Martin Romberg’s Choral Music: Stylistic Features

Abstract

Contemporary choral music from Scandinavia increasingly attracts the attention of performing groups both abroad and in Russia due to its deep originality and distinctiveness. The article examines the choral work of the contemporary Norwegian composer Martin Romberg, whose work is characterised by Neo-Romantic poetics and style. Three of his choral cycles are subjected to detailed analysis: Aradia (2012), Rúnatal (2012), and Requiem of Runes (2022). The themes of the works reflect the Norwegian composer’s interest in mysticism and mythology, as well as in archetypal motifs and plots. The relationship between words and music in his choral compositions is structured according to traditional concepts. The features of the modal-intonation sphere and the structural organisation of the works are determined both by the general artistic concept and by the phonetic properties of the language of the poetic sources, including the specifics of their verse organisation (for example, alliterative versification). Along with a general reliance on a Romantic tonal idiom, Romberg’s musical language reveals elements of medieval modal archaism, jazz, and Russian song, which are intertwined in an organic unity. The compositions of the 2010s use elements of phonemic composition techniques and Klangfarbenmelodie [“sound-colour melody”], along with various phonic approaches. In the later work (Requiem), the choral writing is simplified, but the interest in timbral experiments remains, as manifested in the unusually low tessitura of the sound of all the voices, which is conditioned by ideas of “depth” and “ascension” of register.

Keywords: Martin Romberg, Norwegian music, 21st century choral music, Aradia, Rúnatal, Requiem of Runes