, Finnish is totally separate.

I think the fact that Finland was occupied by Russia for a long time probably contributes to it as well; they became independent somewhere around 1917, I think, but it was a long Russian period and maybe that had some influence on composers. Sibelius lived during both of those periods, before and after independence, and he was extremely famous both nationally and internationally, but I think it was important to him that his music could help to shape a Finnish identity.

Rautavaara seems very similar – just the general feeling in his music. While of course in many ways it’s very different, it seems to have underlying elements in common with Sibelius.

Since you only have about 70 minutes available to you, Nordic Rhapsody can of course only present a very limited sampling from what must be a huge and rich vein of repertoire. Do you have any plans to explore other Nordic rhapsodies in future albums?

I haven’t really thought about it in detail, but I’d definitely love to dive deeper into more music by these composers. There are the Grieg sonatas, and many other things like that. My next recording project was supposed to be the Nielsen and Sibelius violin concertos, but that had to be changed because of the logistics of getting the orchestra together during the pandemic.

There’s definitely been a much greater emphasis on chamber music as a result; even in the orchestral concerts that are now starting to come back, the effect is felt. I was supposed to be performing the Nielsen a few weeks ago but we had to change it to the Mendelssohn because that can be performed by a smaller orchestra. It’s a step-by-step process.