Ivan Vukosavljević - Slow Roads (2023)

'Slow Roads' is an album of eight pieces written by Hague-based Serbian composer Ivan Vukosavljević between 2019 and 2022, for solo 1/4 comma meantone organ. All eight pieces were recorded in 2022 on five different historic organs, dating from the early 16th to mid-17th centuries, located in medieval churches scattered throughout the countryside of the northern Netherlands. Each piece was adapted for a specific organ, as they vary considerably in their disposition. All eight pieces are written in unmeasured notation, with bars removed and only rhythms and phrase contours suggested.

On this album, Vukosavljević adopts a meantone temperament that echoes the sentiments of late medieval and Renaissance keyboard music, while valuing the contemplative aspect of the music, to create organ music as his own voice that resonates with the present time. Five of the eight pieces were performed by Tineke Steenbrink, co-founder of the Dutch early music ensemble Holland Baroque. Francesca Ajossa, Jan Hage and Lise Morrison performed one piece each.

"The Netherlands has one of the liveliest organ cultures in the world, which unfortunately doesn’t communicate too much with the culture of contemporary music, and vice versa. There exist certain categories with borders that are not crossed too often. However, with this organ album I was excited to fully immerse myself in everything that surrounds the organ culture in the Netherlands, in the hope that I would come up with something new and of value."

“The breath of pipes, the growl at the very entrance of a note, the richness of sound of a single pipe…these have been eliminated in later organ construction, but are everything that draws me into its sound world.” – Ivan Vukosavljević