Geirr Tveitt - Recordings and Research

Recordings and Research

Today Norway is seeing the advent of a new generation of musicians and musicologists, who seem to be primarily concerned with Tveitt's music and not so much with the controversies he inspired. Starting in the late 1990s the Norwegian government began to provide some funding for the examination and preservation of the remains of Tveitt's scores, and several startling discoveries have been made. Thought to have been lost for all time, Baldur's Dreams appeared amongst the damaged manuscripts, and its fate is illustrative. Tveitt made numerous versions of the ballet - in Paris he presented a reworked score Dances from Baldur's Dreams. Tveitt then sent it to the choreographer Serge Lifar in London, where the score allegedly was lost in the Blitz.

However, after the singed manuscripts held at the NMIC were examined in 1999, it became apparent that Tveitt indeed had a copy of the 1938 original score - and through tedious restoration work by Norwegian composer Kaare Dyvik Husby and Russian composer Alexej Rybnikov from the singed manuscripts, recording, and a piano version, the ballet literally rose from the ashes. It is now available on BIS-CD-1337/1338, where Ole Kristian Ruud conducts the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra. A TV documentary program Baldur's Dreams on the incredible fate of the ballet, was broadcast in Norway on June 15, 2008 and attracted nationwide interest.

Another reconstruction project worth mentioning is the reconstruction of the solo piano piece Morild. The title alludes to the mysterious phenomenon of phosphorescence of the sea, and it was amongst the treasures lost in the 1970 fire. Fortunately, a recording of the work made by Tveitt for French national radio in 1952 has survived. It was issued for the first time on Simax in 1994. A reconstruction of the score was undertaken by the American transcription specialist Chris Eric Jensen in 2005 in collaboration with the pianist Håvard Gimse who gave the piece its first performance on Tveitt's 100th birthday on October 19, 2008, the first time it had been played by a pianist other than the composer.