Rolf Martinsson

Rolf Martinsson

ROLF MARTINSSON was born in Boalt in 1956. He studied composition at the Malmö Academy of Music from 1981 to 1985 for Hans Eklund, Sven-Eric Johanson, Jan W Morthenson, Sven-Erik Bäck, Brian Ferneyhough and Sven-David Sandström amongst others. His background is a solid one, with input from extremely diverse sources. It is also easy to be impressed by Martinsson's own craft and it is no coincidence that he was already teaching at the Malmö Academy practically from his own student years. He has also been a popular composer amongst musicians both for his sensitivity to instrument idioms and for his ability to challenge playing dexterity.

However, if we look only at the craft side of his music, at the, so to speak, formal qualities of his broad and multifaceted oeuvre, we risk missing something of the very essence of Martinsson. For in many respects he relies on his intuition, welcomes improvisation and likes to take himself by surprise. For example, he sees his series of piano pieces named after signs of the zodiac, which he wrote for specific pianists, as a kind of notated improvisation.

At the same time, Martinsson has been struggling with his professional role: "During my compositional years up to the mid 1990s I was constantly and annoyingly aware of all those judgemental faces surrounding me: critics, colleagues, musicians, conductors, audiences." He talks about the unblinking "evil eye" that he had to conquer - for the sake of his credibility and his capacity to develop as a composer. His way to get there passed through a somewhat more traditional form and tonal idiom than previously: the orchestral piece "Dreams", inspired by the Kurosawa film, the extravagant, highly expressive and successful trumpet concerto "Bridge", with which he made a swift triumphal procession around the world with the outstanding soloist Håkan Hardenberger, and the excellent Arnold Schönberg tribute "A.S. In Memoriam" for string orchestra, are each a kind of musical landmark in the reorientation around his output. "I did things forbidden to a modernist, time and time again." While some people criticised him for his sudden changes of direction, he has achieved enormous success around the world.

"I no longer need to apologise for my artistic choices, and that's where I needed to be if I was to continue composing and pursuing a personal tonal idiom." Knowing Martinsson, an artistic soul that combines firmness of hand with a kind of restless drive to avoid repeating himself, he will continue to surprise us with abrupt changes of style and expression; may the part always be followed by its counterpart.

Tony Lundman
Engl. translation: Neil Betteridge