Musikk i fritt og kraftfullt svev – et essay med betraktninger rundt Magnar Åms opera Kimen

In this essay Lars-Erik ter Jung reflects over aspects of Magnar Åm’s music from a perspective of conductor and musician, with particular focus on the opera The Seed (2018). Along the way, he serves anecdotes that give insights into a composer who is afraid neither of courting contradictions, nor of following through his intentions with singular conviction. Ter Jung describes Åm’s music as simultaneously uncomplicated, intimate and powerful, its use of a free-tonal musical language allowing tonal relations to be dissolved, and communicating both stillness and loneliness, but also a gripping soulfulness, to the listener. The setting up of The Seed in Volda, involving a large apparatus of amateurs and professionals, undoubtedly gave all participants a memory for life. However, ter Jung proposes that this opera has significance in a much larger context as the mature work of a unique Norwegian composer who has attained the luminous clarity of a distinctly personal tonal language.