A lively, forward-moving series of chords attack out of the circuits when “Bridges” emerges into our listening space.
“Bridges” – a sextet for woodwind quintet and piano, composed in 1992 - is the first piece on this portrait CD from Phono Suecia with an assorted mixture of pieces by Pavol Simai (b1930).

Simai emigrated from Czechoslovakia to Sweden in 1968, but before that he studied piano in Budapest with Pál Kadosa and composition with Jan Cikker at the State Academy of Music in Bratislava. He continued his studies in Berlin with legendary Paul Dessau. In Sweden he has had a number of music-related employments.

“Bridges” has three movements called “Arches”, Virtuoso” and “Thirteen Candles”. It is hard to tell if these titles in any way clarify the compositions, or if they’re there just to give our imagination a thrust forward. The music is very imaginative, anyway, in a sort of ballet music fashion of a Russian taste for the playful, burlesque and inwardly melancholic, that might turn your associations in the direction of Moishei Vainberg and the likes of him. The music here is full of twists and turns, and up to the last movement very fast. The last movement, on the other hand, makes for a solemn and introspective, slow movement when the winds take on a Salvation Army guise, resting in the movement like an old man on a train, watching the landscape of his youth seep by the rainy windows.

The second piece on the CD - “Facing Death” for French horn and percussion - is the third movement from the work “Scenes” (1995). The theme here is very serious, as the music was written as a remembrance of Auschwitz in a 50-year retrospect. “Facing Death” is constructed as a dialogue between the horn and the percussionist. The latter works with drum rolls, bells and a cymbal. It’s a dramatic piece of short duration, like a signal to everybody to stop, listen and think, like the alarm that sounds every year in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in remembrance of the bomb.

“Sisyfos” for piano (1984) is next, and here Simai introduces his rapid and lively temperament again, rushing of in a brilliant execution of chords, having the pianist work hard up and down the keyboard. However, the mood changes, and a swaying, back-and-forth moving, swing-like event appears, until splashes of ebony and ivory, in the vein of Ligeti’s “Etudes”, punctuates the rocking force and quickly draws a new map of directions for the bewildering passage through the tapestry of sound that Pavol Simai offers. This piece is pianistically very exciting, and I imagine that it takes a very creative and experienced pianist to render it justice, which is just what Fredrik Ullén does here!

“Cartoons” for woodwind quintet (1990) is the fourth work by Pavol Simai on the CD. It has four short movements, where tin soldiers and Pinocchio dolls stagger across the scene in my music-induced visions, coming from, or heading for, a battle of illusionary nations of the fairy-tales. It’s a notorious little piece, well worth hearing and fantasizing through!

“Clarisson” for clarinet and piano (1980 / 1996) with its three five-minute movements is a well-constructed chamber piece of many colors, flying by in a hard wind from the sea. The events hardly wait for each other to finish, and the players step on each other’s feet as they rush through this windswept summer resort fall day of empty streets and forgotten summer artifacts down by the sea. This is indeed very enjoyable, even humorous, again in a Russian tradition, as far as I can tell.

“Nordron” for symphonic band (1997) concludes this venture through the oeuvre of Pavol Simai, and Simai takes leave with flying colors in this rhythmically intricate composition. The instrument groups within the orchestra move in and out of each other’s way, graciously and violently, humorous and ominous.

In the booklet Simai has published illustrations painted by his wife Jarmila Simai Diviskova. They are wonderful pieces of artwork, worthy of an exhibition all by themselves. However, Pavol Simai has, in connection with these paintings, chosen to publish poems by himself, and that is the only drawback of this issue. The poems are untalented and out of place, and it is surely not in the art of poetry that the composer Pavol Simai belongs. Someone in the process of producing this release has made the ridiculous and misguided conclusion that an artist who is very talented in his own art automatically will pass in a different art form too.

In any case, the music is dramatic, witty, ever changing and forceful, and the CD constitutes a very welcome portrait of a skilled and important composer of our day.