ATONEMENT
ATONEMENT
Artist: CAPUT Ensemble, Tui Hirv
Composer: Páll Ragnar Pálsson
Format: 1 CD + 1 Blu-ray
DSL-92241
Available Now!
Composing is a meditative process I embark on in every piece I compose. It doesn‘t feel like beginning a new journey with each composition though, rather continuing from where I left off in the last one. This continuity reflects in my music – one sound grows out of the last one, like branches of a tree. Associations and encounters find their way directly to the music, in terms of narrative, atmosphere or structure. It is a conscious process of translation of some kind, and I gratefully allow it to happen, never applying force or excess intellectual argumentation. All the technique I have learned is in service of that unstoppable movement, never dictating the flow.
Exploring the DNA of my artistic development, I‘d say there are two major factors that have influenced me. One of them is to have been born in Iceland, growing up in a protected environment that leaves one with the feeling (or illusion) that one is free to do anything he wants. Then again moving to Estonia to study composition made me re-evaluate my perceptions on life and art so far. The brisk salty breeze of the ocean got replaced by scent of burning wood rising from the chimneys of old houses near the forest and the playful indie scene of Reykjavík by sophisticated academic concert life in ancient churches and guildhalls of Tallinn. It was the environment where I found my musical language, plunged into East-European art and history, travelled and made friends, connected deeply with the spiritual approach Estonians have to music and their somewhat ancient character. One of those old souls I got to know is my wife Tui who sings on this album. Our singer-composer collaboration started right away and has tied together our professional and personal lives in an especially fulfilling way.
The compositions on this album illustrate the shift of us moving back to Iceland and continuing life there with a new perspective. The oldest piece on the album was composed in 2011 when we lived the slow-paced life of young parents in the countryside-like outskirts of Tallinn whereas the latest piece was composed in Iceland and premiered in Berlin 2018. The texts chosen for the compositions demonstrate my influences during the time quite appropriately. Stalker, Tarkovsky‘s famous screenplay from where I borrowed the monologue, was shot in Tallinn and cleverly displays references to Estonia‘s troubled history. Wheel Crosses under Moss contains excerpts of folk hymns from Vormsi, an island off the West coast of Estonia once inhabitated by Swedes, until the whole community was evaquated in fear of the Soviet Army. Other texts are by Icelandic artist and poetess Ásdís Sif Gunnarsdóttir, whom I have collaborated with on numerous occasions. In the album‘s title-piece poem, Atonement, Ásdís Sif sensitively describes a feeling of re-connecting with herself and finding inner peace. The word itself – atonement – indicates my approach to composition in music and life.
Track List
1. Atonement - [9:22]
2. Lucidity - [9:02]
3. Stalker’s Monologue - [9:53]
4. Midsummer’s Night - [5:54]
5. Wheel Crosses Under Moss - [9:55]
Total time: 44:11
Release date: May 22nd, 2020
UPC: 053479224125
Quotes & Reviews
“a superb demonstration of the potency and poetry of Páll Ragnar Pálsson’s smaller-scale music: understated but powerful, strange but deeply personal.”
5 Against 4
“Páll Ragnar Pálsson‘s new album is dark and mysterious, reflecting the ravages of war and the uncertainties of time. Yet one can’t help but view it through the lens of love… Tui Hirv‘s operatic, internationally-recognized voice graces the majority of these movements, and even when the texts are dark, one remembers that grace is still possible in the midst of tumult ~ and can seem even sweeter in contrast.”
Richard Allen, A Closer Listen
“From the very opening of Atonement one is aware that one is not in Kansas any more, musically speaking. Although written for the somewhat conventional combination of flute, piano, violin, viola and cello with a soprano voice , the instruments all play in an edgy, eerie manner over an ambiguous rhythmic base. The music has what I call a “melting clock” sound, meaning that it moves in a continuous flow, seemingly without bar lines.”
Lynn René Bayley, The Art Music Lounge
“This complex, mysterious and very beautiful music is rooted strongly in the Northern European musical traditions that Pálsson and Hirv have spent years meticulously studying and will repay repeated close listening. Sono Luminus releases are renowned for superior audio quality and the spacious clarity of this excellent recording will not disappoint.”
Lisa MacKinney, Limelight
“...Taken together, they’re a superb demonstration of the potency and poetry of Páll Ragnar Pálsson’s smaller-scale music: understated but powerful, strange but deeply personal.... ”
