Fredrik Österling (1966)

Swedish composer of stage, orchestral, chamber, choral and vocal works successfully performed throughout Europe. Österling’s work deals with the correspondence between music, language and rhetoric. Österling studied composition at the Gothenburg College of Music from 1989-1993 with Lars Johan Werle and Ole Lützow-Holm, also studying form and analysis with Lennart Hall. 1997-1999 he was composer-in-residence at the western Swedish concert institute and after that at the county theatre of Skövde. A member of the Society of Swedish Composers (FST) since 1994, he was appointed secretary general in 2000, a position he held until 2004. In 2006, Österling was appointed organisational manager for the Swedish Musicians’ Union. In 2007, Stockholm Folkoperan gave the world premiere of Österling’s 8th opera, Shit också!, highly praised by audience and critics. Currently Österling is composing an opera, Näsflöjten (the nose-flute), to be premiered at the festival of Vadstena in 2009. It is an opera about the absurdities of the political aspects of the arts.

In Quartetto; étude sentimentale, it is, above all, the breakdown in communication that interests me. A scene is painted that supposedly describes a classic serenade (sad and lamenting) performed to two totally disinterested women. An encounter takes place, but falls into individual, almost narcissistic sighs; order is restored and the two no longer communicate… The work has a link with the old madrigal comedy. By way of introduction it uses the first verse of the poem “Les sanglots longs” by Verlaine. The poem is reduced to the level of phonemes and I have added fragments of madrigal texts in English, Italian, German and French – a feature of the suite as a whole.

For me, music drama is about bringing my full capacity as a composer into play. Alongside the problems of composition there is an element of pragmatism in working with music drama that both appeals to and disturbs me. Working together with several occupational groups forces you as a composer to hone your expression to the utmost: you have to be able to motivate your choice in a completely different way from, say, in a regular concert context. We composers have a lot to learn from opera: it’s not just about “delivering” complex material for gifted musicians to execute. You also have to convince. My interest in language and rhetoric has also contributed to an altogether special relationship with opera; in trying to push my sensitivity for language as far as possible, I also challenge the musical element of which I am so fond. Herein, in the ideal world, lies the basis for a situation in which language becomes music and music language.

www.fredrikosterling.pp.se
www.nasflojten.se