The Moods of Viggo Mortensen in At All

By: Editor | May 18, 2008 | Musique

The following is just one woman’s feelings about Perceval Press’ recent CD release, “At All” by Viggo Mortensen. The work is intellectually challenging and may draw entirely different emotions from another listener. This release is a near solo work, with only one track containing work from Buckethead and Travis Dickerson, a combination we have become accustom to hearing from Perceval. This writer-artist would disagree with categorizing the works on this CD as experimental music, as that term would be a shallow take completely overlooking the deeper elements of “At All.” While recognizing, in the words of the great Jazz artist Elliott Sharp, “no improvisation is ever truly free,” the works on “At All” are that of a Free Jazz Style. Or in classical terms, Impressionism. At risk of offending an artist who loathes to fit into a category – or to reference self – Mortensen uses suggestion and mood to create atmosphere in this impressionistic work.

A famous example of an impressionist composer who utilized the power of musical suggestion to create atmosphere was the Italian composer Ottorino Respighi in his symphonic poem “The Pines of Rome,” also known as the “Roman Trilogy” – “Fontane di Roma” (Fountains of Rome 1915-1916); “Pini di Roma” (Pines of Rome 1923-1924); “Feste Romane” (Roman Festivals 1928). The “Pines of Rome,” specifically in the movement “The Pines of Villa Borghese,” uses a blaring forte trumpet to recreate the sound of children crying, and the harp, flutes and strings to create childish taunting sounds plus a chorus of instrumentation in question and answer format that creates sounds of a group of children making fun of one another. These were sounds Respighi heard while at this Villa. Much like Monet who painted outdoors, Respighi painted his musical brushstrokes outdoors and composed what he saw.
Both Mortensen and Respighi draw from a similar pallet where instrumentation personifies human emotion. The two artists rely heavily on musical symbolism. French composer Claude Debussy, who authored the groundbreaking works that started the musical genre of Impressionism, and Respighi have very feminine approaches to the style and chord structure. Mortensen tends towards a masculine and slightly more dissonant form of Impressionistic techniques. All create very deep emotional sensations. The opening legato note of “At All’s” track two is reminiscent of the opening legato note of Debussy’s “Piano Works No.1” track titled “Nocturne” - except Mortensen’s dissonant chord structure is masculine instead of Debussy’s soft feminine mood. This is aptly so since Mortensen’s track is titled “Bomb This” and has an eerie feeling of the aftermath of nuclear bomb explosion.

All of these artists use the Symphonic Poem to open the mind to subliminal emotion sometimes not readily accessible. The genre is a dream mood and its harmonies may catch the listener off-guard because they do not fit into cookie cutter symphonic forms but do tend to draw on portions of those elements for structure. The feeling of being thrown off-guard also can come in a transition from one movement to the next, as in the transition from Mortensen’s “Tokyo Doesn’t Love Us Anymore” (track to the title track “At all (track 9). That one the reader will have to listen to for the full effect. Mortensen’s style might even feel like a fresh deck of cards just out of the box thrown into the air and scattered on the ground such as in “Shoreditch Nocturne.” His musical brushstrokes are purposefully visible and at times blurred by the piano’s pedal to create a psychedelic mood. His voice sounds as though he is in deep despair - vocal tears.

Mortensen’s cover photo also uses the power of suggestion. Some might find threads of the character Mother from the 1998 release and remake of Hitchcock’s masterful work “Psycho,” a film in which Mortensen played the role of Sam Loomis. Others might find the cover photo uses Monet’s use of light and it’s ever changing qualities. The inside photos also create moods of isolation and deep reflection on the past.

“At All” is available from Perceval Press for $10

From www.malibuartsjournal, as is the article above.

Viggo Mortensen’s Time Waits For Everyone

By: Editor | May 18, 2008 | Musique

A solo venture by local underground Jazz artist Viggo Mortensen, this new Perceval Press CD Time Waits For Everyone fits into the ranks of the turn of the Century composers. The works as a whole are originally crafted products of human sensibility interpreted through jazz improvisation. Consonant motifs resolve into dissonant chords where pedals and keys linger on an idea of solitude in the minimalism of a single repeated note. The slow transformation of chords is merely one facet of these minimalist poetic Lieder without words, or art songs, sequenced into Liederkreis, or a song cycle.
Time Waits For Everyone can be linked to the prior works Intelligence Failure and Please Tomorrow. The group of CD's is a seeming three-part modern Liederkreis. Please Tomorrow felt like it was about getting to dawn. Intelligence Failure, which plays out dark motifs, instrumentation and chord structures, felt like the tense fight between dark and dawn. Time Waits feels like it is about being dawn. Similar ideas were heard in the prior two works but are more fully resolved in Time Waits.
None of the motif continuation critique is to berate the works as mere repeats. Rather, the most current of the three is more complete, much like Mortensen's work in I Forget You Forever. In that book, a similar idea was visually executed with images often presented with little to no text and no need to do so. The repeated theme in those photos could be seen as always looking into something or being looked at – or voyeurism. Open windows, open and empty shelves, photos with a vignette creating a sense of telescope or womb – each photo carried a sense of being watched or watching with the ultimate end dark with empty and bloody carcasses. Here too the Lied does not need the spoken word to convey its strong emotion. Music's history holds the Lied was interwoven with the German language but influences were found also from French composers Claude Debussy and Louis Berlioz, among others. The work uses phrasing styles from nocturnes and preludes, and the idea of a Sonata, or to sound, versus a Cantata, or to sing. Time Waits For Everyone reveals a more mature pianist than what the musician let show in prior releases.

