Rob Young: LARS PETTER HAGEN His music has been called an art of ‘resignation’, silent despair, and reduction, and he describes himself as a melancholic. But if all this suggests a man in retreat from society, Lars Petter Hagen’s career suggests quite the opposite. As a composer he has attracted international acclaim for his work which maintains a unique and questioning stance towards the great musical milestones of the past. The UK’s Gramophone magazine described him as ‘essentially swearing in church, at the same time as crafting the most heavenly sounds this side of the pearly gates’ and describing his 2014 album with symphonic music performed by the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra as ‘genuinely visionary… the most important new music disc to arrive for a long time’. His works such as Norwegian Archives and Tveitt-Fragments grapple with the heavy burden of history and the anxiety of influence for an artist in an age of retromania. Hagen has always kept a loose yet highly informed relationship with tradition, often questioning it by forcing it to have a conversation with a multiplicity of styles, musical languages and performance approaches. This extends across the broad range of his music, from notated and score-based work to his collaborations with electronica projects Pantha Du Prince & The Bell Laboratory. Hagen’s focus is often about finding the arbitrary lines drawn around cultures and traditions, and applying pressure until cracks begin to show.