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Poul Ruders, Vol. 9
Bridge Records May 2014
CD
$18.99

Music of Poul Ruders, Vol. 5
Bridge Records Nov 2007
CD
$18.99

Music of Poul Ruders, Vol. 7
Bridge Records Dec 2011
CD
$18.99

Music Of Poul Ruders, Vol. 6 / Søndergard, Norwegian Radio Orchestra

Bridge Records

$18.99 Mar 08, 2011

RUDERS Piano Concerto No. 2 1. Serenade on the Shores of the Cosmic Ocean 2. Bel Canto 3 • 1 Vassily Primakov (pn); 1 Thomas Søndergard, cond; 1 Norwegian RO; 2 Mikko Luoma (acc); 2 iO Str Qrt; 3 Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen (vn) • BRIDGE 9336 (64:03)

Bridge Records, a company primarily known for its commitment to contemporary American composers like Elliott Carter, continues to promote the music of the Dane Poul Ruders (b.1949). This disc is the sixth in its Ruders series. It contains compelling performances of two recent works of considerable power.

Ruders’s music has been described as a triumph of stylistic pluralism. What that means in listener’s terms is that you can never be sure the composer is going in the direction you think he is; he retains a genuine ability to surprise. Both the larger works on this disc provide examples of this. His very recent Piano Concerto No. 2 (2009–10) begins in a relatively romantic vein, evident more in its flow than its thematic material or harmony, but as the movement evolves the piano develops an almost aggressive desperation: a determination to break the formal and harmonic boundaries with frequent attacks and note clusters. The roles are reversed in the extraordinary slow movement. This consists for the most part of a tentative, exploratory line of single notes in the piano’s treble, discreetly supported by vibraphone, harp, and a solo violin. The soft, meandering solo is confronted from time to time by orchestral onslaughts of dissonant brass, squealing piccolos, and fearsome fortissimos , which seem to have no effect on the dissociative soloist, although the first of these interruptions would probably have a visceral effect on concertgoers in a live performance! In the third and final movement, the piano takes control and ushers in a brilliant and rapid moto perpetuo that crams as many notes as possible into its four and a half minutes. Ruders uses a traditional framework but fills it with quirky episodes, unexpected colors, and—in a phrase—pushes the concerto envelope. The work is similarly formal in shape but more wide-ranging in effect than his first Piano Concerto of 1994.

Color is at the forefront of Serenade on the Shores of the Cosmic Ocean , a 2004 suite in nine continuous movements for accordion and string quartet. Here Ruders displays great imagination in his exploitation of the extremes of the accordion’s range, and by blending it into the many textural devices available to the quartet. The work is inspired by literature from a variety of sources, including Shakespeare, Darwin, and Conrad; quotations or references preface each section. It begins with a cataclysmic explosion of sound (tone clusters from the accordion predominate), which gradually morphs into a passage of warm, lyrical beauty and eventually into single, long-held high notes, rather the way a composition by Silvestrov proceeds. We move through many moods, some incorporating a degree of grotesquery in galumphing ostinatos or deep growls from the lowest reaches of the solo instrument. Then in contrast the composer will lure us into pure neoromanticism—as in the sixth movement, “Threnos,” prefaced by a quotation from Shakespeare’s The Phoenix and the Turtle : “Beauty, truth and rarity / Grace in all simplicity / Here enclosed in cinders lie.” At all times in this work, as is usual with Ruders, the listener has little idea what is coming next.

The accompanying Bel Canto (also 2004) is for solo violin, commissioned by the Carl Nielsen International Violin Competition. As the title suggests it is primarily a cantabile , although there are moments of double-stopping in minor seconds to provide the unexpected. A folk or hymn-like tune brings the lament to a quiet close.

The music on this recording is a challenge but also a pleasure to get to know. It is performed with dedication and brilliance; I can’t praise highly enough the talents of pianist Primakov, violinist Sørensen, the iO Quartet (whose personnel are violinists Christina McGann and Sarah Crocker, violist Elizabeth Weisser, and cellist Chris Gross) and the remarkable accordion virtuoso Mikko Luoma. Want List material.

