Geirr Tveitt

Geirr (Nils) Tveitt (October 19, 1908–February 1, 1981) was one of Norway's most distinguished composers of the 20th century. Like Prokofiev, Bartok and Rachmaninov, Tveitt was also an able pianist, and as a performer he won considerable acclaim in continental Europe and elsewhere. In his compositions and musicological writings, Tveitt displayed an almost obsessive interest in distilling and developing "Norwegianness" in music; embracing and producing controversial theories to support his arguments and aesthetic. His highly individual approach made him many critics at home in Norway, but also - according to many commentators - resulted in some of the most original art to emerge from a Scandinavian composer. Tveitt's music draws from many styles and traditions: his works have elements of the barbarism found in Stravinsky's early ballets, the unique rhythms and textures of Bartok's music and the floating and mystic moods of Debussy and Ravel - always underpinned by idioms derived from Norwegian folk-music. Tveitt's well-documented chase for a pure Norwegian national school of music, made him sympathise with some of the purist philosophies that came out of Germany in the 1930s. Even though Tveitt later repudiated any alleged affinities with Hitler's Germany, the musical and intellectual establishments of Norway long remained uneasy to fully embrace Tveitt and his music. However, the efforts of many distinguished Norwegian musicians (such as the pianist Haavard Gimse) suggest that the attitude to Tveitt's music is changing. A new generation of musicians and writers see potential in Tveitt's music to carry the music and tradition of Norway internationally.

Life

Tveitt was born in Bergen, on the Norwegian west-coast, where his father briefly worked as a teacher. His family were of farmer stock, and still retained Tveit, their ancestral land in Kvam - a secluded village on the scenic Hardanger fjord. The Tveit family would relocate to Drammen (ca 20 miles south-west of Oslo) in the winter to work, but return to Hardanger in the summer to farm. Thus Tveitt enjoyed both a countryside existence and city life. Tveitt had originally been christened Nils, but following his increasing interest in Norwegian heritage, he thought the name 'not Norwegian enough' and changed it to Geir. He later added an extra r to his first name and an extra t to Tveit to indicate more clearly to non-Norwegians the desired pronunciation of his name. It was during his childhood summers in Hardanger that Tveitt gained knowledge of the rich folk-music traditions of the area. Historically, Hardanger's relative isolation allowed for the development of a unique musical culture, with which Tveitt became infatuated. Tveitt was no child prodigy, but discovered that he possessed musical talent, and learned to play both the violin and the piano. And, after having been encouraged by Norwegian composer Christian Sinding, Tveitt decided to try his hand at writing music too.


Leipzig
In 1928 Tveitt left Norway to be educated. Like so many other Norwegian composers and intellectuals, he headed for Germany - to Leipzig and its Conservatory, which had been the hub of European musical learning and culture for so long. It was an intense time for Tveitt. He studied composition with Hermann Grabner and Leopold Wenninger, and the piano with Otto Weinreich, making extraordinary progress in both fields. The joy of learning from some of the best German educators of the time were often overshadowed by his almost chronic lack of funds - Tveitt having to rely upon translation work and donations to support himself. The Norwegian composer David Monrad-Johansen became Tveitt's great benefactor, and played a key role in helping Tveitt through the student years. Perhaps it was the expatriation from Norway that enkindled in Tveitt a strong desire to embrace completely his Norwegian heritage. Tveitt's profound interest in the modal scales (which forms the basis of the folk-music of many countries) often tested Grabner's patience. However, the latter must have felt great pride when Tveitt had his 12 Two-part Inventions in Lydian, Dorian and Phrygian accepted for publishing by Breitkopf & Hartel in 1930. The following year the Leipzig Radio Orchestra premiered Tveitt's first Piano Concerto - an impressive and beautiful work strewn with idioms and melodies derived from the music of Hardanger.


Amongst the Great in Europe
In 1932 Tveitt headed on to Paris. Tveitt became increasingly frustrated with the teaching in Leipzig, but found an oasis of spiritual freedom in the French capital - obtaining lessons from some of the greatest and most well-known composers of the time: Arthur Honegger and Heitor Villa-Lobos. He further managed to enrol in the classes of the legendary educatress Nadia Boulanger. Tveitt also made a visit to Vienna, where he was able to study for some time with Austrian composer Egon J. Wellesz - a pupil of Arnold Schonberg. Tveitt made one last educational stopover in Paris in 1938 before heading home to Norway to work. Tveitt had become one of the highest educated Norwegian composers ever, and had already managed to make a name for himself. His writings and compositions made quite a stir amongst the establishment in Oslo. In the years leading up to the Second World War, Tveitt derived most of his income working as music critic to 'Sjofartstidende' (The Naval Times). Tveitt's highly opinionated reviews contributed to his securing strong opponents - one of these were the Norwegian composer Pauline Hall. Yet, Tveitt focused his energies on composing - works pouring from his pen like "water from a waterfall". As soon as the Second World War had ended, Tveitt brought his scores with him to Europe, touring extensively - often performing own piano works with similar works by other composers, i.e. Grieg and Chopin. Many of the concerts were great personal and artistic successes for the Norwegian composer, and especially so the 1947 concert in Paris. Here Tveitt premiered his Piano Sonatas nos 1 and 29, some of his adaptations of Hardanger Folk-Songs and also the Fourth Concerto for Piano and Orchestra - Aurora Borealis. The piano concerto was performed in a two-piano version, Tveitt assisted by the french pianist Genevieve Joy. According to reviews, the concerto had thrown the Parisian audience into a paroxysm of ecstasy. Tveitt's intense, glittering, French-Impressionist flavoured rendition of the dancing and mystical northern winter sky, earned him the acclaim of his former teacher - the illustrious Boulanger - in her following review.