This sudden surge of confidence is perhaps most evident on the track Danube Poem. Here Mortensen's masterful use of the pedals is combined with strong feelings and motifs from Debussy's Claire de Lune, a similar idea also found on Please Tomorrow's track Moonset. Both tracks created deep meditation euphoria, another facet of the modern Lied in the New Age genre. All three also have a brief encounter with children’s song motifs, such as Three Blind Mice. The revisited feeling of such minimalism in this work conjured feelings of a political statement on the emotionally blank age of war. If one musically translated Mortensen's beautiful poem Back to Babylon, Danube Poem would be it. Traversing back and forth in gentle contrapuntal woven segments, deeply emotional progressions are juxtaposed against the passionless and sexually dry. Therein lies the brunt of tension found in Time Waits For Everyone.

Heavy Russian elements also found in the Lied style, at times, strained the delicacy of Mortensen's half-pedal craftsmanship, specifically on the track Treblinka Poem. The touch of the hand on the keyboard is so soft. Yet, the dominating demand of the blurred bass line begged for a more dissonant chord structure never fully realized. The choices create an unresolved tension. The track leaves the listener with an insecure and restless sense of surrounding – a Lament. The harmonic dissonance created an exploration into very dark emotions. Perhaps Treblinka Poem is about dark and light conflict – or the way Yin and Yang are in constant battle to catch one another. Beethoven created an entire work out of a theme without dampers in the very famous song Moonlight Sonata, or Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor Quasi una fantasi, translated to Like a Fantasy. Here too a minimalist feeling was created in several of Beethoven’s repeated single notes also enhanced by the lamenting blurred bass line. In slight contrast, Treblinka Poem uses a quasi-bass ostinato to create the lamentation. The term would put the work in that of a classical style, but the idea can cross genres into jazz, if labeled a riff. Such words roughen the semi-modal delicacy of Mortensen’s work here though. This is the other conflicting theme for Time Waits: the work combines genres with well-executed jazz improvisation crossed with strong classical influences.

The music was not the only minimalist work on this new CD release. On the cover, the way the tree is backlit by the sun gives a feeling of a slow build like dawn, which matches the music very well. The sparse use of image also gives a similar feel to that of the music. Using a natural image reflects the asymmetric and organic feel of the improvised music. The cover image leaves the viewer with the feeling they have seen that tree - down on Red Rock trail or maybe along another trail here in Topanga, or in other parts of the world. The feeling was not just about having seen the tree someplace. The image manifested into feelings the viewer has stood underneath that tree in the same sort of place, such as when lying in trees as a kid - just like the fence in the photo Grandview in the book I Forget You Forever. Most have seen that fence somewhere in their mind’s eye.

The way the names are written on the inside cover are the same - minimalist. The only name spelled out is Uncle Henry's. The only use of color on the inside is the red for Time Waits. The title is not even finished – it is just a mere Time Waits For. The sparse use of words, images and notes left a lot to discover in the mind's eye, or heart, or wherever art comes from - that dreamy place. Maybe that is the best part of Mortensen's minimalism. The listener can choose which way to respond.

The 18-track CD is available for purchase at Perceval Press for $10

Viggo Mortensen Exhibition Skovbo

By: Editor | May 18, 2008 | d'Art

Most know him as Aragorn from the Lord of The Rings (LOTR) films. Yet if you have followed the art world and photography, it is clear Mortensen is an established photographer and artist. In addition to his publishing business, Perceval Press, Mortensen also exhibits here in the Los Angeles area and internationally. This year, Mortensen will be exhibit works very related to his role in LOTR. The exhibition is titled "Skovbo" or "Forest People." While the photographs are not from the LOTR films, the influence of working out in the forest is in the content of the exhibit.

The photographs are of nature in Iceland and other parts of the world. The works are priced low, according to the museum, so the profits can go to the Iceland Nature Conservation Association. The exhibition of his photographs will be at the Iceland Reykjavík Museum of Photography and opens May 31 and remains through August.

The accompabyig exhibit book, Skovbo, can be ordered from Perceval Press for $45 www.percevalpress.com