Some time ago, when two new Abba songs came out (I still have faith in you e Don’t shut me down) I got the impression that they sounded very old. In reality, listening to them calmly, they are not attributable to any specific period of the long career of the Swedish pop group. They look more like the late production of Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, that of musicals such as Chess e Kristina from Duvemåla. In those productions, designed more for the theater than for the pop music market, Andersson and Ulvaeus have refined their already remarkable authorial skills, making evident their derivation from the noblest vein of the lied Swedish.
If to the public outside Sweden the Abba may seem a bit kitschy souvenir from many Eurovision ago, in their country they are rightly considered a national treasure and no one is allowed to treat them as a piece of modern art to be read only through the lens of irony. . The Abba museum in Stockholm is located a few hundred meters from the Vasa Museet, where a 17th-century galleon is preserved in its entirety, a symbol of the aggressive maritime and commercial power of the Scandinavian country. Warships like the Vasa set sail from Stockholm Bay to conquer the world, and likewise Björn, Benny, Agnetha and Frida set out from the cooler periphery of the empire to conquer the global pop market. And they did it with songs that were simple in appearance only, based on melodies whose ease concealed great craftsmanship. And above all, they conquered the world with an aspect that was very uncool even in the mid-seventies, a look that, while in the United Kingdom glam rock was going crazy and we were preparing for punk, it referred to a somewhat old-fashioned social-democratic imagery. Scandinavian, between questionable hairstyles and clothes that are more circus than trendy disco.
It is therefore inevitable that in Sweden Abba are considered an institution and it was inevitable that the greatest Swedish opera singer of recent decades, Anne Sofie von Otter, decided, in 2006, to record her homage to Abba.
Von Otter, a mezzo-soprano of great versatility and intelligence, has become famous in theaters all over the world singing Mozart, Händel and Strauss but, in parallel, has a long career as an interpreter of Songs, or rather of a boundless repertoire of songs ranging from Franz Schubert to Kurt Weill, from Erich Wolfgang Korngold to traditional Scandinavian melodies. Von Otter, accustomed to the variety of her lieder repertoire, does not approach the so-called pop music as a joke or for a pure gesture camp (as Montserrat Caballé did with Freddie Mercury just to give an example) but she does it in a respectful way, as a true connoisseur of the song form. And his foray into the Abba repertoire was preceded by a beautiful unpublished album made with Elvis Costello (For the stars, 2001) and was followed by a cycle of love songs composed for her by pianist Brad Mehldau (Love songs, 2010). The one between Anne Sofie Von Otter and the Abba is the encounter between two Swedish sacred monsters and a celebration of that typically Scandinavian taste for an enchanting and deceptive melody, capable of being cheerful and melancholy at the same time. A typical feature of the best songs not only by Abba, but also by A-ha, Cardigans and Robyn.
I let the music speak he doesn’t make the mistake of plunging his hands into Abba’s most obvious repertoire: nothing Oh mama! and nothing Chiquitita, even if, if only Von Otter had wanted to do a little bit, a reinterpretation in style habanera the latter would have been a brilliant move. Benny Andersson plays the piano and arranges the pieces in such a way as to bring out the maximum melodic clarity and theatrical vocation. There is a lot of emphasis on pieces written for musicals and on more sophisticated Abba songs such as splendid The day before you came and the most famous The winner takes it all. Also noteworthy are the two pieces sung in Swedish, Bright evenings in the spring e Towards an ocean, and a reinvention of Money, money, money that looks like something out of an American Kurt Weill musical.
This album is also made precious by its main flaw: the extreme caution and precision with which Anne Sofie von Otter approaches the Abba repertoire. With the only exception of Money, money, money, in which the interpreter seems to be really enjoying himself, in most of the pieces he uses his voice and intonation with surgical precision: he manages to give an almost excessive clarity to certain passages sung by Agnetha and Frida flowed with carefree nonchalance. Von Otter’s voice sometimes gives the alienating, but all in all not unpleasant sensation of hearing Abba’s songs in very high definition: like certain TVs that show you even the tiniest of pimples on an actor’s forehead.
Anne Sofie von Otter
I let the music speak
Deutsche Grammophon, 2006
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