Fanfare Interview with composer Morten Jessen
By Anton Angelo

Congratulations on your new album with beautiful and inspiring music. You started composing it shortly after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. What prompted you to begin? Was it a personal reaction, a political statement, or something else?

Well, the first initiative to make this music came in the first days of the full-scale invasion. Most experts, both in Russia and here in the West, said that Kyiv would fall in three days, and it’s still standing. I immediately had a feeling that I wanted to show my solidarity with the incredible courage of the Ukrainian defenders.
At the time, there were already so many crises. We had Brexit, Trump had won the first election, and we have the climate change. And now there was a new crisis where nobody wins but everyone loses. Everyone was going to suffer, and for what? I was just filled with frustration.
But the Ukrainian defenders showed everyone, including all the experts, that it is actually possible to overcome the impossible through courage. For me, it was a symbol that I wanted to support through music.

I noticed that in the first release of Kyiv Suite, you had titles for the movements: “Hope,” “Persistence,” “Grief,” and “Glory to Ukraine.” In the latest release, however, you removed the titles. What prompted you to do that?

Well, actually, there were no titles to begin with. When we released the first movement as a single, we talked about whether we should give the movements titles. I was talking with Natalia: what should we call them so that they would be distinguished from one another rather than experienced as one whole? Originally, the piece was written for my orchestra, the Nordic Church Ensemble. The name of the fourth movement came because the choir sings “Glory to Ukraine,” or “Slava Ukraini,” and the names of the other movements came through conversations with Natalia.
But now we have released it together with the Decency Suite, a new four-movement work, and I wanted it to be like two musical works trying to describe the same thing—solidarity with Ukraine. But the first piece, Kyiv, is made out of my imagination. When I wrote it, I had never been to Ukraine. I had never experienced anything like what I was trying to describe.
Decency Suite, on the other hand, was written after I had been to Ukraine. It is inspired by actual people and actual experiences. So I thought it would be a beautiful thing to have four movements that try to describe the same thing before you have experienced it and after you have experienced it.

I understand that your collaboration with Natalia Gordeyeva was essential to this project. She was born in Kyiv and experienced the invasion firsthand. How did you connect? How did you get to know each other?

I wrote the four movements of Kyiv, played them on the piano, and put them on YouTube. Natalia found them there and wrote to me that she could recognize her own story in the music. When she wrote to me, I had already planned some benefit concerts with my orchestra. I invited her to come and join the orchestra as an additional violinist, and that was how I got to know her.
For me, there was a lot of doubt when I wrote the music, because what I was trying to describe was something I had never experienced. I had never been to Ukraine or experienced war. So when Natalia wrote to me, I had been wondering whether my music was too bright or too dark, and how it would sound to a Ukrainian.
When she told me that she could connect with it and recognize her own story in it, it was as if my music had found its destination. It was very important to me that a Ukrainian person and a musician like Natalia could connect with the music.
Then we started playing together. She performed in concerts with my orchestra, and during that process, I realized that she should be the one telling her story through my music. So I rewrote the piece so that it became the violin work it is now, with Natalia telling her story through my music. I rewrote it through my collaboration with her.
It was also during this period that we got to know Lars Hannibal, the owner of OUR Recordings. He heard one of our concerts and has been helping us ever since; he played a major role in this project as well.

You also connected with Viktor Marynchak, a Ukrainian priest who conducted services in Kharkiv during the siege. What did he bring to the project, and how did you incorporate his perspective into your music?

