Memnon - Sound Portraits Of Ibsen Characters

"Memnon" is built around an equally simple and striking ambition: Keeping the music as pure as possible. Relying on nothing but voice and piano, Ruth Wilhelmine Meyer and Helge Lien are eliminating the delay between the moment of creation and an emotional response in the listener. For their first joint release, the duo have set themselves the challenge of sonically portraying selected characters of Norwegian writer Henrik Ibsen. It has taken them to the darkest corners of the soul and to the pinacles of human thought. While Helge Lien is delineating the contours of these musical psychograms on his piano with clear black and white brushstrokes, Ruth Wilhelmine Meyer is filling in the basic shapes with rich, intense colors. Both artists are tapping their personal sound worlds in an effort of making these characters shine as brightly as possible.