DAY 3
SONGS OF A SAD SAILOR
WORLD WAR II
Runar was a highly intelligent young man and he longed to get an education. He had only been allowed to go to school for four years as a child, but now, with several years at sea under his belt, he got a place at the Aland Maritime School, and studied to first be a Second Mate, then a First Mate and dreamed about one day becoming a Chief.
His skills in model building led him to prizes and medals in building competitions.
In 1939 Runar married his sweet fiancé Hjordis and three weeks later he went onboard as a second mate on the S/S Fenix.
What the newlyweds didn’t know was that it would take five years before they met again…
S/S Fenix was under a long time running on the sugar trade between Cuba and the States, until they after a couple of years were ordered to take a cargo of grain and gasoline to Petsamo in Northern Finland.
This was in the spring of 1941, and the Germans didn’t let any ships through to Finland. The waters in Northern Europe were extremely dangerous to sail on during the WWII. Minefields constantly threatened the sailors with a cold grave, and at sea, without the modern equipment we have today, it wasn’t always easy to distinguish enemies from allies.
200 nautical miles west of the Faroe islands the steaming ship S/S Fenix that Runar was on was attacked by German airplanes.
The gasoline barrels that were loaded on deck immediately took fire and the crew had to abandon ship. The attack continued even when they were in the lifeboats.
The captain and most of the crew were killed, but Runar and a few others dramatically survived, unlike many other Alandian seamen during WWII.
The survivors were rescued by the British corvette ‘Northern Sky’, but as Finland formally were partners with Germany at this time, the exhausted seamen were taken prisoners by the Allied forces. Instead of going home to Mariehamn, to his wife Hjordis and their little son who he had never even met, Runar was captivated along with his fellow survivors, and put in a huge war-prison camp on Isle of Man.
The island was a prison colony that the British wanted to keep secret. 20 000 prisoners of mixed nationalities were kept in a barrack camp during the war. Their identities were not to be revealed, which made the worries of their relatives even bigger. Word had come to Mariehamn that S/S Fenix had gone down, but the family members had no idea if their loved ones were dead or alive, or where they were. The prisoners were not allowed to write home.
DANGERS AT SEA
TODAY'S SONG: UNDER FIRE
ABOUT THE SONG UNDER FIRE
This dramatic turning point in the story can’t be described with a Peaceful Piano piece. I decided to bring in some friends and make it more cinematic. I thought - maybe I’d better make a longer intro, and let it build slowly so as not to shock my piano lover listeners all too much : ) In this piece I also made use of some sound design, putting together sounds from water, rowing and bubbles with synths and looped percussions.
I love working with strings, and I sometimes make string arrangements with recordings for other music producers. That is something I really enjoy, both because it lets me work with so many different musical genres - from hard rock to disco and Celine Dion style ballads - but also because it’s so stimulating to work with great musicians. The string instruments are extremely expressive, they can vary their sound in so many ways. Next to the human voice they have the largest range of variations in sound of all instruments.
When the cellist makes the air in my studio room vibrate with her tones I can feel it in my whole body, it’s amazing. I often find myself sitting smiling throughout the recording session, because I like it so much.
The work of weaving the different parts together to well sounding arrangements is also a true joy for me.
I chose to use the more harsh sounds of solo string instruments here, not layering and mixing as I often do, because I like that the sound feels a little bit more rough and naked when they are solo. I think it fits with the cold dark water where our sailors were fighting for their life.I thought the folk tone of this piece fitted with the beginning of this story, about the little boy growing up under harsh circumstances on Aland.
BEHIND THE SCENES
If you want to be a little fly on the wall and peek into 7 minutes of the very first rehearsal Trio Fenix and I had of ‘Under Fire’ - here’s a clip for you. Before we got started a big cage with budgie parents and budgie kids had to be moved to the outside, so the recording wasn’t to be over-powered by bird chatter : ) Swedish-speakers may notice that I at that time had misunderstood who actually shot at Runar’s boat. Also at this point in time I thought it would be cool with glissandi in the viola and cello in the outro, but I took that out later, because that simply sounded better.
The names of these marvellous musicians are Anna Kroeker - violin, Karin Ebbersten - viola and Isabel Blommé - cello. They reside in Uppsala and play a lot of Bach and Vivaldi, often accompanying choirVideos in Requiems and Oratorios.
After recording the instruments I spend hour after hour editing and fine tweaking thousands of details. Should these four notes in the viola be 0.5dB louder, or only 0.3? Should this note come 10ms later or only 5? Should the 400Hz range be EQ:d differently than the 1kHz?
The process I’m working on here is called automation and has to do with the volume of the sounds.
QUESTION FOR YOU
I’m so in love with the sound of real instruments played in realtime by good musicians.
Do you like to listen to music live? What kind of concerts or music venues do you like to go to?
TOMORROW
Really harsh times for our Sailor in today’s episode…
It takes a strong psyche to keep up with the challenges in a prison camp.
Tomorrow you will get to know what Runar found, to keep him up…