– Magnus Granberg, April 2022.

"As I perceive it, in much of Magnus’ work, going back as far as projects such as Sheriff, there’s an in-drawing nurturing of self. However one may read the beautifully poetic, frequently melancholic nature of the titles of the pieces, this is far from a flattening of the nature of existence but rather a celebration of the interior life of the individual, both of the composer and his growing, attentive, audience, accumulated over time due to a remarkably consistent series of releases. Those familiar with Magnus’ work will likely be aware of a 'looseness’, an integrated opening for variations in the reading of the work that gently ‘undermine' the pre-determined elements of composition.

There’s a meditative, haunting stillness to much of Magnus’ work, particularly on this double album of variations on a composition based upon a series of propositions, carefully defined parameters that suggest as much as they direct. The compositional information demarcating boundaries while gamefully opening them up to interpretation allowing for intricate readings by an empathetic company of musicians true to Magnus’ high standards.

This is music for the twilight, the final rays, as our impaired vision of the solidity of things and their accompanying certainties, fall away.

When describing Magnus' working process I’ve a desire to flip Cage’s ‘purposeless play’ to ‘purposeful’. It appears to me Magnus knows the coordinates, the conditions under which his ship sails, certain he’ll recognize the destination as a mirror of his own guiding principles, welcoming elements of the unknown within the carefully prescribed parameters of his personal cartography. "

– David Sylvian, April 2022

Music composed by Magnus Granberg (STIM). Produced by Magnus Granberg. Co-producer and executive producer, Alex Zethson.

Recorded by Niclas Lindström on February 18 2022 at Atlantis Metronome, Stockholm. Mixed and mastered by Anders Dahl. Cover design by Torbjörn Zetterberg. Cover photo: ’Bethlehem-Fairfield shipyards, Baltimore, Maryland. A night view looking toward the ways’ by Arthur S. Siegel, Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA/OWI Collection, LC-DIG-fsa-8d28741.

Tya Ensemble:
Josefin Runsteen, violin
My Hellgren, cello
Finn Loxbo, guitar
Anna Christensson, piano
John Eriksson, vibraphone and percussion
Ryan Packard, percussion

Magnus Granberg would like to thank Alex Zethson, David Sylvian, John Chantler, Tya Ensemble and Anders Dahl.

Reviews:

Swedish composer Magnus Granberg has been fine-tuning and developing his deliciously rustic music since he founded his Skogen ensemble back in 2005, persistently sharpening and stratifying his aesthetic. This new work joins a chunk of predecessors that have drawn material—rhythmic, harmonic, titular—from baroque and folk traditions, but Granberg always finds peculiar or hyper-specific ideas in those muddied appropriations that in no way rely on essential qualities of his inspirations. This powerful new recording features music written for a dynamic new Stockholm ensemble called Tya, which presents a sextet account of “Night Will Fade and Fall Apart.” The title scrambles a line from the standard “Your Foolish Heart,” which also provided the harmonic material, while rhythmic notions are borrowed from music by Medieval composer Solage. The second disc features several solo readings as well as a piano-vibraphone version of the same piece. The composer adds specific directions for these smaller versions, and that accommodation affords endless variety. While each performance takes on a unique character, Granberg’s aesthetic qualities shine through; leisurely, contemplative, fragile, homemade, and elegant, his melodies spill out through shifting voices in the ensemble version, a gentle percolation of percussion, piano, guitar, and vibraphone producing an elusive sound threaded by long shadowy harmonic string tones while the various solo readings adhere to just one aspect. Stunning.

Peter Margasak, Bandcamp Daily: The Best Contemporary Classical on Bandcamp, August 2022

Commissioned by Sweden's Thanatosis in December 2020, and written for the six-member Tya Ensemble in 2021, Magnus Granberg's composition "Night Will Fade and Fall Apart" was inspired by two older pieces, like some of his past compositions. So, the new composition's rhythmic materials were extracted from "Tres gentil cuer" and "En l'amoureux vergier" by the late fourteenth century French composer Solage, while its harmonic materials were loosely derived from the 1940's popular song and jazz standard "My Foolish Heart" by Victor Young and Ned Washington. As always with such Granberg extractions, there is no hint of plagiarism as he is adept at reshaping the source materials, not copying them.

Although the piece was written for the Tya Ensemble, this album comprises six tracks in which different instruments play their parts. So the album opens with the forty-four minute "Night Will Fade and Fall Apart (for Ensemble)" followed by the two-and-a-half-minute "Night Will Fade and Fall Apart (for Percussion)," and closes with the thirty-one-and-a-half-minute "Night Will Fade and Fall Apart (For Piano and Vibraphone)." The last track clearly demonstrates that the piano and vibraphone chords comprise the all-important skeleton of the piece. As is typical of Granberg, the full ensemble version allows each instrument enough space for it to be clearly heard, never overcrowding or cluttering up the soundscape. That point is reinforced by the economy and brevity of the individual instrument tracks; so in the ensemble version's forty-four minutes the violin plays for five-and-a-half, the cello for under six.

