Johann Johannsson

Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson was one of the most significant figures on the modern classical scene. Prematurely lost in 2018, he stands as a leading exponent of contemporary classical music as well as a hero back home, in a nation that in recent decades has been anything but short of world-class musicians. Also Icelandic, for instance, are the young composer Ólafur Arnalds and cellist Hildur Guðnadóttir ("Joker", "Chernobyl"). Like the genre's forefather Max Richter, Jóhannsson too was showered with awards, released records on Deutsche Grammophon, and was a sought-after author of countless film scores, earning two Oscar nominations, in 2005 and 2007, for the soundtracks of the films "The Theory of Everything" and "Sicario".

Compared to Richter, Jóhannsson remained more closely tied to the post-minimalist school, particularly close to Philip Glass, while at the same time being enormously influenced by the film music of Bernard Herrmann and Ennio Morricone, favoring the orchestral side over the electronic one and essentially tying his music more to twentieth-century classical music than to modernity. His solo career began with the music for the stage piece "Englabörn" (2002) and with the ambitious "Virðulegu Forsetar" (2004), featuring four lengthy compositions for eleven brass instruments, keyboards and bells. In 2006 he released "IBM 1401, A User's Manual", the first work in a series exploring the relationship between technology and humanity - incredibly moving for a record dedicated to a machine, and strikingly symphonic, yet also rich in electronic influences and manipulations. The album certainly marked a turning point in his career, but these ideas reached their apex in the second chapter dedicated to the relationship between technology (in this case, industry) and humankind.

"Fordlandia" (2008) is dedicated to the sad story of the city built in 1927 by Henry Ford in Brazil, an absolute emblem of capitalism's overbearing violence and of the lack of limits that this ideology imposes. The city was built for the production of rubber used in Ford cars, but the exploitation of indigenous workers - forced to abandon their age-old cultural and working habits - and the devastating environmental impact led to the project's failure. It's a story that seems to come straight out of a Herzog film, like a perfect synthesis of "Aguirre" and "Fitzcarraldo". Today Fordlandia is one of the many ghost towns scattered around the world. The sense of tragedy in this story, so emblematic of human megalomania, helps Johannsson, now in full artistic maturity, deliver what can be called one of the masterpieces of modern classical.

"Fordlandia" can be split into two parts, in turn structured into eleven tracks in total. There's a symphonic part, often charged with a powerful sense of tragedy, as if the suffering of the indigenous people were crying out to be heard by as many ears as possible. And there's a second part broken up into a series of short, minimal tracks.
The imposing crescendo symphony for strings and electronics of "Melodia (Guidelines For A Space Propulsion Device Based On Heim's Quantum Theory)", and the cinematic qualities of the theme from "Fordlandia", later revisited in the final farewell of "How We Left Fordlândia", reconcile classical grandeur with sorrow over an unacceptable modernity, in a constant tension between boundless human ego and the grandeur of a nature violated in its dazzling beauty.

There's something maximalist, something majestic in both the title track and in the fifteen minutes of "How We Left Fordlândia" that's hard to find elsewhere in the discographies of modern classical composers, usually intimate and minimal. Even in the moments where the composer paints small electronic-ambient watercolors ("Melodia 2-3-4"), or uses near-religious choirs ("The Great God Pan Is Dead"), or in the brief organ piece "Chimaerica", one can sense the composer's mastery, equally at ease with classic minimal compositions and symphonic crescendos.
In more than one respect - perhaps also thanks to a story set in a similar backdrop - it's possible to detect some kinship with Ennio Morricone's soundtrack for "Mission", particularly in the moments where symphonic and ethnic music manage to merge ("Melodia"), in the more solemnly cinematic passages (the title track), and in the tragic choirs of "The Great God Pan Is Dead". It's no coincidence that, after this album, Jóhannsson too would become, like Richter, a go-to name for film scores among many directors.

From 2009 until his untimely death in 2018, the Icelandic composer released a great many soundtracks, including those for the films "Prisoners" (2013), "The Theory of Everything" (2014), "Sicario" (2015), "Arrival" (2016), "Mary Magdalene" (2018), repeatedly coming close to the Oscar. In 2016 he made "Orphée", dedicated to the myth of Orpheus, which closes an ideal trilogy on technology and human ambition.
Johann Johannsson's life came to an end shortly after, in 2018, at just forty-eight years old. The many musicians who admired and esteemed him would pay tribute to his career by reworking "Englabörn & Variations" (2018), his debut album, alongside a second disc featuring reimagined versions of his pieces. Among the musicians who took part are celebrated Icelandic cellist Hildur Guðnadóttir, Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Francesco Donadello of Giardini di Mirò.

It's a paradox that his very debut should also become his moving requiem, like a circle closing perfectly at the end.

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06/02/2022