Performed by Wolfgang Plagge (piano) and Torgeir Wergeland Sørbye (piano).
Part of Panzerpappa’s Exercises in Style-project (2021 – 2025)
The Stiløvingar [Exercises in Style] album is a work in progress and will continue to grow as we compose and record tracks. If you buy the album, you will be informed when new tracks are added to the album as long as you follow us on Bandcamp. We will add a handful of new tracks every now and then.
By 2025 the album will contain 99 tracks, one for each of the exercises in the book Exercises in Style (1947) by Raymond Queneau. In other words, the price you pay is for the full digital album with all 99 tracks.
No. 81 Makaronisk (Dog Latin) is written in a style reminiscent of the Renaissance composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525 – 1594). The «Palestrina» style (also called «Renaissance polyphony») has been taught in higher music education since the middle of the 18th century.
The style is characterized by dynamic and «flowing» parts, not static, homophonic chords, and there are numerous strict rules for the treatment of leaps and dissonances. Do check out Palestrina’s beautiful Missa Papae Marcelli, one of the highlights of the Renaissance period.
The piece was recorded by 60 singers from the St. Laurentius choir on April 28th. Their rehearsal room distinguishes itself by having one of the squeakiest floors ever (!), and Anders had to do quiet a lot of work in Isotope RX to salvage the recording. If you listen carefully, you can still hear some reminiscences of the floor squeaks, but now more as atmospheric (and slightly ghost-like) sounds 🙂
The St. Laurentius choir is one of the best non-professional choirs in Northern Europe. It was founded in 1965 by the late Kjell W. Christensen, and consists of 115 singers, both children and adults.
The choir has participated in several blockbuster productions through the years: Jesus Christ Superstar (2014), Kristina Från Duvemåla (2016), Chess (2018) and Bjørn og Benny (Thank You for the Music) 2021, with professional soloists and musicians.
Every other year they go on tour in Europe, and have visited most, if not all, European countries. They’ve also done operas, operettas and several other musicals, and dramatized works such as Carmina Burana. The choir’s singers fill almost all roles in these larger productions (soloists, dancers and actors). In addition, a formidable effort is made with choreography, direction, PR and scenic work.
The choir has its base in Lørenskog, Jarle’s home ground, and he has participated on several of their great productions. So it was REALLY cool to get them on board the Stiløvingar-project – we are forever grateful.
Every preset on a synth or keyboard gives musical ideas.
Torgeir tried a new wavetable synth and found the sound that reminds of a vintage transistor organ crossed with the presence sound of a laser sword and the humming sound of a power transformer. To achieve a more nostalgic vibe we added some electrostatic noise, and then everyone in the band contributed with flavors of their chosen instruments.
Jarle added the “ticking clocks”-beat and the bells (a composite sound from two different synths), Anders contributed with granular delay on the bells and some subbass, and finally Steinar recorded an Ondes Martenot-patch with his EWI.
The video for this exercise is nothing but a shameless, cynical advertisement for our newest merch article (available on Bandcamp) – beautiful handcrafted beer coasters made by none other than our keyboard player, Torgeir. Check them out!
This particular variation was written back in 2004 by Jarle. The title connotates to «something REALLY British!», and although there were several possible styles to choose from (skiffle, John Dowland, Edward Elgar, The Beatles, progressive rock, different styles of folk music etc. etc.), Jarle eventually settled on the phenomenon called the British Trad Jazz Revival, which started just after WWII, and grew really huge in the 50s and 60s. And even in 2022, trad jazz is still a huge thing on the British Isles.
The trad jazz revival scene had its three B’s, namely Acker Bilk (clarinet), Kenny Ball (trumpet) and Chris Barber (trombone). To match that, we were so incredibly lucky to get hold of the three legendary M’s: Morten Barrikmo (clarinet), Marius Henriksen-Haltli (trumpet) and Marius Tobias Hoven (trombone)!
The tune is completely through-composed, but our fabulous horn players managed to make every line sound fresh and spontaneous through their performance. We sincerely thank you for contributing to the project!
In 2021, the Norwegian band Panzerpappa announced a 5-year project to interpret musically all the 99 short texts contained in the book Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau.
This is the 14th exercise which the band has released so far.