FANFARE: Phillip Scott

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Music Of Poul Ruders, Vol. 6 / Søndergard, Norwegian Radio Orchestra
Bridge Records Mar 2011
CD
$18.99

Tranfigurations

OUR Recordings

$21.99 Oct 09, 2026

At 77 years young, Danish composer Poul Ruders continues to delight and surprise with a seemingly endless flow of masterworks. He can be gloriously, explosively extrovert one minute-withdrawn, haunted, intently inward-looking the next. Super-abundant high spirits alternate with pained, almost expressionistic lyricism; simplicity and directness with astringent irony, all of which can be heard in this program of three new concertos for three very OLD instruments. Transfigurations: A Double Portrait for Recorders and String Orchestra (2022) features Michal Petri on a musical journey in which she takes us on a 'relay run' of the various recorders, from tenor to soprano to alto to sopranino and back again. A Moveable Concerto: Five Short Pieces for Positive Organ and Strings (2023), written at the suggestion of Peter Navarro-Alonso, organist and choir master at the big baroque Copenhagen Church Vor Frelsers Kirke (Our Savior's Church) is a stylistic romp that switches from baroque minimalistic noodling and Dutch barrel organ antics to more contemporary displays. The heart of the work however is the stunning Largo legatissimo where the sounds hang near motionless in the air. The program concludes with the Concerto for Harpsichord and Orchestra (2019) written for Mahan Esfahani and performed by him and the late Leif Segerstam, a work already recognized as one of this century's most important contributions to harpsichord literature. All of the musicians on these recordings are among the most respected in their field: Michala Petri is internationally recognized as one of the most extraordinary musicians of her generation and has played a decisive role in transforming the recorder from a historical and educational instrument into a respected voice on the world's concert stages. Danish-Spanish organist and composer Peter Navarro-Alonso is recognized as one of the most versatile and innovative musicians on the Scandinavian music scene. Renowned both for his exceptional artistry as an organist and as a visionary composer and Mahan Esfahani, widely regarded as one of the most innovative and intellectually adventurous musicians of our time, whose extraordinary artistry has redefined the role of the harpsichord in modern concert life. An essential recording for all fans of Ruders' music and aficionados of contemporary concertos for unusual instruments.

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Tranfigurations
OUR Recordings Oct 2026
CD
$21.99

Ruders: Fairytale, De Profundis, Etc / Solyom, Adès, Et Al

Bridge Records

$18.99 May 25, 2004

Bridge has the admirable philosophy of concentrating on a few composers in which the label believes, and then issuing a series of discs that begin to give us listeners a sense of the scope of their work. It’s an invaluable service, which one could only wish were more widely imitated. Not only does the label support such obvious masters as Carter and Crumb, but the Dane Poul Ruders (b. 1949) is an instance of its taking a chance on a younger composer just hitting his prime. The works on this program come from three different points in the composer’s career. The Piano Sonata No. 2 is the earliest (1982); De Profundis dates from 1990; and the two orchestral works are the most recent, with Concerto in Pieces composed in 1994–95 (and one of Ruders’s biggest “hits”), and Fairytale in 1999.

The sonata is a brilliant work in four movements, lasting 25 minutes. It comes from the period when Ruders had just found his voice, which combined the astringent spikiness of modernist gesture with a more cyclic flow and a “pitch-centricity” suggestive of minimalism. Like his compatriot Per Nørgaard, Ruders found ways to spin out his music so that it seemed to be constantly regenerating itself (though the models he chose to follow had more to do with change-ringing than Nørgaard’s “infinity series”). As a result, the music moves from a dark, more dissonant and taut world towards ever-greater radiance. If I think of a point of comparison, it might be the Copland Piano Variations, though far more expansive in its scale. The pianist, in a live performance from the Aldeburgh festival, is none other than Thomas Adès, the great young hope of English music, who plays this very difficult music with bravura. One hears a tiny bit of strain in the rendition, especially in the climax of the first movement, but overall I find myself even more open to Adès’s own compositions on the basis of his obviously overwhelming musicianship. This recording is a rare instance of that wonderful thing, when one major artist takes the time and effort to devote himself to the work of another.

