IT SHOULDN'T surprise us to learn that a new recording this month on the Finnish Ondine label of Hafliði Hallgrímsson's cello concertos – Herma, Op 17, written in 1995, and the 2003 Cello Concerto, Op 30 – shows the 67-year-old Edinburgh-based compos
er at the peak of his creative output.
After all, the cello was once the tool of his trade. The tall, dapper Icelander was for six years principal cellist with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra (SCO). In 1983, he made the life-changing decision to step down and follow a riskier career as a full-time composer. To make the decision even more resolute, he sold his cello. "I have never regretted that decision," he says. Twenty-six years on it is clear from his relaxed conversation and genuinely modest demeanour that he has, indeed, never looked back.
These two works are seminal in defining the rigorous integrity that filters through every pore of Hallgrímsson's music. Herma, the earlier of the two, was written for his SCO successor William Conway, but is performed here by Truls Mørk and the SCO. It comes over as the more extrovert of the two works. Brittenesque flourishes feed its sequence of climactic peaks with a bubbling optimism, in contrast to the underlying broodiness that is a typical trait of the composer's Nordic-inspired language.
However, the second concerto operates on a more visceral, organic level. Its steadily unfolding argument feeds on a quiet, evolutionary intensity and unflinching sense of purpose defined by the penetrating persistence of its throbbing pedal note. Mørk's realisation is gripping and inexorable, backed by sensitised support from Finnish conductor John Storgårds. These excellent recordings do full justice to a composer worth considerably more than his secondary reputation would suggest.
And they are just part of a current upswing in the overdue exposure of Hallgrímsson's music, following on from last year's release on Edinburgh's Delphian label of piano music performed by the young Simon Smith, and coinciding with recent live Edinburgh performances of his chamber music.
And that isn't all. Two weeks ago, former SCO principal double bass Nicholas Bayley (now moved to a similar post with the BBC SSO) premiered Hallgrímsson's double bass concerto Sonnambulo, a work that exemplifies the composer's meticulous attention to detail and obsession with textural clarity, even if it deliberately underplays the solo potential of the double bass.
Then in November Icelandic ensemble Caput release a disc featuring Mini-Stories, a music theatre piece written a decade ago for Thurso's Northlands Festival, narrated by actor Simon Callow.
The thing is, Hallgrímsson has never been one to shout loudly from the rooftops on his own behalf. Instead, he has worked quietly, assiduously, and mainly at his own speed, on a sequence of works arising from commissions he feels comfortable with. These will now include the upcoming fruits of a three-year position as composer-in-residence with the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra, which came into effect last year.
"I am certainly more confident writing for strings," he says. "I've been asked in the past to write concertos for flute and piano, but couldn't see how I could have coped with that, so turned them down."
Such self doubt doesn't quite square with the gorgeously-defined self-assured language of the two cello concertos. Nonetheless, it's a trait that has led to the bulk of Hallgrímsson's large-scale output centring on string protagonists, from the 1984 Chagall-inspired Poemi for violin and orchestra to a new violin concerto he has been asked to write for the young soloist Jennifer Pike as part of the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra deal.
And it goes some way to explaining his decision in the mid-1980s to withdraw the bulk of his early compositions, his ongoing discomfort at hearing his own music performed, and his general tendency to revise works even after their successful premieres. With only a fortnight passed since the first performance of Sonnambulo, Hallgrímsson has already rewritten chunks of the concerto. "I've rounded off sections to make them less abrupt, re-orchestrated passages, changed tempos, and moved the bass part to different octaves. "It's normal for me, but it's not popular with publishers," he says.
"Deadlines are maybe not a bad thing," he adds. "Much as I prefer to take my own time composing, I know I can't afford that luxury." That's the case, too, with Deep North, a work which, for practical reasons, he is revising to mark the Iceland Symphony Orchestra's 60th birthday next year. "It has already been performed in Finland, where I am involved with the Tampere Philharmonic. I'm re-orchestrating it for Iceland because it will appear in the same concert as Mahler's huge Second Symphony, and I'm terrified the Mahler will swallow it up." Hallgrímsson has a further important deadline to meet in 2012 when the Iceland orchestra opens its new concert hall. For that, they have asked him for a concerto for orchestra. And there's every chance that such a significant work may also turn out to be his last major composition.
"Compositions will become harder for me, and might diminish," he says, as the spectre of his 80th year draws closer. Instead, he intends to turn his mind to painting, a passion he has continued to foster since his student days when he attempted to enrol simultaneously at music and art college. "I was sent away by the art school who said I had enough on my plate learning the cello full-time. It was childish enthusiasm." But with the cello playing well behind him, and the composer in him all but exorcised, why shouldn't the door be open to fresh challenges? "Painting is so much more soothing because I don't take it so seriously," he says. Sounds like the perfect retirement plan.
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