Playful Seriousness: Per Nørgård In Memoriam

My sister Maj Kullberg, and I are second generation Nørgård collaborators having been brought up with the composer as a regular guest in our childhood home as he taught composition in our hometown as well as collaborated on new works with our parents. 

We entered the dung filled cold stable and performed the first movement of his 10th string quartet surrounded by 120 mooing cows

I remember a frost touched January morning at Frederiksdal Manor on Lolland, as my string quartet and I were awaiting the arrival of Per Nørgård. We had already worked extensively with the composer on his string quartets and had had the honour of having his 10th quartet, Harvest Timeless, dedicated to us. 

With Per humour has always been an integral part of our communication and this morning was no different. My sister and I picked him up from the ferry together with our host, Christine Krabbe, who herself has been instrumental in many Nørgård oriented projects such as the documentary film Les Archers. However, instead of taking him to the beautiful manor where our three day workshop would take place, my quartet, Mrs Krabbe and I had decided to pull the old composer’s leg and take him to an industrial cow stable through backways that would obscure that mansion.

The first word that enters my mind when thinking about my old friend Per Nørgård is playfulness

To Nørgård’s credit he didn’t so much as flinch as we entered the dung filled cold stable and performed the first movement of his 10th string quartet surrounded by 120 mooing cows, a composition we lovingly called Harmless Timewaste much to the feigned chagrin of the composer. 

The first word that enters my mind when thinking about my old friend Per Nørgård is playfulness. Talk to anyone that really knew him and they will confirm that this quality has been a pervasive force in his life, in conversations and not least in his music, where he constantly explored the unknown with a remarkable zest for life and wonder. 

In this way he has inspired generations of musicians and composers and seemingly worked with the same passion whether with amateurs or professionals

The second word that fits my personal experiences with Per is generosity. For me this quality was in part shown through the attention he gave me as I kept playing his solo works for him time and again, thereby discovering his creative approach to his own music as he presented new perspectives on the same works. His generosity is further consolidated in the numerous works he composed for me over the course of more than 20 years from several solo sonatas through chamber music works to a cello concerto. I am by far not the only person to have been enriched in this way as Per always has been as much a patient teacher as an internationally celebrated composer. In this way he has inspired generations of musicians and composers and seemingly worked with the same passion whether with amateurs or professionals. 

In my collaboration with Per he slowly allowed for the incorporation of my creativity as he taught me how to approach the adaptation of his works and through this his view on for instance instrumentation.

From her bed Per’s wife Helle expressed her joy over hearing his piano playing again, something which he hadn’t done for several years

Although humour and playfulness was part of everything Per did, he was nonetheless deadly serious about his art. In 2009 when I was about to give the premiere of his 2nd Cello Concerto, Momentum, at the Warsaw Autumn Festival, we ran into an obstacle as the vibraphone that plays a major role in the concerto turned out to have a broken membrane. When asked if it would be acceptable to perform the concerto with the defunct vibraphone Per responded: »no, but we don’t have to perform the piece – that is an option«. In other words he was absolutely uncompromising when it mattered but luckily the situation was solved to much laughter when one of the percussionists returned from the men’s lavatory with a condom and managed to fix the instrument this way.

The third word that comes to mind as I think of Per is curiosity as evidenced by his experimentational approach to every new work he composed. The final collaboration that I shared with Per was marked by this inquisitiveness, as he and I undertook an improvisation project with drummer Kresten Osgood. In 2021 at his home in Copenhagen Per and I improvised side by side, he on the piano, I on the cello, with Kresten playing his drums in the adjoining living room. From her bed Per’s wife Helle expressed her joy over hearing his piano playing again, something which he hadn’t done for several years and this positive experience became the catalyst for four live sessions at the Village Recording in Copenhagen.