02 Dec JANUS ON DIGITAL PLATFORMS. BOOKLET TEXT

KNUT VAAGE / INGELA ØIEN: Janus
Composers write the music they must, and they do so for the ensembles they believe will suit the material best. But can the relationship between composer and musician also be symbiotic? It is both possible and likely. When something resonates in both parties in such a way that one feels at home in the other, we touch on a very important aspect of creating music.
In the fungal world, this is called mycorrhiza. Many fungi seek trees with roots that supply the fungi with carbohydrates, while the trees receive minerals and water through the fungi. It is a coexistence that benefits both parties. Music history is full of such symbiotic relationships between composers and performers. One gets to know each other both as a person and as a musician, and this acquaintance can unleash wonderful things in the world of sound. Symbiotic variations, versions of mycorrhiza.
JANUS is a being with two faces. In Roman mythology, this is the god of gates and doors, all beginnings, and every end. Janus is depicted with two faces on one head, with the faces looking in opposite directions. One gazes into the future, the other toward the past.
The composer Knut Vaage and the flutist Ingela Øien have chosen to name this album Janus, as it is a double portrait of their 40-year-long collaboration.
The pieces on the album are relatively different but share a common denominator in Ingela Øien. For several decades, she has been one of our foremost flutists, and one cannot help but think that in Knut Vaage, she has found the perfect collaborator, and vice versa. Øien's presence ensures that the connection between the composer and the soloist is always palpable. She brings warmth and presence to her playing, which Vaage fills with suggestions, instructions, encouragements, recommendations, and imperatives. She allows the material to flow through her, and what emerges is something that is undeniably her own, while also being deeply rooted in Vaage's distinctive sound world.
Even though the transverse flute is made of metal, it has a warmth and softness that easily evokes associations with lush gardens filled with seductive aromas in the air. We are almost involuntarily transported to composers like Debussy and Ravel; for some reason, there is something inherently French about pieces where the flute takes center stage, whether as part of a full orchestra, a smaller ensemble, or as a solo instrument. But the flute, one of the oldest instruments we know, also points toward folk music and folk tunes.
JANUS (2022) åpner ballet. Dette er en mektig og kjøttfull organisme som starter dvelende. Etter hvert oppstår det riss og rifter, sprekker og krystaller, en nedkjølt verden av is og frosne formasjoner. Det pumpes ut kaskader av perkusjoner: Marimba, vibrafon, crotales, gonger, flexatone, tam-tam, skarptromme, Gran Cassa, bongos og congas. I partituret skriver Vaage at dette arsenalet kan spilles av to perkusjonister, men at det gjerne kan være både tre og fire musikere i denne seksjonen. Sikkert ingen dum idé, for her er det nok å gjøre.
The dynamics range from an almost glass-clear silence that is then shattered by furious, sudden outbursts. A clear pulse is absent for large parts of the piece, but after seven and a half minutes, it erupts with a rhythm that transports us to the wildness of Russian ballets in Paris at the beginning of the last century. The ending is magical: here Øien plays overtones on the flute, creating a comet tail that disappears into infinity. A powerful and magnificent journey.
TAPT SLAG (1994, revised 2023) shows Vaage in a completely different mood. The first version was created 30 years ago, and it is evident that he was at a different stage in his development at the time, although the unmistakable touch of the later Vaage is also present here. The poet Hanne Bramness has written a text for this piece, which she reads herself, and the music carefully weaves around her voice. It is a canvas where tones are repeated in long sequences and series. The percussion, played by Owen Weaver, gently propels the music forward, while Øien sprinkles flute notes into this delicate gamelan-like soundscape.
MEDUSA (2023) is a piece for solo flute, and here Øien truly shows what she is made of. It teems with various playing styles and techniques, and once again, the dynamics span the entire spectrum, from the quietest quiet to the wildest wild. In folk music, there is a concept called dåm. It is a subtle tone that can only be sensed, a part of an underlying world. The fact that the different tone colors in this piece shift as a result of various playing techniques creates different dåm from bar to bar. Medusa, by the way, was the monster in Greek mythology that had a woman’s face with hair made of living venomous snakes.
FÅR EG LIKNA DEG for solo flute was written in 2006 (revised in 2023) based on a song from the cycle Eg strøyer mine songar ut from 1991, which is built on poems by the composer’s grandfather, Ragnvald Vaage. Får eg likna deg was originally written for soprano, flute, and piano. Here, Ingela Øien finds herself in a landscape with reminiscences of Norwegian folk tunes, but the associations also extend to atmospheres familiar from Fartein Valen’s music. Both Valen and Vaage share the coastal nature of Hordaland as a common tonal foundation, and this connection is palpable here.
The final piece is ELECTRA II (2023) for solo flute and electronics. It features abrupt jolts, piercing cries into the night and fog, full of dense dissonances. The use of electronic sound processing—masterfully and sensitively handled by Thorolf Thuestad—makes it sound like two flutes; it twists and turns slowly, almost like a string instrument (one even finds oneself thinking of a hardingfele). Long threads are spun, their ends unseen, stretching upward into a dark sky, above the clouds, and further still. Where are they going? What is their source, and to what are they connected? Øien brilliantly masters both the lightning-fast passages, the explosive jolts, the signal-like sounds, and the creeping, drawn-out tones. It is undoubtedly a fitting conclusion to an album that spans wide and embraces much. Symbiosis, mycorrhiza, synergy, and a fundamental mutual understanding of where one wants to go and where one is headed. We need no further arguments to understand that Øien and Vaage found each other 40 years ago and that there is a very good chance they will continue this journey together in the wonderful world of flutes. The head has two faces, and like Janus, they gaze both backward and forward.

Øivind Hånes