De Profundis is scored for two pianos and percussion. It’s conceit is simple: a slow and inevitable rise from low to high in every manner—from bass to treble register, from spare to prolix texture, from slow to fast tempo, from dark to blinding color. Ruders handles the task with a great sense of dramatic pacing. Of course, the progression sounds similar to what I described above in the sonata, but here it is far more continuous in its transformations (though from a different Scandinavian country, Ruders seems to have learned a lot from Sibelius).

The two orchestral works are colorful and occasional. Fairytale was commissioned by the Nordic youth orchestra that performs it here (stunningly). It is non-stop, ostinato-driven, breathless. The Concerto in Pieces was commissioned as a double tribute, to both the tercentennial of Purcell’s birth and the 50th anniversary of the Britten Young People’s Guide to the Orchestra. The idea was to create a modern analogue to the Britten, and as such, it had to be an incredibly intimidating commission, perhaps even more so for a foreigner. But Ruders seems to have relished the challenge. The work exudes a sense of athletic exuberance, a delight in discovering new ways to tweak its source (a different Purcell piece than Britten’s choice, by the way), and a constant pleasure in sonic and structural invention. While all the orchestral sections get a full workout, the music makes its point more from distinctive color-combinations than exposure of separate choirs. Tuba, muted trumpet, harp, and saxophone get extended solos in different variations. And one hears a very strong Sibelian reference in the horns in the final variation.

In the end, this is an extremely successful release, and one can’t help but be impressed with Ruders’s mastery of whatever medium he puts his mind to. Having said that, I must close with one reservation. The recent works, despite their confidence and technical bravura, somehow feel a little hollow in comparison to the composer’s earlier pieces. To take one example, his orchestral piece from 1982, Manhattan Abstraction, is absolutely thrilling and overwhelming in its energy, but there’s also something profound there, a linkage between the sonically brilliant surface and a rigorously logical architecture. Of course, these newer orchestral pieces are lighter by virtue of their commissioning circumstances, so I don’t want to rush to a judgement based solely on them. I was sensing this same unease in my review of the previous release in this series (Fanfare 26:6). Indeed, it may be that Ruders’s imagination has moved more into the world of music drama and these instrumental works are partaking thereof, relinquishing that more Germanic devotion to the transcendentally abstract. I said in that earlier review I probably needed to hear the recording of his opera The Handmaid’s Tale, and I’m ashamed to say I still haven’t. This review makes it particularly obvious I have to do so.

But this more general critique doesn’t take away from the worth of this release, which is recommended, nor from my admiration and encouragement to Bridge to stay their course and their continued advocacy of composers in whose mastery they trust.

Robert Carl, FANFARE

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Ruders: Fairytale, De Profundis, Etc / Solyom, Adès, Et Al
Bridge Records May 2004
CD
$18.99

New Music For Choir
Kontrapunkt Jan 1988
CD
$22.99

Ruders: Symphony No. 5 / Elts, Danish National Symphony Orchestra

Bridge Records

$18.99 Nov 08, 2016

This disc presents the world premiere recording of Poul Ruders's latest symphony, completed in 2013. The symphony, composed in three movements is, in some ways, the great Danish composer's most traditional symphony- an explosive, quick-paced first movement followed by an hypnotically inward-looking slow movement, followed by a bristling dance finale. Aside from its outer-trappings, Ruders 5 inhabits a sound world all its own. The first movement's opening brass fanfare is followed immediately by startling police whistles and pounding drums- music of volcanic power and intensity. The slow movement employs a huge registral span, and the third movement's funky dance rhythms collide with dense harmonic underpinnings. The work is given a brilliant reading by the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, led by the Estonian maestro, Olari Elts. The recording was made in the Danish Radio's new concert hall, named by Gramophone, as one of the "10 best concert halls in the world".

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Ruders: Symphony No. 5 / Elts, Danish National Symphony Orchestra
Bridge Records Nov 2016
CD
$18.99

Ruders: Nightshade Trilogy

Bridge Records

$18.99 Oct 14, 2014

Nightshade Trilogy was composed by Poul Ruders over a span of 17 years- between 1986 and 2003. In the composer’s words, it is “a collection of compositions that evoke for me an almost Gothic association with pale moonlight, tombstones crypts and the elusive shadows deep inside an ancient forest at the deep of night.”