For this exercise which is called Insistence, Steinar, who wrote the piece, early on started to think of the French avant-rock group Art Zoyd which for more than 4 decades have been masters in blending electronic music and acoustic instruments into a forceful and undoubtedly insistent expression. This exercise is in many ways a tribute to the legacy of Art Zoyd.
This exercise was also a perfect opportunity for Steinar to utilize a wide range of high-quality sampled instruments from the British company Soniccouture.
This one was written back in early 2004. When we first started working on the Stiløvingar-project in 2003, Jarle was going full-on with his master’s degree in musicology at the University of Oslo, and took all sorts of arranging and composing subjects (counterpoint, big band arranging, orchestration etc. etc.). These, of course, required regular home assignments and hand-ins, and to kill several flies with one stroke, he managed to write quite a few Exercises and hand them in as a part of his compulsory assignments. That way, he even got them reviewed
This particular one was written for string quartet as part of a course called Free-tonal Music, which bas based solidly on the music of Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Ravel and Bartok, first and foremost. The starting concept for Jarle was “music for a 1940’s Italian movie”, and although it starts of in a freetonal way with lots of modulations and “free” treatment of harmony and resolutions, it ends up in a direct homage to the legendary composer Ennio Morricone, even downright STEALING his chord progressions to several of the themes on the Once Upon A Time In America-soundtrack.
We were SO lucky to once again have one of the amazing ensembles at Barratt Due to record this one for us. The JENS (Juniorensemblet Barratt Due) is a string orchestra comprised of up-and-coming talented string players from 12 to 16 years of age. They are led by the inimitable, incredibly inspiring Sigyn Fossnes, a true musical force, and one of the foremost educators of stringed instruments that we know. As Anders said during the recording sessions – “now I REALLY wish that I’d picked up a string instrument and could play in this ensemble, with Sigyn conducting”.
And not only that, we have more musical royalty involved. The pianist extraordinaire, composer, conductor, Musician with a capital M, Linguist with a capital L – Petter Sørlie Kragstad – is reading Queneau’s original lyrics to Exercise no. 83 – “Italianisms”. Jarle has known Petter since their high-school days, and thay’ve played together in different bands since then, among them the progressive rock tribute band Dead Dino Storage, who in later years have specialized on the music of Frank Zappa, but also have done projects with the music of King Crimson, Gentle Giant, Yes, Genesis et. al.
Petter have also been directly involved with Panzerpappa on several occasions – the big band version of the band in 2004, and even before that, in 2002 with the spin-off concept Bad Alchemy, who paid tribute to artists like Henry Cow, Lars Hollmer, Univers Zero, National Health and Slapp Happy. Looking forward to more playing together in the future, Petter!
The original intentions of this exercise was actually preserved through 18 years, and we’ve tried to keep as true to the 40’s Italian movie-vibe as possible
This particular exercise is set out for a 10-piece brass ensemble (4 trumpets, horn, 3 tenor trombones, bass trombone and tuba).
It was written fairly quickly by Jarle last year, when we needed a “jingle” for some of our Stiløvingar-related videos. Its a relief to finally get it out of the midi world and into the realm of audio – performed by humans 🙂
The piece was recorded on February 12th, by the wonderful brass ensemble at Unge Talenter, Barratt Due Institute of Music, led by Elin Holmen Kurverud and Antonio José Vera Escribano. The musicians are in the age range of 13 to 18 y.o. Thank you so much for your dedication, effort and brilliant performance!
Jonathan, Marie, Liisa, Malin – trumpet
Ingeborg, Håvard, Jenny – french horn
Maria, Aksel, Marius – trombone
Odin, Eivind – tuba
Jarle – conductor
Anders – sound recording
The piece is written in a style that (well, maybe) could pass as intro music for old newsreels from the 1920’s and 1930’s. And the video is of course inspired by the famous “News On The March”-sequence from Citizen Kane.
Trond juggles odd time signatures like a gymnast, while Anders and Torgeir keep the mood and spirits up, and make sure the catering is up to par and provides a well-balanced diet for our beloved drummer…
We are happy to present the next chapter in the Stiløvingar saga, the 11th track so far and the first one in 2022. This time it is variation #31, Preteritum (Past), which is interpreted musically. Expressing emotions of sorrow and longing, it seems fitting to dedicate this one to the brave people of Ukraine .
Please feel free to check out all 11 variations already available on Bandcamp (https://panzerpappa.bandcamp.com) and stay tuned for more variations in the weeks to come .
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Panzerpappa 