Frode Haltli lives in Oslo, his official debut concert in Copenhagen in September 2000 with world premiers by Bent Sørensen and Asbjørn Schaathun. He plays as soloist with several Norwegian orchestras, bands and choirs, like the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra and Oslo Sinfonietta. He's got his own trio called POING with his accordion, plus a saxophone and double-bass which performs new music by Nordic composers.

I, first, would like know something about your musical background. When did you start playing and which was your enviroment?

I started to play to play the accordion at 7, at first with a teacher that really couldn't play much accordion, he was more an organ teacher. When he realized that I was more talented and more eager then the rest he sent me to a real accordion teacher. At almost the same time I started to play in a wind band (there I started with the french horn - later the trombone). Both my brothers also played there, we improvised and played a lot with music at home. The accordion was all the time my main instrument.

How you concentred on accordion, was it your choice?

Yes, by some strange reason it was my choice to start to play the accordion all though I don't know why. Maybe I saw it on television? Later I discovered that a lot of people in my community played the accordion - but mostly within their houses four walls. In my childhood my mother often helped me and looked after that I rehearsed proparly, but I don't think my parents pushed me too much.

When did you discover contempory music and did you enjoy the accordion contemporary repertoire at the same time or maybe you did started with a different path?

I don't know what kind of music I started with - it was not folk music, that came later. Also it was not pure classical music. When I first was introduced to the contemporary, original music for accordion, I found this
very exiting from the start. I guess I was around 10 years old when my teacher gave my music by composers such as Pietr Fiala and Torbjörn Lundquist, later Per Nørgård and Arne Nordheim.

Now that you are the most acclamated norvegian accordion player and many composers write music for you. Can you introduce us them and tell us if they found a new sensibility in your instrument.

I have worked with some of the, in my eyes, best Scandinavian composers: On my new CD, four of five works are written for me; those of Bent Sørensen (Denmark) (who also has a CD on ECM with only his compositions), Maja Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje (Norway), PerMagnus Lindborg (Sweden) and Asbjørn Schaathun (Norway). I have also worked with numbers of other composers. Some of the composers who are writing for me right now is Joyce Bee Tuan Koh from Singapore and Sam Hayden from Great Britain. They are both writing solo concertos. My trio POING is also working a lot with composers such as Volker Heyn (Germany), Richard Barrett (Wales), Rolf Wallin (Norway), we have a project with four Japanese composers in May and we have worked with more then twenty Scandinavian composers.

By the way how you explain yourself the rediscovery of the accordion after years in which the most respected genre in which it was used was tango, and nothing more.

The accordion has always been used a lot in folkloristic and popular music, without actually beeing a typical folk music instrument nor a instrument in classical music (it is to modern for both, invented around 1840). I think the typically classical accordion music (like you also have in Italy with composers such as Pietro Frosini and Pietro Deiro, Italian emigrants to America around 1900) got hung up in a boring virtuoso style without much musical content. It was only natural that the instrument sooner or later would be discovered by composers, but it took some time - but actually not so much more time then it did with other "modern" instruments such as the saxophone or classical percussion.

In Italy, exept some jazz players like Coscia, there are a lot accordeonists who come from folk music, like Riccardo Tesi or Filippo Gambetta, who play organetto diatonico in a modern way. Do you know them?

I'm afraid I don't know these players. But I know that the accordion is used in Italian folk music and styles related. I find great inspiration in listening to folk music from all over the world, but Italian folk is so far
almost unknown to me... It is something I absolutely will look into when I get some time. I will remember the names Tesi and Gambetta and check it out!

Are there in Norway some accordeonist who re-new the tradition in that way?

The accordion is widely used also in Norwegian folk music. I have myself a project called RUSK together with folk singer Unni Løvlid and fiddler Vegar Vårdal which has released a CD on Heilo/Grappa records, but for me this is more like a hobby, I'm not really a folk musician. The Norwegian accordionist that I admire the most from Norway is Stian Carstensen, but he is more into folk music from Bulgaria and the Balcans! When I listen to Norwegian folk I don't listen so much to accordion, more to singers like Åsne Valland Nordli (Via music) and fiddlers like Nils Økland (Rune Grammofon).

