# Geirr Tveitt



## Mirror Image

Folk music and the very conscious application of aspects of folk music -- tunes, gestures, sonorities -- to serious concert music, was all the rage during the early twentieth century and it seems like every major country or ethnic group had its native champion or champions. Hungary had Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály; the United States had Charles Ives; and Norway had a man named Geirr Tveitt, a composer, pianist, teacher, and folk music collector who never earned anything like the fame awarded those other "folkish" composers but who has, in the years since his death in 1981, been investigated by Norse music lovers and scholars with ever-increasing interest. Efforts to paint a clear and accurate picture of the man's life and work have proven difficult, however: A fire ravaged his home in 1970, making ash of most of his compositions and folk music collections.

Tveitt was born in October 1908 and grew up, for the most part, in the region of Norway known as Hardanger. The piano and the violin were familiar to him from early childhood on, but when he went to the Leipzig Conservatory or formal schooling (1928 - 1932) it was composition on which he focused. After stops in Vienna (the Vienna State Academy) and Paris, where from 1932 to 1935 he took private lessons from Villa-Lobos and Honegger, he returned to Norway and supported himself writing criticism in Oslo and teaching privately. In 1941, he was awarded a Norwegian state pension and in 1942, he took up residence in the Tveitt family farm in Hardanger, devoting himself mainly to composition and to the collection and transcription of the region's folk music. His life's sailing was not always smooth, though: A scandal involving the Nazi's during the German occupation of Norway in World War II resulted in Tveitt having his state pension taken from him (it was reinstated in the late '50s) and several thousand pages of work -- including the bulk of 300 original works and reams of notated folk music unavailable except through Tveitt's transcriptions -- were lost to the above-mentioned 1970 fire. From time to time, Tveitt appeared as a performing pianist in his own works.

Tveitt's personal musical style draws heavily on the folk music with which he was so familiar, as much or more so even than does Bartók's. In 1937, he authored a theoretical treatise, Tonalitätstheorie des parallelen teittonsystems (Theory of parallel modal systems), seeking to support his own personal conclusion that the modal scale system (the so-called church modes) employed to various degrees and in various ways throughout the history of Western music are actually based on ancient Norwegian folk scales. His conclusions have for the most part been ignored, but the treatise still offers a great window through which to better observe the methods and manner of his own music-making. His output was prolific, including some 29 piano sonatas, five operas, a half-dozen piano concertos, a violin concerto, several suites for orchestra, miscellaneous chamber music, and works for various other solo instruments, including harp and saxophone. There is also a large body of pseudo-folk vocal songs. His best-known works are those that rely most on folk music: One Hundred Folk Tunes (1954 - 1963), a series of orchestral suites; and a volume, famous in Norway, called 100 Hardanger Tunes.

[Article taken from All Music Guide]

Has anyone heard of this composer? I have just ordered four Naxos CDs with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra of his orchestral works. His music is supposed to be a cross between Bartok, Ravel, Debussy, and early Stravinsky. What a match! I heard he was one hell of an orchestrator, which is good news for me. 

From my understanding, he was very popular in Norway during his lifetime. If any of you know anything about his music or have first-hand experience with it please let me know.


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## Tapkaara

I have few Geirr Tveitt discs and, honestly, I don't find him to be all that interesting.

I have one of the Naxos discs of the Hardangar Tunes and the other is of his Piano Concerto. I also have Baldr's Dream on BIS.

I find the music lacks a lot of individuality.


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## Mirror Image

Tapkaara said:


> I have few Geirr Tveitt discs and, honestly, I don't find him to be all that interesting.
> 
> I have one of the Naxos discs of the Hardangar Tunes and the other is of his Piano Concerto. I also have Baldr's Dream on BIS.
> 
> I find the music lacks a lot of individuality.


Really? How much have you listened to his music?


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## Tapkaara

Mirror Image said:


> Really? How much have you listened to his music?


I've had at least one of the discs for about 3 years and the other two about 2 years. I've listened to them enough to know I just am not that into Mr. Tveitt!


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## Mirror Image

Tapkaara said:


> I've had at least one of the discs for about 3 years and the other two about 2 years. I've listened to them enough to know I just am not that into Mr. Tveitt!


Well there's many composers you like that I don't. We have different tastes in music thank goodness.


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## Tapkaara

Listening to the Piano Concerto no. 1 right now...actually sounds pretty good. Maybe I was in a bad mood every other time I heard it. I may have re-evaluate this work...


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## Tapkaara

I am just about done with the 1st concerto. I need to retract my lukewarm feelings for this work. I really think it's very good, actually. Now onto the 5th concerto.


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## Mirror Image

Tapkaara said:


> I am just about done with the 1st concerto. I need to retract my lukewarm feelings for this work. I really think it's very good, actually. Now onto the 5th concerto.


Hmmm...interesting. That's all I really have to say right now.


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## Mirror Image

I think it's interesting how we hear a piece of music and dismiss it and then we go back to give another listen after not hearing it for quite some time and a lightbulb just goes off.

I usually don't dismiss something until I've given a proper amount of time to sink in unless it's that serialist garbage, then I'll just dismiss it from the very beginning.


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## Tapkaara

Mirror Image said:


> I think it's interesting how we hear a piece of music and dismiss it and then we go back to give another listen after not hearing it for quite some time and a lightbulb just goes off.
> 
> I usually don't dismiss something until I've given a proper amount of time to sink in unless it's that serialist garbage, then I'll just dismiss it from the very beginning.


Like I said earlier, I've had these discs for a while and I certainly listened to each more than once at some point. But you are right: it is very interesting how a piece of music you once did not like suddenly becomes much more appealing. I have obviously undergone some type of personal growth or change since the last time I heard the 1st and 5th concerti. Actually, pretty good stuff!


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## Mirror Image

Tapkaara said:


> Like I said earlier, I've had these discs for a while and I certainly listened to each more than once at some point. But you are right: it is very interesting how a piece of music you once did not like suddenly becomes much more appealing. I have obviously undergone some type of personal growth or change since the last time I heard the 1st and 5th concerti. Actually, pretty good stuff!


Well nobody is going to do what Sibelius or Ifukube does for you just like nobody is going to do what Ravel or Bartok does for me, but I think it's good that you're giving this composer another chance.

I've dismissed composers in the past, like Bruckner for example, I was about ready to write him off until I buckled down and listened to Gunter Wand's Bruckner cycle on RCA with Cologne Radio Symphony and I'm happy to say it changed my outlook of Bruckner from that point forward.

Of course, there are always going to be composers you don't necessarily click with right away, but one thing I listen for in a composer are four things: melody, harmony, rhythm, and structure. These are important for me, but I also like music that's well-orchestrated, of course not everything is going to be orchestrated as good as Ravel or R. Strauss, as much as I wish it was , but I've become pretty forgiving in the past few months and started listening purely on whether there's something in the music that impacts me emotionally.


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## taduy

I have listened all the five piano concertos of Tveitt , truly fascinating , pure and lyrical .... In my opinion , Tveitt s the second great Norwegian composer after Edvard Grieg


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## Headphone Hermit

what a shame that most of the posts on this thread relate to a tiff between two contributors!

I think the Hardanger Tunes are very enjoyable and well worth a couple of pounds to investigate this unusual composer. Such a shame that so much of his work went up in smoke - there must have been something (oops - many things) worthwhile in there that we'll never hear. Maybe in an afterlife there'll be some time within eternity to explore his 'lost' music???


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