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Ruders: Nightshade Trilogy
Bridge Records Oct 2014
CD
$18.99

Ruders: Six Symphonies

Bridge Records

$54.99 Nov 14, 2025

Leading British critic Stephen Johnson called Poul Ruders "The Richard Strauss of the computer-aged orchestra", and indeed the Ruders six symphonies, collected here for the first time, sparkle with vivid color and brilliant orchestral virtuosity. Ruders is best known for his score to the opera "The Handmaid's Tale", based on Margaret Atwood's dystopian American tale, produced by opera companies throughout Europe and North America.

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Ruders: Six Symphonies
Bridge Records Nov 2025
CD
$54.99

Ruders: Dream Catcher / Mogensen, Lang-Lessing, Odense Symfoniorkester

Bridge Records

$18.99 Mar 19, 2021

Bridge's Poul Ruders Edition, Vol. 16, features the world premiere recording of a major new Ruders concerto, the seven movement "Sound and Simplicity" (2018), performed by Danish accordion virtuoso Bjarke Mogensen and the Odense Symfoniorkester, led by Sebastian Lang-Lessing. The album also includes Mogensen's transcription of Ruders's hypnotic "Dream Catcher" for solo accordion, and the re-issue of one of the Danish composer's masterpieces- his Symphony No. 3, subtitled "Dream Catcher". Ruders stands today among a handful of the world's leading composers, with operas staged in Munich, London, Copenhagen, New York, Santa Fe, and Boston, and symphonic scores commissioned by the Berlin Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

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Ruders: Dream Catcher / Mogensen, Lang-Lessing, Odense Symfoniorkester
Bridge Records Mar 2021
CD
$18.99

Contrappassi

Stradivarius

$16.99 Jan 31, 2025

The CD entitled Contrappassi sees the two protagonists, Leonardo Zunica on piano and Leandro Lo Bianco on electric guitar, engaged in compositions by contemporary authors, with pieces that find poetic-musical inspiration in the fascinating and complex world of Dante. A program with broad musical visions that transport you to an unexpected soundscape, with the two performers who give life to moments and atmospheres of surprising suggestion. The CD's lineup opens with the Sonata n. 1 "DANTE SONATA" for piano by the Danish composer Poul Ruders (born in 1949), a work divided into two distinct movements with contrasting characteristics. The roots of the Dante Sonata are not only linked to Dante's canticles but also to the author's admiration for Liszt's Sonata in B minor. Dante, therefore, seen through the eyes of Liszt. The piece by Ruders is followed by MALEBOLGE for electric guitar and piano TRE CANZONI DI FRANCESCO LANDINI for piano with electric guitar ad libitum by the Italian composer Gabrio Taglietti, a journey that leads to the VIII circle of Hell. Taglietti wanted to alternate his three pits with transcriptions for piano, and in the last case for piano and electric guitar, of as many ballads by Francesco Landini, a composer of the fourteenth century, the genre in which Landini excelled. This singular listening journey ends with a piece by Leandro Lo Bianco, here in the role of composer as well as performer: THREE IMPROVISATIONS ON R. RAUSCHENBERG "DANTE'S INFERNO" for solo electric guitar and electronic devices.

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Contrappassi
Stradivarius Jan 2025
CD
$16.99

Ruders: The Thirteenth Child / Shwartz, Starobin, Odense Symphony

Bridge Records

$19.99 Jun 21, 2019

The Thirteenth Child is an opera in two acts, with music by Poul Ruders to a libretto by Becky & David Starobin. Commissioned by The Santa Fe Opera and the Odense Symfoniorkester, the libretto is an adaptation of the Brothers Grimm story, "The Twelve Brothers." The recording, made in Denmark and the USA, brings Ruders's gripping 80-minute score vividly to life.

