Helene's Shadow
Prelude #4: Cow calls are awesome
In 1997, I learned the tune Jenta Under Gaustafjell from Hauk Buen, at the Buffalo Gap Scandinavian Music and Dance week in West Virginia:
I usually refer to this tune as Helene Bø, which is another name that Hauk used for it at Buffalo Gap, referring to a woman named Helene from Bø who used to sing the cow call that the tune is based on, but it is more commonly known as Jenta Under Gaustafjell (roughly, the “girl under the Gausta Mountain” (the highest peak in southern Norway), though for years I thought that it meant “girl under the waterfall” and was recently informed otherwise by Loretta Kelley, thanks Loretta!). Hauk was one of the most esteemed Hardanger fiddle players of his generation, and also came from a long line of fiddle makers; he made the hardingfele that I play to this day, which I got from him that summer in 1997. I am indebted to him in so many ways.
I transcribed one of Hauk’s runs of this tune during that workshop, to help me learn it, but Hauk never played a tune the same way twice—I don’t think the concept would even have made sense to him, as there wasn’t some ur-tune that he played variations of, but rather a whole constellation of ways through a tune, and, like Schrodinger’s cat, the current unique state of the tune was never revealed until a particular performance—so while the transcription is/was not of “the tune”—and is most definitely not definitive—it was an essential step for me at the time to learn this complex music. Here is the transcription if you are interested:
While not a tune that would be played for dancing, Helene Bø is considered a gangar, a kind of walking dance, usually notated in 6/8. Also, this is notated as fingered, and the fiddle’s lowest string is tuned up a whole-step from “normal,” so, for instance, notes that look like a low G will sound an A. Well, sort of; the whole fiddle is also usually tuned up higher than a regular violin, so the written low G will actually sound more like a B or even a C, but the interval between the lowest two strings (like the last dyad in the tune) will sound a perfect fourth, not the notated fifth.
I love this tune so much. Apparently the opening gesture was based on a cow call that the women would sing to summon the men back from their work in the valleys when in danger; the descending gesture is, for me, lovely but also urgent, and the free flowing sections that follow are suggestive of the water at the base of a waterfall, in motion, running, perhaps like the men returning home.
I’ve made some tunes over the years that were roughly inspired by Helene Bø, and even though they are quite different than the original, perhaps some of the ancestry is evident. The first is from the late 90’s, shortly after I learned Helene Bø, called Gooseberry, for my duo Trollstilt (me and my wife, guitarist Monica Mugan):
Here is another, in two versions, the first for the JACK Quartet and So Percussion:
and the other a duo for me and Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh
More clearly inspired by the original is this Prelude #4 for bitKlavier, which I call Helene’s Shadow. It starts with a similar gesture, and has some of the same flow and repetitiveness, but goes its own way as well. Cristina Altamura plays it beautifully, and in particular I’m struck by how the ornaments that are in her hands from playing Scarlatti and Frescobaldi work so well here:
As with some of the other Preludes, Cristina found that the piece works nicely on acoustic piano; not something I anticipated, but I also love the gentleness, warmth, and occasional darkness of this version:
Cristina has this to say about Helene’s Shadow:
For me, this prelude offered a great opportunity to study Norwegian fiddle ornamentation as adapted for keyboard. In the score, Dan invites the performer to ornament freely and he shared lots of recordings with me to help me immerse myself in the Norwegian practice. I've enjoyed pairing this prelude with Frescobaldi to highlight how each practice uses ornamentation in its own way. Keyboard composers haven't used ornamentation extensively since the early 1800's, so I was comparing the Norwegian practice with music that was hundreds of years old. By using the natural figurations of Norwegian fiddle music, Dan reintroduces these figures from another direction, without making a neo-classical gesture. This is very refreshing for me as a player.
Here is the score for Helene’s Shadow, along with the bitKlavier gallery if you’d like to give it a try (of course, you’ll need bitKlavier as well!):
