Ist Gefallen In Den Schnee documents a landmark collaboration between Swedish composer Magnus Granberg and his ensemble Skogen. Recorded in November 2010, this nonet features an expanded lineup including Angharad Davies (violin), Toshimaru Nakamura (no-input mixing board), and Granberg himself on piano. The title, borrowed from Schubert’s “Winterreise” (“Wasserflut”), signals the work’s reflective engagement with song cycles and memory. Granberg structures the piece using rhythmic and formal modules drawn from Schubert and an unnamed jazz song - though the sources are thoroughly transformed, leaving only faint traces in the finished music.
The composition unfolds as a single, hour-long movement, opening with sparse piano phrases that evoke Morton Feldman’s sense of suspended time. Strings, percussion, bowls, glasses, and electronics enter gradually, each voice inserted with care, avoiding clutter or overt drama. Instead, Granberg asks each musician to make decisions in real time; differentiation and form arise spontaneously from improvisational choices within a notated framework - “a potential which could be realized in innumerable ways,” as Granberg describes.
Throughout, the ensemble achieves an uncommonly beautiful sense of space and tranquility. Bowed glass and metallic resonance mingle with sustained harmonies and trembling electronics. Granberg’s piano sets the example, his economical gestures providing both backbone and invitation. The result is music that is both skeletal and resonant - open, contemplative, and filled with subtly shifting textures. Ist Gefallen In Den Schnee stands as a testament to collective listening, restraint, and the transformative power of elegantly structured improvisation in contemporary chamber art.