I was reading about Viktor in a Danish newspaper, Kristeligt Dagblad, where I read about him holding services in the subway during the siege. I reached out to him because I wanted to understand what it was like to be in Kharkiv and to live through this conflict.
We corresponded, and one of the impressions that I tried to capture in the music was his idea that, instead of being brought down by the injustice of living through these times, you have to meet the time you are given, and your response to that time makes you the person you become.
He was actually blessing soldiers going to the front, but he was also blessing people leaving the country because they were just as important. From a Christian perspective, what you can contribute is important. So I thought it was beautiful that everyone could contribute in their own way.
That gave me the idea that, because of the benefit concerts I was giving in Denmark, he could write a speech to Ukrainian refugees in Denmark. I recorded the speech he wrote, and it is also included on the physical album, the LP. He talks directly to the Ukrainian refugees in Denmark, telling them how important it is for them to come back and rebuild the country after the war, and that their contribution is just as important as that of the soldiers at the front. I thought it was really beautiful that everyone gets to contribute in their own personal way.

What prompted you to write Decency Suite? Was it simply a continuation of Kyiv Suite, or did you want to incorporate a different set of experiences after your travels to Ukraine?

It was the ten-day journey through Ukraine with Natalia, during which we played the music and got to experience the country, that inspired me to write Decency Suite. So, yes, Decency Suite is inspired by what I saw and experienced during those ten days.

“Decency” is an interesting choice of words. When you think about war, you usually don't think about decency. What prompted you to call the work that?

It's a really good question. It was actually a person named Viktor, one of the soldiers we played for in Kyiv. We played at a place called Ukraine Hub for Veterans. He had been a tank driver and was a family man whose family lived in Bucha and Irpin, the suburbs of Kyiv. You have probably heard of Bucha and the horrific war crimes that took place there.
Viktor wanted to show us where he was from, so he drove us around his neighborhood. When you looked into Viktor's eyes, you could see that something was really broken by what he had experienced, I imagine, at the front in his tank.
But what inspired me was that he kept focusing on the good things. He was so proud. He would say, “Look at this bridge. We have already rebuilt this bridge. Isn't it marvelous? And this road was completely destroyed, but look how we have already managed to do this and this.”
It was a feeling of no matter how much you have to go through or what is thrown your way, this man was simply decent. He was broken, but he was still a decent human being. And I felt that this was actually what we are defending.
I'm not saying that the aggressors cannot be decent people; they are human beings too. But in this case, there is an aggressor and there is aggression, while the Ukrainian people are defending themselves. What I found so beautiful was that this man remained a decent human being. That feeling stayed with me after the ten days.
Another example was the young people sitting in the streets of Kyiv. There was a celebration every year in Kyiv called Kyiv Day, and there were young people sitting in the streets, talking and celebrating. Then the air-raid alarm would start, and they would say, “This should not ruin our evening. We are young, and we are here.”
They did not want the war to prevent them from being alive and focusing on the beautiful things around them. And that feeling of celebrating life is what became Decency Suite, I guess.

How different was it to perform your music in Ukraine as opposed to performing in Denmark or in another country not directly affected by the war?

It was a very special experience. I think the concert we had at the Kyiv Philharmonic, where we had a full hall and standing ovations, was particularly powerful. These were actually the people who had inspired me to make the music. The hope and inspiration came back to me from the people applauding. It was something very special, and I will never forget that particular moment.

You wrote Kyiv Suite right at the beginning of the invasion and Decency Suite much later. Now the war is in its fifth year, and there is no end in sight. Has your perspective changed since the beginning of the invasion?

Both yes and no. The music should sound as it does because it was written when it was written. But of course, your perspective changes over five years. When I started writing Kyiv, it was just an impulse. Now I know so many Ukrainian people, so of course my perspective and my feelings toward the conflict are different because it is much more real to me now. But still, this music is about hope, solidarity, and support. So, overall, I don't think I would do anything differently, if that's the question.

When you think about music influenced or inspired by war, such as Shostakovich's war symphonies, you think of anguish, anger, sorrow, and despair. Your music is nothing like that. Why is your musical response so different from Shostakovich's in describing the suffering and horrors of war?

