Dan Laurin - The Swedish Recorder

Why is it so important to play modern music?
I think that now, in 1994, it's absurd for people to confine themselves exclusively to music written before 1900, never to seek out a new point of view or hear music in the dialect of our time, not to be curious. Transience is in the nature of music; when the final note has died, there is nothing left. The performer must have a basic interpretation of each piece, but this is roughly as static as his own personality. Every time he plays a piece it is born, because he interprets the present as it is at the moment. People change; the judgements of the nineteenth century are no longer valid in science, religion or art. If the gulf between the present and the idealised past becomes too large, our holistic overview of existence is shattered. For this reason modern people need modern music.
It is moreover a fantastic feeling for a performer to be able to converse directly with the composer, to learn the backgroud of the piece, to discover what expression he had envisaged, what his inspiration was. And, in concrete terms, what he actually means with his notation. In this way it is possible to get very close to the music.
The composers who write for me today have heard me play, and so part of my expression, part of me is already written into the music. The freedom lies in the interpretation itself. Artistic authority depends on the ability to convince with one's own vocabulary.
Naturally the repertoire must be developed, so that the music will not run out. It is a shame that the majority of instrumentalists devote themselves to playing to death the few concertos that already exist rather than discover the composers of today.
Above all, however, as I see it, it is a question of both musicians and public beginning to listen to music in a new way: with curiosity, without preconceptions or predetermined opinions. It is impossible to tell what will come next, what it will be like… how it will sound next time, or in the very next second… The entire creative process, to make, suddenly becomes more interesting. As opposed to reproducing something that others have already done before, one is always on virgin soil.
When working with a brand-new piece of music one is present at the most central phase of creativity, in which one forms an opinion of the aesthetics and ethics of creation, of the basic artistic principles; what is the story that should be told, how should it be expressed? Herein lies the beauty in all art; even if that which is presented is not necessarily beautiful in itself, the journey is worth while. This is a constant insecurity, a possibly conscious alienation from the established norms and from a generally obdurate, non-artistic musical life. If we apply the same principles to the rest of our lives we may find ourselves far away from what others call 'reality', but that's what it's really about.

The composers and their works
This is a selection of Swedish recorder music which, like an image of time, describes the present: this is the sound produced when Swedes write recorder music today. My intention has been to let the repertoire reflect some of the principal currents in modern music, heard through an instrument with roots in the early middle ages; the selection makes no claim to be anything other than subjective.

Dan Laurin was born in 1960 of Russian and Swedish parents. He studied the recorder in Denmark and in the Netherlands. He combines his career as a recorder soloist with teaching the instrument. He is currently Professor of the recorder at Bremen as well as Dozent at the Fünen Academy of Music, Odense. Dan Laurin also gives special courses in the musical rhetoric of the baroque and the interpretation of modern music. His development of greater dynamic expressivity in recorder playing has encouraged contemporary composers to write music for him.

Track List:
Peter Lyne
Concerto for Recorder and String Orchestra
1. I. Con energico - Allegro agitato - Vivace - Lento espressivo - Vivace - 5'00
2. II. Liberamente - Adagio - 4'50
3. III. Tempo giusto - 4'06
4. IV. Presto 2'55

Jan Sandström
5. A Dance in the Sub-Dominant Quagmire for treble recorder and strings 9'42

Björn J:son Lindh
Concerto for Recorder and Strings
6. I. Uvertyr 1'27
7. II. Echo en C 2'41
8. III. Encounter 5'46

Ladislau Müller
Concerto for Recorder and String Orchestra
9. I. Adagio espressivo - Risoluto - 9'46
10. II. Molto calmo - Allegretto gaio - Adagio espressivo - Lento - Allegro deciso 8'33

Staffan Mossenmark
11. No Mercy for amplefied tenor recorder, tape and live electronics 12'07

Tommy Zwedberg
12. And it killed him twice (1991-92) for tape 10'03

Dan Laurin, recorder
Sundsvall Chamber Orchestra, orchestra
Niklas Willén, conductor