DAVIDSEN The individual and the entire tissue — Signe Asmussen (sop); Jakob Davidsens CO London SO — OUR RECORDINGS 8.226942 (41:06)
**** A very personal song cycle by a most talented Danish composer.

Jakob Davidsen (b. 1969) is a currently active Danish composer who was introduced to Fanfare’s readership by James North in 44:1. The present disc is clearly a kind of sequel to that earlier disc, given the carry-over of composer, poet, soprano (earlier identified as a mezzo), and name of the ensemble, although the personnel of the latter varies between the two issues. In the present work, it includes piano, clarinet, trumpet, percussion, violin, cello, and double bass. I haven’t heard the earlier release, but it contained two works that that are likewise song cycles. Here, we are presented with only one, but its seven songs, lasting nearly three-quarters of an hour, comprise a fairly extended one.

The cycle begins with “At the end of each tree,” and one initially hears a fairly extended piano solo performed by the composer. The text of this song describes things in sevens—branches, leaves, points, etc. and reminds me in that regard of the English riddle that begins, “As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives….” In this initial song, Davidsen’s music features an irregular rhythm to represent the number seven, and there is considerable repetition of the note A-440, although it is cleverly decorated with a panoply of other pitches. This reiterated A, however, soon yields to repeated step-wise three-note patterns and other figuration. From the outset I must mention that the layout of the booklet has made it difficult for a non-Danish speaker to describe how the music supports the texts since it does not place the original Danish poems next to their English translations. The two, rather, are offered in separate sections, leaving me only the possibility of considering the music itself. The first song proceeds for about five minutes before one hears anything other than a voice and piano, but when the other instruments do appear, the texture becomes distinctly less tonal, an enrichment I find most original and attractive.

This combination and juxtaposition of simplicity and greater complexity continues in “Waiting Room,” a poem that seems to describe the waiting room of a medical facility where the patient handles his pain by “doing nothing.” Here, Davidsen really gets to show off his pianistic chops with a cadenza-like passage full of quick upward runs of notes. The vocal lines, however, remain relatively simple throughout this and the other songs, forming a distinctive and effective approach this composer has developed in his setting of texts.

In the third song, “It sounded like,” the listener hears some really up-tempo music. Here, the composer’s background in jazz really comes to the fore. As my colleague noted in his 2020 review of the previous disc, there are strong third-stream elements in certain places in these songs. I like that style, and this song provides a particularly catchy example of the genre with its overtones of the harmonic complexity of Ornette Coleman. “Closed orbit” returns to the gentler mood of the opening two songs, and the listener may discern elements of a jazz ballade in it, even if these are sometimes obscured by dissonance in the piano part as well as its quite virtuosic and decorative figuration. The jazz influence is also overt in “Sun, up and down” with its downward “walking” pizzicato bass line, although the soprano and piano parts of this trio (of sorts) are more classically oriented, the piano rather much channeling Bach.

The cycle closes with the beautiful and chant-like “You are inside me like” which foregoes any palpable jazz influence, but adds some piquant bitonality in the piano, and finally the title-generating “The individual and the entire tissue,” wherein the poem by Ursual Andkjær Olsen (the author of the entire cycle) is initially spoken and then sung to a sparse accompaniment of isolated notes and diads in the piano, and other instruments. The effect forms a haunting and memorable close to this most evocative setting of these Danish poems. Given my lack of expertise in poetry, I am reticent to speak of the quality of Olsen’s poems, especially in a translation from their original language, but I found them intriguing and evocative. I can affirm that soprano Signe Asmussen brings to them sensitivity, passion (where called for), and a secure sense of musical line with her pleasing vocal production. She also augments the timeless quality that the music often evokes. All the instrumentalists provide superb support, especially the composer whose part receives the lion’s share of the ensemble’s notes. He proves himself to be as fine a pianist as he is a composer and as the latter, he is possessed of a distinctive and appealing compositional voice. I thoroughly enjoyed this cycle, and I believe the Fanfare’s listeners will as well, even those who are not “into” jazz. Solidly recommended. David DeBoor Canfield