The Thirteenth Child is Poul Ruders's fifth opera. The Danish composer is well known for his gripping dystopian opera, The Handmaid's Tale. The Thirteenth Child shares some of the dark world of The Handmaid's Tale, but also gives the listener a fairy tale, full of romance, magic, and transformation.

REVIEWS:

There is plenty of space for lyrical solo numbers in Ruders’ score, which veers between mid-Atlantic neoromanticism and something edgier and more expressionist in the orchestral interludes...it’s particularly Sarah Shafer in the role of Lyra who makes the most of his smoothly contoured vocal writing.

– Guardian (UK)

Fairy tales advance by surprising, generally magical events, and Ruders has invented captivating music for each. Ruders and his librettists have created an enchanting work in the genre of the fairy-tale opera, replete with spells, magic gardens, a quest to find 12 long-lost brothers, and a princess (the 13th child of the title) fated to undergo ill and happy adventures before she rescues her brothers and weds her prince.

There are two outstanding singers here in mezzo Tamara Mumford, as Gertrude, and lyric soprano Sarah Shafer as Lyra. Ruders furnishes the mother-daughter relationship with his most beautiful music, and the two singers are luminous in tone and moving emotionally. I must single out bass Matt Bochler as Hjarne, who encompasses an extraordinary vocal range extending from Fafner-like low notes to an eerie high falsetto. As the love interest, Prince Frederic, lyric tenor Alasdair Kent has a gleaming romantic tone perfectly suited to some of Ruders’s most romantic melodies."

– Fanfare Magazine - June, 2019

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Ruders: The Thirteenth Child / Shwartz, Starobin, Odense Symphony
Bridge Records Jun 2019
CD
$19.99

Ruders, P.: 4 Dances
Dacapo Classical Nov 2009
CD
$13.99

Ruders, P.: Guitar Works - Psalmodies Suite / Chaconne / Jar
Dacapo Jazz Sep 2008
CD
$13.99

Nørgard & Ruders: Works for Solo Cello / Wilhelmina Smith

Ondine

$18.99 Jan 08, 2021

Cellist Wilhelmina Smith’s second album release on Ondine continues exploring contemporary Nordic repertoire for solo cello. In her new album Smith has focus on Danish contemporary composers, Per Nørgård (b. 1932) and Poul Ruders (b. 1949). Both Nørgård and Ruders are known for their large-scale orchestral works. Nørgård, in particular, is known for his eight symphonies and has been hailed by many as one of the greatest living symphonists. It is therefore intriguing to look closer to his two very early lyrical solo cello sonatas, early masterpieces written just before completing his 1st Symphony. In 1980, the composer revised his second sonata by adding an extensive second movement, almost an entirely new sonata, to the existing work. Nørgård’s 3rd sonata “What – Is the Word!” from 1999 is a short “Sonata breve” that takes its title from a quote by Irish playwriter Samuel Beckett. Another major Danish composer of our times, Poul Ruders (b. 1949), has also written 5 symphonies alongside several concertos and three operas. Ruders wrote his 10-movement Bravourstudien in 1976, just at the brink of a major stylistic change. This work is a set of variations on a Medieval folk tune “L’homme armé”. In this work, however, the original theme is heard at the very end of the work.

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Nørgard & Ruders: Works for Solo Cello / Wilhelmina Smith
Ondine Jan 2021
CD
$18.99

RUDERS: Kafka's Trial (Proces Kafka, Prozess Kafka)
Dacapo Classical Jun 2006
CD
$29.99

Haydn: Piano Sonatas, Vol. 2

Bridge Records

$18.99 Mar 16, 2018

The esteemed American pianist Anne-Marie McDermott has played concertos, recitals and chamber music in hundreds of cities in the United States, Europe and Asia. Recent collaborations include recitals with her violin partner, Nadja Salerno Sonnenberg, chamber music with the piano quartet, Opus One, and concertos with the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, and Dallas Symphony Orchestra in Vail, Colorado. Ms. McDermott's upcoming recordings for Bridge include a series of Mozart concertos, and the new Poul Ruders Piano Concerto No. 3, "Paganini Variations", recorded with the Odense Symphony Orchestra. On the present release, McDermott has once again chosen the sonatas of Haydn, making this her second volume of the composer’s work for Bridge Records. “We have waited a long time for an American pianist of this stature.” (Gramophone) “She’s one of the great American pianists of her generation.” (The Philadelphia Inquirer)

