Nils Vigeland: Perfect Happiness

On Perfect Happiness, Nils Vigeland focuses his attention on an instrument that has been the center of his musical life for decades, the piano. His childhood immersion in the canonic repertoire led to exploration, improvisation, and eventually his calling to become a composer. Vigeland’s approach to the piano is equally informed by this grounding as it is by his conception of the instrument as a sui generis mechanism, one particularly suited for shaping resonant sonorities. The pieces contained on this album all draw us into the very personal and characteristic sound world that Nils Vigeland has cultivated in his piano works, played with virtuosity and sensitivity by Jing Yang.

Vigeland describes the trial and error process underlying the act of composing as being inextricably linked with “physical contact with sound.” His finely calibrated voicing, registration, and figuration owes itself to this methodical process of auditioning imagined sonorities on the physical instrument. The opening of the first movement of his Piano Sonata (1979-2008) is regal and orchestral, immediately staking out a broad imprint within which to work. Contrasting textures follow shortly afterward, staccatos that activate the instrument sympathetic resonances, octave tremolando flourishes that accentuate the percussive quality of repeated notes on the keyboard, and torrents of cascading pitches excavating the extreme registers of the instrument. Even as the movement unfolds in conventional sonata form, subversive episodes seem to be driven as much by sonic prerogatives as pre-compositional structural strategies. As one listens, one can hear Vigeland solving puzzles at the keyboard, injecting a living practice into the composition.

The more lyrical second movement is organized in a ternary form with a truncated return. Block chords outline the contour of a poignant melody before the relationship between right and left hand voices becomes increasingly disjunct rhythmically, accumulating to a rousing climax. The arrival of the third movement is announced by clarion calls spanning several octaves and subsequent trills, echoing the tremolando figure from the opening movement. The freely articulated trills transform themselves from a textural element to a key rhythmic component as Vigeland locks into the undulating chordal alternation that drives the movement.

Schubert’s dance collections serve as the model for 9 Waltzes and Ecossaise (1987). Vigeland adheres to the dance reference throughout, tweaking and teasing it with subtle abstractions. In the opening movement, vigorous opening chords are complemented with light footed scalar passages whose pitch content unsettles the balletic gesture. The format allows Vigeland to mold with familiar material; rhythmic and melodic tropes from the salon tradition are recast with wry wit. Heard after the expansive sonata, this set explores the opposite compositional impulse, the compression of imposed restraints of duration and expectation engender creative solutions that participate in a contained dialogue around style.

Mnemosyne (1987) was written for Vigeland’s mentor and graduate school piano teacher Yvar Mikhashoff. Contrasting sections capture Mikhashoff’s dual nature. A spare, introspective opening encapsulates a thoughtful, solitary disposition, while brilliant, virtuosic material evokes his ebullient, extroverted public persona. Regardless of density, we hear Vigeland’s penchant for using broad registration as a tool for delineation of voices and timbres, marshaling diverse textures that are calibrated to maximize the instrument’s resonance.

The four movement work, Perfect Happiness (2000), was written for Vigeland’s mother Ruth, and is expressive of some of the many faces of happiness: elation, tranquility, ecstasy, and willfulness. The opening movement functions as an exuberant prelude, unleashing a wave of energetic scalar fragments and tolling chords at its opening before focusing on the resultant resonances as it progresses. The second movement employs a similar textural approach to the middle movement of the Sonata, with somber block chords outlining a melodic shape. The last two movements are heard attacca on one track — the third opening with a angular sequence of chords over a thundering bass texture, and followed by a series of towering sonorities and cathartic splashes of painted sound. The transition to the final movement is marked by a quick shift to staccato articulations that reveal lingering resonances in their wake.

Among the many striking aspects of Nils Vigeland’s style is the relationship between style, expression, and content. Vigeland has a unique capacity to be able to present material that is framed by elements ordinarily associated with one character realm that in his hands become expressive of something else entirely. Consonant sonorities take on a violent hue because of register and articulation; dissonant collections are presented with lightness due to their rhythm and dynamic presentation. Because of his innate sensitivity to timbre, texture, resonance, and register, Vigeland is not bound by the typical associations of specific harmonic or pitch material. For this reason, his music finds a rarefied voice, dense and multi-layered without succumbing to expectations surrounding the relationship between pitch material, harmony, and expression. Hearing his expert ear for these sonic details play out in his keyboard music underscores this quality all the more concretely. This collection is an excellent window into Nils Vigeland’s style precisely because it is articulated on an instrument whole timbral nuances he knows so intimately.

- Dan Lippel

Recorded April 22 & June 29, 2024 at Oktaven Studios, Mount Vernon, NY

Produced by Nils Vigeland

Editing, mixing and mastering: Ryan Streber

Post-production advisor: Daniel Lippel

Cover photo: Nils Vigeland

Jing Yang photo: Alice Huang

Nils Vigeland photo: Maddy Burke-Vigeland

Design & layout: Marc Wolf, marcjwolf.com