Karin Rehnquist: Puksanger

Karin Rehnqvist (born 21 August 1957) is a Swedish composer and conductor of classical music. She composes chamber music, orchestral works, music for the stage, and particularly vocal music, incorporating elements of folk music such as the vocal technique of Kulning. In 2009 she was appointed the first female professor of composition at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm.

A characteristic feature, which has often been mentioned in connection with Karin Rehnqvist's music, is the cross-fertilisation between art music and folk music. The element of folk music is integral of her work and is not just used for effect or nostalgic reasons. Nevertheless, Karin Rehnqvist is unmistakably a composer of art music, although her music does not easily fit into categories or 'isms' but retains its distinctive character, unaffected by the characteristics of contemporary art music. In other words, when we talk about Karin Rehnqvist’s compositions, all discussions about modernism and postmodernism or the exclusive and the popular are irrelevant. Although it seems quite impossible to classify Karin Rehnqvist’s music, some basic characteristics can still be mentioned. The most prominent one is the fusion of Swedish folk expressions and vocal techniques with the artistic elements of her music. One of such vocal techniques is for example kulning. This archaic vocal technique helps the singer produce a loud, high-pitched tone without vibrato which is carried over a great distance and was used by herdsmen to call their animals in the highland grazing pastures. Another element of her music is the idea of freeing herself of 'the critical attitude' taught at music colleges which results in a personal freedom of composition and style, whereby she uses creative artistic ideas without any compromise. And this is what her music is very much like: emotional, uncompromising, shocking, fresh and new.

Two white doves went all the way to the vault of heaven and when they came back they’d been turned into three. (Traditional Swedish)

I begin in the depths of the water I begin where the primordial sounds forth, where the sacred sounds forth – What is of value is the ceremony, what is of value is gold, says I am a woman who looks into the insides of things and investigates, says The tracks of the feet, says The path of sap and dew, says In this way it is taught to the children, says In this way is taught to our people, says It is health and life, says We don’t want anyone to break our bonds and our root, says Root of sap and of dew, says Root of greenness and clarity, says (Maria Sabina, Mexican shaman)

The Eternal Female groaned! it was heard over all the Earth. (From “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” by William Blake)

The woman has long hair and short mind. The woman’s laughter and the song of the chicken bode ill. If the woman spends firewood, porridge meal goes with it. If a woman comes to marriage with a shovel of oats, she grinds it between her teeth for the rest of her life. One laughs at women's advice, but never at men's. Women and magpies have the same lust for all that glitters. When the woman is chairman the devil is the first mate. The woman is never so ugly as when she darns stockings. The woman's reins must be fastened to the tree stump. When the woman whistles, the devil laughs. Woman's opinion, dog's fart. (Finnish proverbs about women)