When composer Morten Olsen began working on his new piece Staring at the Sun, he had long considered writing a requiem. Not because he is religious – quite the opposite. But regardless of what one believes, death is a condition we all must confront. The end of life is, as he puts it, a mystery for us all, and for that reason the requiem tradition – with its focus on precisely this theme – has long fascinated him.
At the same time, the work enters into dialogue with a long tradition of famous funeral mass compositions. “ There’s quite a large body of fantastic music written by my colleagues over the past couple of hundred years,” he says. That tradition provided a framework he wanted to work within – but also challenge.
If you want to think outside the box
Before he began composing, Olsen undertook extensive preparatory work and research. If you want to think outside the box, he says, it helps to first figure out where the box actually is.
He therefore immersed himself in the Catholic funeral mass, listening to countless requiems and studying the original Gregorian sources. Among other things, he acquired a copy of the Graduale Romanum and learned to read neumes – the medieval notation system for Gregorian chant.
This thorough preparation was necessary because the work takes the historical liturgy as its starting point. At the same time, a particular challenge lay at the heart of the project from the very beginning: how do you write a requiem when you do not personally believe in the religious foundation on which the text is built?
“It’s a difficult balance,” he explains. Working with religious texts without believing in them can easily come to resemble hypocrisy. That was a situation he wanted to avoid, but at the same time he felt it was almost impossible to speak about death without drawing on the language of religion.
“When you try to talk about death without referring to the old texts and ideas, you almost become speechless. Much of the way we speak about death comes from religious traditions – even for people who are not themselves religious,” he says.
A requiem without God
The solution was radical: Morten Olsen took the traditional requiem text and removed every sentence in which God appears. In collaboration with the musician and poet Jesper Lützhøft, he then set out to find new words for the old form. Together they went through the movements of the requiem one by one, discussing what the texts actually mean – and how they might be translated into a non-religious understanding.
One example is the Offertorium movement, which in the traditional liturgy concerns the sacrifices that must be made in order to attain eternal life. For Morten Olsen, who views the world through a scientific lens, the very idea of eternity simply does not make sense.
Instead, they translated the idea into something more earthly: what we leave behind. How we are remembered. And how we live on in other people.
“If you want to leave behind a good memory, you sometimes have to set your own needs aside in order to coexist with others,” Olsen explains, adding that this idea becomes a kind of secular parallel to the religious notions of sacrifice and salvation.
The result is an hour-long requiem in which the choir sings almost continuously without God or Jesus ever being mentioned.
Tradition as a foundation
Just as the text of the work takes the traditional liturgy as its starting point, the music draws on the historical requiem as well. Morten Olsen composed the piece with the self-imposed rule that each movement should contain something from the original Gregorian music. In some places the melodies are clearly audible; in others they are well hidden, functioning as a point of departure from which the music gradually moves away.
The work begins with a minute’s silence. This is not merely a symbolic gesture – as we in life gather in silence to remember those who have passed away – but also a concrete musical idea. “When an entire room sits in silence for a minute, the audience’s attention sharpens,” Olsen explains. “It makes it possible to create very, very dramatic music with extremely soft sounds and to let the music emerge from almost nothing.”
Extreme music – but with direction
Olsen himself describes the music as “relatively extreme and quite challenging” for the listeners. In some places almost nothing happens for a long time; elsewhere the sounds become violently intense. Yet the form remains clear throughout. His many years of experience in the new music scene have shown him that if the audience can sense the direction – where the music comes from and where it is heading – most people can follow along, no matter how complicated or strange it becomes. That idea applies both to the musicians and to the listeners.
The choir at the centre
The work was written for the Copenhagen Boys Choir - Copenhagen Royal Chapel Choir, and although it could in principle be sung by an adult choir, the distinctive sound of the boys has played an important role. The completely pure tone of boy sopranos fascinates him and stands in sharp contrast to the more dramatic expression of operatic singing, which Olsen has deliberately sought to avoid.
The instrumentation consists of choir, sinfonietta, and three soloists: boy soprano, mezzo-soprano, and bass. The orchestra is relatively small in order to give the choir a clearer presence in the sound, and a few movements are entirely a cappella.
When Olsen tries to summarise the work, he returns to the starting point. Regardless of what we believe, we must all die. It is a condition that people have tried to understand for centuries – often through the language and rituals of religion. Staring at the Sun is his attempt to continue that conversation within a contemporary, non-religious framework: a requiem in which tradition remains, but God has been removed from the equation.
Time and place
Morten Olsen: At stirre på solen
Københavns Drengekor - Det Kongelige Kantori, Athelas Sinfonietta, Kristin Mulders, Steffen Rørvig Bruun, Carsten Seyer-Hansen
Friday 20 March, 19:30
Vor Frue Kirke, Copenhagen
Info and tickets
Saturday 21 March, 16:00
Odense Domkirke
Info and tickets
At stirre på solen - Morten Olsen skriver et requiem uden Gud
Da komponisten Morten Olsen begyndte arbejdet med sit nye værk At stirre på solen, havde han længe haft tanken om at skrive et requiem. Ikke fordi han er troende – tværtimod. Men uanset hvad man tror på, er døden et vilkår, vi alle må forholde os til. Livets afslutning er, som han siger, et mysterium for os alle, og derfor har requiemtraditionen – med dens koncentration om netop dette tema – længe tiltrukket ham.
Samtidig går værket i dialog med en lang tradition af berømte dødsmessekompositioner. “Der ligger en ret stor stak fantastisk musik skrevet af mine kolleger gennem de sidste par hundrede år,” siger han. Den tradition har været en ramme, han gerne ville arbejde indenfor – men også udfordre.
