STÅLE KLEIBERG DOESN’T WRITE NOTES, HE BUILDS A CATHEDRAL WITH HIS LATEST ALBUM “ACROSS THE OCEAN TOWARDS A HIGHER FIRMAMENT”

Stop being ironic and keep the noise out of the room; not all pieces are simply worthy of your attention, some of them demand respect from your body posture, and an elegant tux and gown. Having followed Ståle Kleiberg long enough to realize what architectural elegance is hidden behind the quietness of his mind, which treats the silence as raw marble, one knows that the release date is not merely a dot on the calendar. Released on August 28th, “Across the Ocean towards a Higher Firmament”, a five-part meditation made in collaboration with the telepathic closeness of the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra and the luminous baton of Peter Szilvay, is a reminder of the fact that trying to review a master is, for most part, just performing the role of a fan club president with a keyboard. Kleiberg does not write notes; he calculates the coordinates of the soul. This is not the background orchestra for the commute; this is the climate that you step into. Take your gown, gloves, sit straight, and let’s walk together through the world created by him.

The record begins with “Lamento – Cissi Klein in memoriam (2001)”, which isn’t merely an introduction but rather the casting of a shivering, frostlit veil over the room through one single glacial violin. Mournful hardly seems an adequate description for such profound, archaeological sadness. With knowledge of the fact that the gentle and relentless memorial for Cissi Klein – the young Trondheim girl wiped away by the shadow cast by the 20th century – is the third pillar of Kleiberg’s moral trilogy along with his Requiem and cello concerto Dopo, listening becomes an act of witness. The moment the tide rises from the delicate opening thread into the vast, bruised architectural struggle, you are humbled out of your notebook by the penmanship. With the last breath, you don’t feel like a reviewer on time, but rather a participant in the whispering of sacred confidence, the unveiling of a truth that history attempted to bury. Kleiberg doesn’t compose remembrance, he makes darkness sing through the light.

And along comes “The Town and Its People (2022)”, with a bold flourish of theatricality that shuns the cheap reduction of morality to mere binaries. Rather, Kleiberg orchestrates an adrenaline-fueled waltz of darkness and grace, reducing the beating of a complete society to an intimate twitch and unleashing it into full-scale warfare in one fell swoop. If Hollywood hadn’t already preordained this particular crescendo to mark the moment when protagonist and antagonist meet eye-to-eye across a fiery third-act confrontation, then the movies have been consistently unimaginative. It’s a spatial magic trick, the demonstration that a mind versed in sacred memory can shift gears and orchestrate the sheer, dynamic energy of human interaction without batting an eye. Kleiberg doesn’t just orchestrate a scene. He gives the room air.

And then comes the anchor: “Across the Ocean towards a Higher Firmament – Symphony No. 3: I. Espressivo e Rubato. Andante”. Starting in that familiar silence that feels like cold air, Kleiberg delivers a whispered lesson in acoustic engineering: an entire orchestra playing in conversation, clear and intimate as speech, with every voice distinct and resonant. No murkiness here, no confusion of sound: just palpable, breathing air. With the piano at its peak and the violins lit by their light, you begin to think you need wider ribs to fit into the space. Throw this piece into the silent slant of light of a studio filled with a solo dancer warming up, or auditioning, and suddenly you are no longer judging movement but watching gravity navigate.

“Across the Ocean towards a Higher Firmament – Symphony No. 3: II. Tranquillo. Drammatico. Misterioso” does not follow its own signposts; rather, it questions them. One beat, and it is the heart-swelling drama; the next, and it is the stalking step of an apex predator in a slow-motion crawl through a dark corridor. In the collision of those surprising, battered harmonies, there is a silence with teeth. Capture that in the long take, where the camera remains low to the ground on slow, deliberate leather-soled footsteps emerging from the darkness, face unknown, fate sealed, and the pulse in the room becomes the beat.

“Across the Ocean to a Higher Firmament – Symphony No. 3: III. Maestoso. Quasi Corale” is the last song. It does not make its exit quietly; it sanctifies the space. With the dignified, unshakeable, spine-straightening gravity with which it opens, the rhythm is set into an imposing pace that requires the dust particles to keep silent. And when those heavy, side-by-side homophonic chords rise up, breathing in syncopation as a colossal cathedral choir, the music ceases to be sound and turns into something to rest your weight on. This is the last piece of stained glass catching the sunset rays before the darkness descends. Amidst the rubble of how good this is, one realizes that Kleiberg has not only released an album but placed a lasting landmark on the map of human hearing.

Before the first note draws blood from the silent waters of Symphony No. 3, there must be felt the sheer deadness of the anchor. Written by commission of the orchestra and baptised by Szilvay’s baton during the prolonged journey of Norway towards the 2030 National Jubilee, with its unwavering attention to migration, bloodline, and the detritus left behind on the docks, this is not a program piece. It is genetic code, written in gut and steel. Kleiberg traces the bleeding out of Norwegian life in North America over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries not as a lecture, but as a pressure drop into the heart. Three movements depicting the mathematics of exile: from the salt burn of a retreating coast, through the grey, heaving teeth of the middle passage, to a hymn-vaulted landfall where the ghosts can finally settle down.

For modern classical music and orchestral pieces, this is not just one more track on the playlist. This is the keystone. Admission: classical music of an old school can often seem akin to reading 19th-century estate records in a windowless chamber, the very definition of musty and dry, but there is nothing here that blends in an orchestral soup. Everything is played with diagnostic, conversational clarity, clear enough that one can distinguish individual heartbeats, warm enough that one can live in it without being driven mad by one’s own nervous system. It does not ask for homework; it gives permission. And when a record comes along and has the nerve to cure an entire lifelong allergy to the canon, leaving one checking one’s phone for archival cuts, that’s not only scoring. That’s magic. More, Maestro. I have finally had a taste of classical music that I understand and can enjoy, and I can’t wait to hear more.

Stream the “Across the Ocean towards a Higher Firmament” album on Spotify.

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