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Line Tjørnhøj releases vocal work about the fear of destructive inhumanity

Photo: Anders Bigum

Line Tjørnhøj releases vocal work about the fear of destructive inhumanity

On 19 May, Line Tjørnhøj's enTmenschT will be released, recorded by the Grammy-winning vocal ensemble Theater of Voices – a unique exploration of the human voice as a window into the soul.

New release
03 May 2023

In the vocal work enTmenschT, Line Tjørnhøj intertwines the words of four ill-fated lovers, from the time between the two world wars. Tjørnhøj draws theee stories into our present times, in which environmental destruction, refugeeism and the divide between digital and offline selves present similar challenges to the recovery of our authentic humanity.

On May 19, the first recording of enTmenschT by the vocal ensemble Theater of Voices will be released and already on May 5, a single will be released.

Miserable human destinies

In enTmenschT, Line Tjørnhøj investigaes our present time through a historic filter. The history is represented in this work by the unusual and inhuman destinies and actions of four people. The work’s libretto is derived from the words of the four doomed lovers themselves.

The narrative is partly built around the complex romantic entanglements between the German-Jewish artist Charlotte Salomon and war-traumatized, radical singing teacher Alfred Wolfson. Charlotte Salomon was a highly original artist, who was killed by the Nazis in Auschwitz and whose family history later turned out to hide cruel secrets.

The libretto is also about the consequences of the expressionist painter Oskar Kokoschka's obsession with the composer, writer and socialite Alma Mahler. The two started a passionate and artistically rewarding affair in 1911, but Kokoschka was demanding and dominant. When Alma Mahler married another man, Kokoschka – still obsessed with love – ordered a life-size doll with Alma Mahler's exact specifications so that he could continue to have the woman of his dreams in front of him.

Screams, sighs and squeals

For several years, Line Tjørnhøj has distinguished herself as a composer who often deals with painful and cruel subjects in powerful vocal works. "I have worked with the full spectrum of the human voice right since I started to write music, and the scream is absolutely essential to me. It is my leitmotif," she explains. 

enTmenschT is created in close collaboration with the conductor Paul Hillier and the singers in Theatre of Voices, who sing, squeal, sigh, groan and scream the inhumanity out.

Soprano Else Torp describes working with the piece: ”enTmenschT is of another world. At times inhumanely difficult to sing and to listen to. Alienating. But performed by voices, gates to the human essence, which open up the strange and makes it near […] At times the music borders on madness, but with openings through the madness into a world of new meaning.

Nominated for the Nordic Council Music Prize

In 2022, Line Tjørnhøj was nominated for the Nordic Council Music Prize for enTmenschT. The danish jury wrote in the motivation of her nomination: ”enTmenschT was created before the pandemic hit, and before what we never thought would happen in our time took place: War in Europe. It tackles two of the most extreme and expressive artist personalities in the history of art, both from the turn of the 20th century, and it was perhaps exactly there that the foundation of our modern fears had been laid: The fear of destructive inhumanity [...] enTmenschT is a touching and shocking musical work whose themes and expressions are frightfully relevant at this time.”

Other of Line Tjørnhøj's powerful vocal works
  • Line Tjørnhøj

    enTmenschT

  • Carl Nielsen, Niels W. Gade, Wilhelm Stenhammar, Vagn Holmboe, Line Tjørnhøj

    Crossing Borders