Jakob Davidsen’s mysterious and evocative song cycle, The individual and the entire tissue

JAKOB DAVIDSEN The individual and the entire tissue  Signe Asmussen (sop); Jakob Davidsens Kammerat O  OUR 8.226942 (41:06 &)

The individual and the entire tissue (2024), by Danish composer and pianist Jakob Davidsen (b. 1969), is a song cycle, a settings of poems for soprano and chamber ensemble. The texts are by the contemporary Danish poet Ursula Andkjær Olsen, from her collection Third-Millenium Heart. The liner notes offer the following description of The individual and the entire tissue: “Thematically, the work revolves around interconnectedness: the connection between the individual human being and both the immediate surroundings, the distant, and the infinite universe as a whole. It also explores the inner coherence of the individual person, who is at once an independent entity, or an entire universe in itself, while simultaneously being connected to the world around them.”

Two lengthier movements (At the end of each tree; The individual and the entire tissue) frame five briefer ones (Waiting Room; It sounded like; Closed orbit; Sun, up and down; You are inside me like). Each of the inner movements “has either a composer, a composition, or a musical genre as a more or less explicit point of departure.” The liner notes do not identify the specific influences. The outer movements “are more freely imaginative and draw on no source material other than the poems themselves.” The work incorporates both notated and improvised music. While I don’t have access to the score, the recorded performance of The individual and the entire tissue includes numerous extended instrumental passages that at the very least, create an aura of improvisation. During the course of the song cycle, the music explores a remarkable panoply of approaches and styles. Resolutely tonal music stands alongside the atonal. Classical influences from various eras, jazz, cabaret, and popular music intertwine, all in pursuit of illuminating Olsen’s symbolic, evocative texts.

Soprano Signe Asmussen is compelling in her mastery of vocal writing comprising a wide array of approaches, both sung and spoken. Throughout, Asmussen inhabits the timelessness and mystery embodied both in Olsen’s poetry and Davidsen’s music. Asmussen collaborates with a chamber ensemble, here collectively named the Jakob Davidsens Kammerat Orkester. The featured instrumentalists are the composer (piano), Anders Banke (saxophone/clarinet), Gunnar Halle (trumpet), Cæcilie Balling (violin), Tobias Van Der Pals (cello), Thommy Andersson (double bass), and Frans Kordelin Hansen (percussion). The intense connection between Asmussen and her instrumental partners is palpable. All told, I found The individual and the entire issue a unique and engrossing experience. Thanks to Our Recordings for including Olsen’s Danish poems, with English translations. Recommended. Ken Meltzer