Any Composers' Ultimate Nightmare
In spite Tveitt's glorious successes internationally, the contemporary Norwegian establishment remained aloof. Following the atrocities conducted by Hitler's forces in Norway (and elsewhere) anything that resembled nationalism or purism was quickly disdained by the post-war intellectuals. Tveitt's aesthetic and music were fundamentally unfashionable. Tveitt struggled financially and became increasingly isolated. He spent more and more time at the family farm in Kvam, keeping his music to himself - all manuscripts neatly filed in wooden chests. The catastrophe could therefore hardly have been any worse when his house burned to the ground in 1970. Tveitt despaired - the original manuscripts to almost 300 opuses (including six piano concertos and two concertos for Hardanger fiddle and orchestra) were reduced to singed bricks of paper - deformed and inseparable. The Norwegian Music Information Centre agreed to archive the sorry remains, but the grim truth was that 4/5 of Tveitt's production was gone. Tveitt could not stand up to the hardship and tragedies of his life; he found it difficult to compose and succumbed to alcoholism. Tveitt died in Norheimsund, Hardanger, reduced, largely embittered and with little hope for the legacy of his professional work.


Tveitt and Neo-Heathenism
One of the most delicate and controversial areas of Tveitt's biography is his affiliation with the so-called neo-Heathenistic movement, which centered around the charismatic Norwegian philosopher Hans S. Jacobsen in the 1930s in Oslo. Jacobsen's main thesis - inspired by the theories of the German theologist Hauer - was the total refutation of Christianity in favour of a new heathen system based upon Norse mythology and the Edda poetry. A confused movement sought to 'set the Norwegians free' from the Church, and bring them back to their natural system of belief - the adoration of Odin, Tor and Balder. Furthermore, Jacobsen became a member of Nasjonal Samling ('National Assembly') - which led the interim, pro-Hitler government during the German occupation of Norway. Geirr Tveitt became infatuated with the theories of the movement, but it is important to note that Tveitt himself neither became a member of, nor associated himself with the Nasjonal Samling. His fascination with Jacobsen's theories however, materialised in conspicuous ways; he invented his own non-Christian timeline based upon the arrival of Leif Erikson in Canada, and he became an advocate of Antisemitism (e.g. suggested in his own correspondence). Tveitt's aesthetic found its way into music; his perhaps most intensely neo-Heathen composition is the ballet Baldur's Dreams. In it, Tveitt seeks to establish an inextricable link between this world - its creation, cycle and dwellers - and the eternal battle between the benevolent heathen Norse gods and their opponents, the evil jotuns. Tveitt began work on the ballet whilst studying in Leipzig, where it was first performed on 24 February 1938. There Baldur's Dreams became a remarkable success, and performances were later given in Berlin, Tubingen, Bergen and Oslo.

Another result of Tveitt's obsessive Norse purism was his development of the theory that the modal scales originally were Norwegian, renaming them in honor of Norse gods. He also developed an intricate diatonic theory, which interconnected the modal scales through a system of double leading notes. These ideas were published in his 1937 argument Tonalitatstheorie des parallellen Leittonsystems. Even though most musicologists agree that Tveitt's theories are colored by his personal convictions - his thesis is intelligent, challenging and thought-provoking.

The issue of Tveitt's inglorious relationship with 'nazi-ideologies' is so delicate that most commentators have avoided it all-together. It is illustrative that Norwegian scholar Hallgjerd Aksnes, PhD., does not address this matter in her article on Tveitt in the New Grove Dictionary of Music. And perhaps rightly so - anything even loosely connected with Hitler's Germany still stir strong emotions. For Tveitt it proved devastating to his reputation, and contributed significantly to his becoming a persona-non-grata in the post-war musical establishment in Norway. However, as the most traumatic years in European history is now becoming more distant, a new generation of scholars and musicians are approaching Tveitt and his music with well-founded revisionism, realising he too could not escape the times in which he lived.


