“A nightwalker can hold an entire life in his head while he is walking. This suite is based on both dreams and experiences, states of mind we all have, with their sudden shifts, and often with a dramatic arc we don’t understand, because it is only afterwards that we can grasp what happened and why things turned out as they did. The entire suite was written in the course of the winter, spring and summer of 2022, that dark year that none of us had envisaged.
Even before we moved to Frogner Plass in 1967, I liked going out at night. Especially in the autumn, when the wind was blowing and leaves were falling from the trees, but also during the winter, spring and summer nights, often in the streets of Oslo, or near one of the cottages at Eftang, a coastal paradise between Sandefjord and Larvik, where a young girl I was very interested in used to go on holiday with her family. Knut Hamsun wrote the novel Dreamers, and I was no doubt then, as I am now, a dreamer who absorbed all my impressions from nature, where I spent time alone and had thoughts I could not entirely understand myself. Besides, music was my constant companion. When Frogner Park became my nearest neighbour in 1967 and the following years, I walked amongst Gustav Vigeland’s sculptures up to the Monolith, the highest point in the park, where the human bodies carved in stone climb upwards, ever upwards: a further development of Munch’s Human Mountain, which Munch was displeased that his colleague copied. But there, at the top of the park, I had a view over the city, the spire of Uranienborg Church and the hill of Ekeberg. I could look out over the fjord as far as Nesodden and watch the lights of the last flights landing at Fornebu, the old, atmospheric airport with a runway that continued all the way out into the water. What did I do up there at that lookout point, often all alone? Just a solitary nightwalker.
I often dream that I still walk at night, but mostly in the landscape of music.
January 2023 arrived. The snow arrived. Catharina went out into our garden by Bunnefjorden and took a photo of the young blackbird that was perched in a fruit tree, whose beak had not yet turned yellow. For me this was a greeting from the past, from Brahms, from Frogner Plass and Frogner Park from those days. Blackbird singing in the dead of night…
CD2 contains the Nightwalker suite played on the classic Fender Rhodes piano, sent through an equally classic Leslie that creates this almost ghostly intensity and a unique atmosphere which give the suite a totally different vibe.
- CD 1 Nightwalker
1NIGHTWALKER (TWILIGHT VERSION)03:41
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
2A CERTAIN MOOD02:08
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
3REGRET02:03
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
4TRUST02:40
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
5PROMISE05:30
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
6HER SMILE (COW CRADLE SONG)04:57
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
7DARKNESS02:57
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
8ON THE EDGE03:51
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
9THE LETTER02:26
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
10NIGHTWALKER (PAST MIDNIGHT VERSION)01:45
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
11THE SECRET02:52
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
12EXPECTATIONS AND ANXIETY04:25
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
13LONGING01:30
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
14APOLOGY04:35
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
15SO WHAT02:41
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
16UNDERSTANDING03:20
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
17THE SUITCASE02:48
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
18THE REPLY02:37
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
19ON THE MOUNTAIN02:18
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
20CONSEQUENCE02:19
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
21A HIDDEN PLACE03:10
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
22BETWEEN THE LINES01:28
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
23NIGHTWALKER (EARLY MORNING VERSION)01:56
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
- CD 2 Nightwalker - Fender Rhodes-version
1NIGHTWALKER (TWILIGHT VERSION) (Fender Version)03:30
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
2A CERTAIN MOOD (Fender Version)02:03
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
3REGRET (Fender Version)01:54
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
4TRUST (Fender Version)02:39
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
5PROMISE (Fender Version)03:59
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
6HER SMILE (COW CRADLE SONG) (Fender Version)05:01
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
7DARKNESS (Fender Version)03:08
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
8ON THE EDGE (Fender Version)03:45
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
9THE LETTER (Fender Version)02:35
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
10NIGHTWALKER (PAST MIDNIGHT VERSION) (Fender Version)02:13
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
11THE SECRET (Fender Version)02:55
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
12EXPECTATIONS AND ANXIETY (Fender Version)03:17
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
13LONGING (Fender Version)01:43
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
14APOLOGY (Fender Version)02:53
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
15SO WHAT (Fender Version)02:38
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
16UNDERSTANDING (Fender Version)03:28
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
17THE SUITCASE (Fender Version)02:39
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
18THE REPLY (Fender Version)02:22
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
19ON THE MOUNTAIN (Fender Version)03:15
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
20CONSEQUENCE (Fender Version)01:46
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
21A HIDDEN PLACE (Fender Version)03:18
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
22BETWEEN THE LINES (Fender Version)01:34
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
23NIGHTWALKER (EARLY MORNING VERSION) (Fender Version)01:56
Music: Ketil Bjornstad
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