Talking about the instrument. How many have you got?

All my instruments are Italian. My main instrument is a Pigini Sirius, this is a full size accordion with convertor in the bass. I have had this instrument for about 8 years now, so it is beginning to get a little bit
tired but I still love that instrument. I have got two more instruments but I hardly ever use them; One is a small Stradella standard accordion, nice to bring for camping or whatever, the other one is a Zero Zette musette accordion. Actually I have got two more instruments also, but they are more like souveniers: A diatonic concertina made in Yugoslavia (I bought it in Pula - now in Chroatia - when I was around 11 years old), the other one is a Russian garmuschka, bought on a Russian market in the North of Norway some
years ago.

Do you prefer the accordion with pistons? Do you play also the keyboard model?

-Now I just remember I have even got one more accordion: My first accordion "Regent" from Germany, a little standard accordion with piano keyboard. After this I had one more instrument with a keyboard system, but since I changed at the age of 10 I have always preffered the button system. The button system is design for the accordion, the piano keyboard just isn't very practical on the accordion...

What about other parent instrument like the diatonic organ or bandonenon?

I have of course tried a lot of different accordions, but I can't play any of them. There are big differences between these accordions - the diatonic, bandoneon, concertina and so on...

Looking on Darkness is your first solo record. How did you choose the compositions? In particular there is one, gagaku variations which is a very demanding piece written by a young composer, M.S.K. Ratkje, for accordion and string quartet. For the centrality of the composition it seems you loved that so much.

The compositions on the record is the most central pieces in my repertoire so far. Of course I could also say that pieces by Gubajdulina, Xenakis, Finnesy or Berio are the most central pieces, but for me the works that I have helped producing together with the composers mean something special to me. I was all the time certain that I also wanted a chamber music piece on the CD, so when Maja wrote the "gagaku variations" at the same time as I was planning the CD, I saw how it would make a perfect central piece on the CD -
more than twenty minutes long and with a string quartet. I generally love the combination of accordion and strings, and has worked a lot with that, both with the Cikada String Quartet, the Vertavo String Quartet and also other combinations.

You prefer the tiny atmosphere of your playing alone or the collective execution? And by the way which was your favorite ensemble where you're playing?

My main ensemble is the trio POING with Rolf-Erik Nystrøm on the saxophone and Håkon Thelin on the double bass. Your first question is difficult, because I love to play solo pieces and I this is what I use most of my daily rehearsing time on. But at the same time I think that what I learn the most from is playing with other musicians. This is why I work steadily with musicians like those in POING, with saxophone player Trygve Seim, the Cikada Quartet and a whole bunch of other classically trained musicians as well as
improvisers or folk musicians.

In you carrier there is also a improvisation episode with Phil Minton.

Actually I have done two tours and one CD with Phil Minton in the group No Spaghetti Edition (SOFA), a collective of Norwegian improvisers and some foreign guests. Phil Minton is of course a legend in vocal improvisation, and it was an honour for me to play with him. I would also like to mention the fantastic English keyboard player Pat Thomas who was also in this constellation.

Are you going to explore also improvvisation fields in the future, or connect with jazz or other genre?

My main field has so far been the written music, and I guess I will never be a jazz musician. But I certainly hope to continue working with great musicians within the fields of improvisation. I think my background and also my continous work with folk and improvised music has made me to something very different than an average classical musician. I hope to continue in different directions for still a little while, maybe I someday will only do one kind of music - but to be honest, I think I also today only do one kind of music. My music.

Italian version on "Strumenti Musicali", 2003, Intervista a Frode Haltli di Michele Coralli © 2003 altremusiche.it / Michele Coralli
I n t e r v i e w s ' I n d e x
Su am: vedi la recensione di "Looking on Darkness" di Frode Haltli