Hvis man vil uden for boksen
Inden han begyndte at komponere, kastede Olsen sig ud i et omfattende forarbejde. Hvis man vil tænke ud af boksen, mener han, er det en god idé først at finde ud af, hvor boksen egentlig er.
Derfor gravede han sig ned i den katolske dødsmesse, lyttede til utallige requiem-kompositioner og studerede de originale gregorianske kilder. Han anskaffede blandt andet et eksemplar af Graduale Romanum og lærte at læse neumer – middelalderens notationssystem for gregoriansk sang.
Det grundige forarbejde var nødvendigt, fordi værket netop tager udgangspunkt i den historiske liturgi. Samtidig har der fra begyndelsen ligget en særlig udfordring i projektet: hvordan skriver man et requiem, når man ikke selv tror på det religiøse fundament, teksten bygger på?
“Det er en svær balance,” fortæller han. Hvis man arbejder med religiøse tekster uden selv at tro på dem, kan det hurtigt komme til at ligne hykleri. Det var en situation, han gerne ville undgå, men samtidig havde han en oplevelse af, at det var så godt som umuligt at tale om døden uden at tage udgangspunkt i religionens sprog.
”Når man forsøger at tale om døden uden at referere til de gamle tekster og forestillinger, bliver man næsten sprogløs. Meget af vores måde at tale om døden på stammer fra religiøse traditioner – også for mennesker, der ikke selv er troende,” siger han.
Et requiem uden Gud
Løsningen blev radikal: Morten Olsen tog den traditionelle requiemtekst og fjernede alle sætninger, hvor Gud forekommer, og i samarbejde med musiker og digter Jesper Lützhøft satte han sig for at sætte nye ord på den gamle form.
Sammen gennemgik de requiemets satser én for én og diskuterede, hvad teksterne egentlig betyder – og hvordan de kan oversættes til en ikke-religiøs forståelse.
Et eksempel er Offertorium-satsen, der i den traditionelle liturgi handler om de ofre, man må bringe for at få del i det evige liv. For Morten Olsen, som anskuer verden gennem en naturvidenskabelig linse, giver hele forestillingen om evighed imidlertid slet ikke mening.
I stedet oversatte de begrebet til noget mere jordnært: hvad vi efterlader os. Hvordan vi bliver husket. Og hvordan vi lever videre i andre mennesker.
”Hvis man vil efterlade sig et godt minde, må man jo eksempelvis indimellem sætte sine egne behov til side for at kunne sameksistere med andre,” forklarer Morten Olsen og uddyber at den tanke bliver en slags sekulær parallel til de religiøse forestillinger om offer og frelse.
Resultatet er et timelangt requiem, hvor koret synger næsten uafbrudt uden at Gud eller Jesus bliver nævnt.
Traditionen som fundament
Ligesom værkets tekst tager udgangspunkt i den traditionelle liturgi, tager musikken afsæt i det historiske requiem. Morten Olsen har skrevet værket med det dogme, at hver sats skulle indeholde noget af den originale gregorianske musik. Nogle steder er melodierne tydeligt hørbare, andre steder ligger de godt skjult, og fungerer så at sige som et udgangspunkt, som musikken gradvist bevæger sig væk fra.
Værket begynder med et minuts stilhed. Det er ikke blot en symbolsk gestus – ligesom vi i livet samles i stilhed for at mindes dem, der er gået bort – men også et konkret musikalsk greb. ”Når et helt rum har siddet i stilhed i et minut, bliver publikums opmærksomhed skærpet,” forklarer Olsen. ”Det gør det muligt at lave meget, meget dramatisk musik med virkelig svag lyd og lade musikken vokse frem fra næsten ingenting.
Ekstrem musik – men med retning
Selv beskriver Morten Olsen musikken som ”forholdsvist ekstrem og relativt udfordrende” for lytterne. Nogle steder sker der næsten ingenting i lang tid, andre steder er klangene voldsomt intense. Alligevel er formen hele tiden tydelig. Hans mangeårige erfaring fra miljøet for ny musik har vist ham, at hvis publikum kan mærke retningen – hvor musikken kommer fra, og hvor den er på vej hen – så kan de fleste være med, uanset hvor kompliceret eller mærkeligt det bliver. Og den tanke gælder både for musikerne og for lytterne.
Koret i centrum
Værket er skrevet til Københavns Drengekor - Det Kongelige Kantori, og selvom værket i princippet kunne synges af et voksenkor, har drengenes særlige klang spillet en vigtig rolle. Drengesopranernes helt rene lyd fascinerer ham, og står i skarp kontrast til operasangens mere dramatiske udtryk, som Morten Olsen bevidst har forsøgt at undgå.
Besætningen består af kor, sinfonietta og tre solister: drengesopran, mezzosopran og bas. Orkestret er relativt lille for at give koret en tydeligere plads i lydbilledet, og enkelte satser er helt a cappella.
Når Olsen forsøger at sammenfatte værket, vender han tilbage til udgangspunktet. Uanset hvad vi tror på, skal vi alle dø. Det er et vilkår, som mennesker gennem århundreder har forsøgt at forstå – ofte gennem religionens sprog og ritualer. At stirre på solen er hans forsøg på at tage den samme samtale i en nutidig, ikke-religiøs ramme. Et requiem, hvor traditionen stadig er til stede, men hvor Gud er blevet taget ud af ligningen
Tid og sted
Morten Olsen: At stirre på solen
Københavns Drengekor - Det Kongelige Kantori, Athelas Sinfonietta, Kristin Mulders, Steffen Rørvig Bruun, Carsten Seyer-Hansen
Fredag den 20. marts, 19:30
Vor Frue Kirke, København
Info og billetter
Lørdag den 21. marts, 16:00
Odense Domkirke
Info og billetter