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Haydn: Piano Sonatas, Vol. 2
Bridge Records Mar 2018
CD
$18.99

Ginastera: Estancia Suite, Etc / Jan Wagner, Odense So

Bridge Records

$18.99 Mar 25, 2003

Born in Buenos Aires in 1916, Alberto Ginastera lived to become unquestionably the most significant figure in Argentine music in the 20th century. This CD combines Ginastera's deep interest in the authentic folk music of his country alongside the more radical compositional techniques which gave his music such individual personality. Commissioned in 1941 for Lincoln Kirstein's Ballet Caravan, the 1943 Suite made from Estancia became the piece that launched Ginastera's international fame - the spectacular Danza Final is perhaps Ginastera's most celebrated essay in the style of the Malambo - an exhilarating explosion of kinetic energy. Also in 1943, Ginastera composed his Overture to the Creole Faust, and it is, in a way an appendix to the Estancia dances, since it again deals with the life of the gauchos. Ollantay is nearly a symphony. Composed in 1947 for Erich Kleiber, the three movement work takes its inspiration from a poem from the early Incan period. Pampeana No. 3 is even closer to the symphony that Ginastera never wrote. Pampeana No. 3, like Ollantay, is also in three movements. The title recalls rhythms and melodies of the Argentine pampas, and the second movement contains one of the most extraordinary rhythmic tours-de-force in all of Ginastera's output. The Odense Symphony Orchestra continues their new series on Bridge with this outstanding recording. Bridge discs which also feature the Odense Symphony Orchestra include: Bridge 9129 (Villa-Lobos Symphonic Music), Bridge 9122 (Poul Ruders Edition, Vol. 3) and Bridge 9100 (Nielsen Violin Concerto).

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Ginastera: Estancia Suite, Etc / Jan Wagner, Odense So
Bridge Records Mar 2003
CD
$18.99

Olesen: Der Wind bläset wo er will / Moser, Tausk, Danish National Symphony Orchestra

Dacapo Classical

$17.99 Jan 01, 2021

Danish composer Thomas Agerfeldt Olesen brings together two of his major orchestral works of the 2010s, Der Wind bläset wo er will and his Cello Concerto, for his third release on Dacapo Records. Olesen's stunning music is about life and about being alive: each piece is a world unto itself. They are recorded here with cellist Johannes Moser and the Danish National Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Otto Tausk. Thomas Agerfeldt Olesen trained both as a cellist and composer at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Aarhus. As a composer he studied with Karl Aage Rasmussen, Bent Sørensen and Olav Anton Thommesen at the Academy and privately with Henryk Gorecki and Poul Ruders. He has been the leader of Ensemble 2000 and chairman of the Aarhus Young Composers Society, and is at present director of the SPOR Festival in Århus. Outside Denmark TAO's music has been performed in Germany, England, France, Greece, Norway, Sweden, Chile, Russia and Finland.

REVIEW:

Olesen’s Cello Concerto is a wonderful find and worth the price of the disc on its own. Johannes Moser is completely inside it and it’s difficult to imagine a more emotionally powerful rendition. The Dutch conductor Otto Tausk is equally attuned to the essence of this singular piece and ensures world-class accompaniment from the DNSO. Dacapo’s teriffic recording exudes clarity—the balance between soloist and orchestra seems ideal.

These two substantial works add up to just under 50 minutes of exceptional contemporary music, but frankly who’s counting? In each case the sounds Thomas Agerfeldt Olesen has devised are utterly absorbing. He writes with tremendous sophistication and wit in the first piece and with an emotional directness in the second which is as daring as it is affecting. To echo the translation of the title of the first piece, both works last as long as they do. Each will amply reward any curious, sympathetic listener. That is surely enough.

– MusicWeb International

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Olesen: Der Wind bläset wo er will / Moser, Tausk, Danish National Symphony Orchestra
Dacapo Classical Jan 2021
CD
$17.99