Of course, there is more than one reason for that. One is that I have never experienced war myself. I've been to Ukraine, but I have never been to the front lines. So war is something different for me.
My music is not intended to describe war. It is intended to show the Ukrainian people that they are not alone, that there are people who stand with them, who know that they are fighting for us, and who support them and show solidarity. I think that is also why my music is more optimistic, because that is my focus.
But I haven't experienced war myself, so I wouldn't claim to know what that really means, because I'm Danish. That being said, I think there is darkness and despair in my music. I don't think those things are absent. I think they are there as well.

You chose a violin-and-piano combination, which is a very intimate chamber setting. Why didn't you use the organ, which is one of your instruments?

Well, I think the piano is mainly my instrument, although I'm also an organist. But it is a good point, because, as I said earlier, Kyiv was originally written for orchestra and choir, and it was first performed that way, with Natalia in the orchestra. Then I rewrote it because I think it was important to the storytelling that Natalia should be the one telling the story. I think she can interpret it and tell the story much more vividly than I can.
As a single person, she can phrase it. In her playing, I think you can hear the despair and the struggle, but also what a strong person she is as a Ukrainian. I wanted that to be the focus of the music: that she is telling this story.
And I, as a pianist and composer, am supporting her. I also think this creates a very beautiful bond between our countries: Natalia and the Ukrainians are at the front and actually know what this is about, while we Danes are far away, trying to do what we can to support them and show solidarity, knowing that the Ukrainian people are suffering for our safety as well.

Do you think that a listener in Ukraine might hear something in your music that a listener in Denmark or another country would not?

I think it's really hard for me to answer that question. The only thing I can say is that I'm extremely proud and very grateful when people tell me that the music has helped them or done something positive for them.
Many Ukrainians have said to me that they appreciate the focus on hope. As you also mentioned, it isn't simply dark. I have been told by many Ukrainians that this is actually a very positive thing because there is so much despair and darkness, and the music brings them hope.
If that is the case, it makes me very, very grateful. And, yes, that's something to be really proud of.

I also know that, in addition to composing and performing, you are involved in charities that help Ukrainian people. Is that correct?

Yes. All our concerts have been benefit concerts, and so far the record sales have also benefited Ukraine and Ukrainian defenders.

Do you separate your work as a composer from your charitable work, or are they inseparable for you?

I really like this question because I've been thinking about it a lot since you sent it to me. When I got back from Ukraine in 2024, we started talking with the Danish Embassy about the Decency Suite project. But before I could write it, I had to write something that wasn't political, something I could write simply for the sake of the music, if that makes sense.
Everything had become very much one thing, and I had to ask myself, “What is my musical language right now?” I've always been very focused on developing my musical language, but suddenly it had become very much tied up with this particular case and with my feelings about the conflict. So I had to write another piece before I could write Decency Suite, because I actually needed to feel that the two things were separated.

And a related question: when someone listens to your music, say, fifty years from now, knowing nothing about the war in Ukraine or the conflict that inspired it, what do you think they might get from the music if it is separated from that particular historical context?

Oh, if it is separated from that context? Well, I hope it will bring them something. I think of the music as timeless. I hope it brings, well, that's a really hard question. What should someone feel when they hear it? I'm not sure I can answer that.

That's okay. We don't have answers for everything. I think music is timeless, and I think your music is timeless. It doesn't have to be connected to any particular event.

That's true.

Is there any particular moment in Kyiv Suite or Decency Suite that is difficult for you to play because you become too emotional?

Yes. I think the fourth movement of Kyiv is difficult. At the end, I have this image of church bells ringing while the choir in the orchestral version sings “Slava Ukraini” and keeps repeating “Glory to Ukraine.”
For me, it can be really difficult to play that movement, or the ending of it, when I know that the reality is so different right now. Kyiv is being heavily bombarded, and the Ukrainians don't always have the necessary means to defend themselves. Playing a piece that is almost like a victory scene, “We made it”,when that is so far from reality, can be really difficult.
I think that covers all the questions I wanted to ask. Thank you very much. I really appreciate your time. Hopefully, we will talk again after the war has ended.

Yes. We all hope for better times.