As an idea, it was inspired to individually lay out the building blocks of the whole piece, which seems akin to spreading out the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle before commencing it. Having heard any of the individual tracks, it is then fascinating to listen for it when playing the ensemble version. As so often with Granberg's works, there is no end to the pleasure which his music brings.

John Eyles, All About Jazz

«Night Will Fade and Fall Apart» is a new chamber composition by Swedish composer Magnus Granberg, a self-taught composer who founded his own ensemble Skogen and is known for operating at an intersection between improvisation and contemporary chamber music. The composition was commissioned by Thanatosis produktion in December 2020 and was written for the newly-formed Tya Ensemble the following year. It was conceived as an ensemble piece where individual parts also may be performed as solo pieces. The double alum features the full ensemble version plus four solos and a duo and was recorded at Atlantis Metronome in Stockholm in February 2022.

Granberg explains that this composition takes as its points of departure of songs from two very different times and places: «Tres gentil cuer and En l’amoureux vergier» by the French, late medieval composer Solage and the jazz standard «My Foolish Heart» by Victor Young and Ned Washington, whose lyrics were borrowed for its title (Granberg used before Irving Berlin’s standard «How Deep Is The Ocean?» as an inspiration for his 2015 composition «How Deep is the Ocean, How High is the Sky», another Timbre, 2015). The rhythmic elements of the piece are extracted from the songs of Solage and treated in different ways, and the harmonic materials are loosely derived from the jazz standard. The cover photo, Arthur S. Siegel’s «Bethlehem-Fairfield shipyards, Baltimore, Maryland. A night view looking toward the ways» captures the melancholic spirit of this composition.

«Night Will Fade and Fall Apart» is graced by poetic liner notes by David Sylvian who stresses the «meditative, haunting stillness» in Granberg’s work. «This is music for the twilight, the final rays, as our impaired vision of the solidity of things and their accompanying certainties, fall away. When describing Magnus’ working process I’ve a desire to flip Cage’s ‘purposeless play’ to ‘purposeful’. It appears to me Magnus knows the coordinates, the conditions under which his ship sails, certain he’ll recognize the destination as a mirror of his own guiding principles, welcoming elements of the unknown within the carefully prescribed parameters of his personal cartography». This intricate and minimalist composition cleverly and organically integrate composition and subtle improvisation and its meditative and melancholic «haunting stillness» may be associated with the seminal influence that Morton Feldman had on Granberg. The 44-minute ensemble piece – featuring violinist Josefin Runsteen, cellist My Hellgren, percussionist Ryan Packard, guitarist Finn Loxbo, vibes player John Eriksson and pianist Anna Christensson – consists of seven sets of musical materials as well as a set of guidelines on how to treat and navigate (individually as well as collectively) the different materials. But Granberg allows the musicians to make their own personal choices, even subtle subversive and sound-oriented ones, as long as they are integrated into the inner logic and the reserved dramatic narrative of this enigmatic composition.

The solo pieces for percussion, violin, cello and guitar are short and expose the skeletal compositional elements of Granberg, and Runsteen and Loxbo’s pieces brilliantly capture its ripples-like motion. The 31-minute piece for piano and vibraphone deepens the meditative Feldman-esque elements of this composition and consists of the harmonic materials from all seven sets and may also be performed as solo or duo pieces for either instrument. Here it is presented as a «canon of chords». The piano presents the extensive «theme» before the vibraphone enters and the piece ends with the vibraphone playing the complete sequence of chords backward. The sparse and ethereal performance fits perfectly to Sylvian image of «impaired vision of the solidity of things and their accompanying certainties».

Eyal Hareuveni, Salt Peanuts

Någonstans i gränslandet mellan nutida kammarmusik och improvisation befinner sig det stycke som titeln anger och vars upphovsman är kompositören och musikern Magnus Granberg, som också leder den genreöverskridande gruppen Skogen. Musiken här har hämtat inspiration från den franske medeltida kompositören Solage och jazzstandarden My foolish heart och är skriven för Tya-ensemblen. En sextett med sättningen violin, cello, piano, gitarr, vibrafon och slagverk som på albumet framför stycket på två cd – i en längre version tillsammans samt i fyra soloversioner och en duoversion. Skymningsmusik har någon beskrivit det hela som, samtidigt som det är en ljudvärld som mer konkret kan erinra om både Steve Reichs minimalism och Arvo Pärts liturgiska klangspråk. Även om ensembleversionen, som upptar den ena av de två skivorna, fångar musikens särpräglade essens tydligast, förmedlar de avskalade versionerna av Josefin Runsteen och My Hellgren på violin respektive cello onekligen en sällsamhet som fascinerar.

Peter Bornemar, Lira

Thomas Millroth, Orkesterjournalen