List Hall in Graz

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Hirundo Maris with Arianna Savall and Petter Udland Johansen in the List Hall(Bild: Styriarte/C. Tschida)

The Hirundo Maris ensemble led by Arianna Savall and Petter Udland Johansen gave a Nordic concert in the Helmut List Hall in Graz as part of the Psalm Festival

Music cannot sound more Nordic than with the six-piece ensemble Hirundo Maris. The solemn melodies of the Norwegian folk music presented by the group around singer Arianna Savall in Graz stretch as far as the Northern Lights.

However, the real fascination of the evening is revealed by a small remark in the program booklet: the group's style is not described as folk music, but as "early fusion". And rightly so, because Savall changes the Scandinavian originals in her arrangements through highly diverse instrumentation.

Jumping dances and ethno-jazz
She mixes modern choral voices from the Camerata Styria into feisty jumping dances on the "Hardingfele" violin and bagpipes. Romantic songs by Edvard Grieg are given folk inserts, folk songs such as "Boadan Nuppi Bealde" hint at ethno-jazz with the solos of the horn-like cornetto mutuo.

The central dream poem "Draumkvedet" almost becomes a musical theater performance: while tenor Petter Udland Johansen declaims in dramatic Sprechgesang, instruments and timbres change with each verse. In the back and forth between Savall's glassy, filigree voice and the choir as the spirit of nature, the centuries-old original is described in a suitably profound way: as an undreamt-of expanse.