Music

Very few of Tveitt's works had been published or properly archived at institutions - aggravating the effects of the 1970 fire. Tveitt himself made visits to universities across Norway, and wrote to friends, asking for spare copies and parts - but little was found. However, over the years, copies of quite a few scores have turned up, and others have been reconstructed from orchestral parts, or from radio and magnetic tape recordings. The fate of Baldur's Dreams is illustrative. Tveitt made numerous versions of the ballet - in Paris he presented a reworked score Dances from Baldur's Dreams. Tveitt then sent it to the choreographer Serge Lifar in London, where the score allegedly was lost in the Blitz. However, after the singed manuscripts held at the NMIC were examined in 1999, it became apparent that Tveitt indeed had a copy of the 1938 original score - and through tedious restoration work by Norwegian composer Kaare Dyvik Husby and Russian composer Alexej Rybnikov, the ballet literally rose from the ashes. It is now available on BIS-CD-1337/1338, where Ole Kristian Ruud conducts the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra.


The Great Treasure of Hardanger
Tveitt's perhaps greatest musical project was the collection and adaptation of traditional folk melodies from the Hardanger district. Many composers and musicologists (including Norway's internationally recognised Edvard Grieg) had successfully researched and collected the music of Hardanger long before Tveitt. However, from 1940 onwards, when Tveitt settled permanently in Hardanger, he became one of the locals, and spent much time working and playing with folk-musicians. He thus happened upon a treasure of unknown tunes, claiming to have discovered almost one thousand melodies, and incorporated one hundred of these into his worklist; Fifty folktunes from Hardanger for piano op. 150, and Hundred Hardanger Tunes for Orchestra op. 151. Musicologist David Gallagher might speak for many when he suggests that in these two opuses - their universe, music and history - are found the very best of Tveitt's qualities as a composer. The tunes reflect both profound (infact) Christian values and a parallel universe dominated by the mysticism of nature itself and not only the worldly, but also netherworldly creatures that inhabit it - according to traditional folklore. The major part of the tunes is directly concerned with Hardanger life, which Tveitt was a part of. In his adaptations, therefore, he sought to bring forth not only the melody itself, but also the atmosphere, mood and scenery in which it belonged. Tveitt utilised his profound knowledge of traditional and avant-garde use of harmony and instruments when he scored the tunes - achieving an individual and recognisable texture. Copies of the piano versions and orchestral suites nos 1, 2, 4 and 5 were elsewhere during that tragic fire in 1970, so these works survive. Norwegian musicologists hope that suite nos 3 and 6 might be restored from the burned-out remnants held at the archives in Oslo.


Songs for the Common Norwegian
Tveitt's works remained largely misunderstood and unappreciated by his contemporary Norwegian musical establishment. However, Tveitt won the hearts of a whole nation with his radio programmes on folk music at the Norweigian National Broadcasting (NRK) in the 1960s and -70s. Tveitt worked as Assistant Producer to the radio, where he also premiered numerous songs written to texts by respected and well-known Norwegian poets like Knut Hamsun, Arnulf Overland, Aslaug Vaa and Herman Wildenvey. Many Norwegians remember prehaps Tveitt most fondly for his tune to Aslaug Laastad Lygre's poem We should not sleep in summer nights. Tveitt could not impress the musical intelligentsia with his complicated and refined scores, but won the affection of the commoner with simple lyrical tunes of a clearly Norwegian curve. In 1980 Tveitt was awarded the Lindeman prize for the work he had done through the NRK.


Worklist
The major part of Tveitt's scores are published by the Norwegian Music Information Centre.

Prillar - suite in Norwegian modes, 1931.
Baldur's Dreams - music from the ballet.
Piano Concerto No. 1.
Piano Concerto No. 3 (this work only exists as a 1947 recording, Geirr Tveitt, piano).
Piano Concerto No. 4 'Aurora Borealis' (Northern Lights).
Piano Concerto No. 5.
Piano Sonata No. 29, Op.129, 'Sonata Etere'.
A Hundred Hardanger Tunes, Op. 151 - Suite No.1.
A Hundred Hardanger Tunes, Op. 151 - Suite No.3.
A Hundred Hardanger Tunes, Op. 151 - Suite No.4.
A Hundred Hardanger Tunes, Op. 151 - Suite No.5.
Fifty Hardanger Tunes - arranged for piano, Op. 150.
Variations on a Folk song from Hardanger, for two pianos and orchestra.
Nykken (The Water Sprite), symphonic poem for large orchestra.
Jeppe, opera.
Concerto No. 1 for Hardanger fiddle and orchestra.
Concerto No. 2 for Hardanger fiddle and orchestra - 'Three Fjords'
The Sun God Symphony, for orchestra (abridged version of Baldur's Dreams)
Telemarkin - Cantata for voice and orchestra.
Halldor Meland