Composed by Bent Sørensen (b. 1955), the three works with the piano in focus, released here for the first time on CD, have been recorded by the English pianist Rolf Hind in collaboration with his regular duo partner, the violinist David Alberman, and accompanied by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Michael Schønwandt.

" This CD presents five world premiere recordings of acoustic and electronic works by the Danish composer Rune Glerup (b. 1981). Instead of offering a narrative flow of music, Glerup uniquely allows the listener to move around among independent three-dimensional blocks of sound with powerful energy fields between them."

The idea of building great music from modest or fragmentary means has characterized the work of Nordic composers for generations. In Svend Hvidtfelt Nielsen’s music, that idea finds a particularly exquisite and absolutely contemporary expression. In Toccata the music glances towards a filmic chase-down, whereas Nielsen in Ophelia Dances claims to ‘hear the dancing’ of that fragile character from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The album concludes with Nielsen’s single-movement symphony, Symphony No. 3, which sets in motion a cumulative journey upwards from low to high: a symphonic Tower of Babel, reaching for the heavens. All of the works on this release are world premiere recordings, and the album is being released to mark Svend Hvidfelt Nielsen’s 60th birthday. Nielsen is also a gifted church organist, and on this album he plays the organ solo part in the Toccata.

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REVIEW:

The Ophelia Dances is certainly strange and interesting music, more “ambient” in sound but still well structured beneath its odd sonorities. Though apparently a continuous work, it is clearly composed in discrete movements, placing the accordion in the midst of bitonal swirls of sound and pungent brass and string interjections.

The Symphony No. 3, written in 2010, uses a sort of musical “big bang” at the outset, followed by “stuttering fragments” which “muster to initiate the development of the symphony’s vertical structure, supported by foundations in the form of tectonic pedal notes.” This is indeed a technical description of what happens, but the listening process is more emotional and therefore more fascinating.

A strange sort of album, then, yet fascinating and certainly worth a listen!

– Arts Music Lounge

The research on the musical cultures of faraway countries left it's mark on Poul Rovsing Olsen's (1922-82) oeuvre. He aimed at clarity and substance, and by fusing elements from the Occidental and Oriental traditions he developed a personal musical idiom that was unusual in Danish music. Poul Rovsing Olsen himself said that it was his dream "to make music as direct as possible, to bring it closer to the listener". This album features his last composition 'A Dream in Violet' and four world premiere recordings of his music for voice and instruments, including 'The Planets,' based on a block book from the 15th century. Poul Rovsing Olsen was educated at the Royal Danish Academy of Music and subsequently in Paris where he studied under the highly regarded teacher Nadia Boulanger and the renowned composer Olivier Messiaen. Alongside his studies of classical music, Rovsing Olsen cultivated his passion for Oriental music and a great part of his life he dedicated to his professional work on ethnomusicology. His work in the music of distant countries also left it's mark on Rovsing Olsen's own music.

Making important decisions can be complicated. It can also be perfectly simple. Most of the time, though, it seems like it is both. Echoing such intertwined feelings of doubt and clarity, Niels Ronsholdt (b. 1978) presents a unique song cycle full of mirrors, sensitivity and undaunted experimentation. The music included on this release transcends the boundaries between classical and pop music. The work stood out at both November Music Festival 2015 (Holland) and SPOR Festival 2016 (Denmark), receiving the biggest audience applause at both festivals. Niels Ronsholdt teaches composition alongside fellow composer Simon Steen-Andersen at the Danish Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus, the former home of composers such as Per Norgard and Bent Sorensen. Of Ronsholdt’s previous release, Nordische Musik gave five stars and wrote: “Me Quitte is anything but difficult avant-garde music: it is emotional, fragile, moving, dreamlike, and yes, even charming.”

HOLMBOE Eco. Aspects. Sonata for Cello Solo. Quartetto Medico. Sextet • Ens MidtVest • DACAPO 8.226074 (70:28)


The music of Vagn Holmboe (1909-1996), in addition to these chamber works (of which this is Vol. 2), extends to more than 370 pieces including 13 symphonies. His music is generally described as neoclassical but operating within the parameters of an organic form of development. Holmboe described this as a process of gradual but evident change in the music “interrelated with many things that slowly seep in through a life lived with nature.” Thus his music tends to be quite serious, despite occasional moments of jocularity, but never off-putting. His earlier style was based on the music of his mentor, Carl Nielsen, then developed through years spent in the Balkans studying the folk music there.


These five works come from the latter stages of his career, the earliest of them being the Quartetto Medico of 1956. This piece was written for friends of his who were amateur musicians and professional doctors, which explains its lack of difficulty as well as the humorous titles of the movements (such as Andante medicamento, Allegro quasi febrile and the two “Intermedicos”). The wind quintet Aspects dates from 1957, but the other works are all later: the Solo Cello Sonata from 1968-69, the Sextet from 1973, and Eco from 1991.


The liner notes claim that there is a “Zen-like balance between intellect and nature” in his music, and I would concur. Oddly enough, however, I found that his slow movements were much more emotionally affecting to me than his fast ones. Either the Ensemble MidtVest doesn’t play these with enough good-humored brio, or it just isn’t in there to be brought out, but in either case I find his Allegro s to be peppy but lacking the boisterous good humor of Nielsen’s.


Of course, in the case of the solo cello sonata—played with tremendous feeling and elegance by Jonathan Slaatto—this is serious music indeed, thus the fast passages in the first movement are more in the nature of exposition and spinning out of the theme rather than an attempt at humor. Indeed, I found this to be the most interesting, and certainly the deepest, work on this disc, alternating its moods quickly but always logically. The primary key of the sonata is G Minor, but true to his proclivity for using Balkan folk music, Holmboe works primarily in modes and not in Western keys. Either Slaatto has a somewhat light and airy tone or the microphone placement makes it sound thus, but in either case I felt that the overly reverberant soundspace did not flatter the instrument in this work. That being said, there is little or nothing one can quibble of in either the work’s construction (I wonder if Holmboe was ever more mercurial in his change of moods than he is here) or its emotional impact.


Despite the overall lightness of tone (and texture) in the Quartetto Medico, this music is not really very jocular either. Rather, it floats like a cloud within the universe of Holmboe’s mind, to some extent like Debussy’s early chamber music. This is particularly true of the second “Intermedico,” marked Poco largamente , which is played by the solo pianist in a dreamy style and manner, while the finale ( Allegro con frangula ) starts with piano but is soon joined by the winds. The tempo is more of an Allegretto , not terribly fast, though the music soon doubles in speed as it swirls to a conclusion.


Holmboe’s Sextet begins with the solo cello, which is a bit deceiving, as well as in a slowish tempo that soon picks up. Again, the music is slightly jocular but not really humorous, yet as in the case of all his music it makes a good impression. The Andante cantabile second movement seems to suspend time and place as the music simply hangs above one’s ears while listening, while the final Allegro molto coalesces musical moods into a typically quirky finale.


If this disc is your introduction to Holmboe’s musical world, as it was for me, I think you’ll be intrigued and charmed by it. If you haven’t gotten around to Holmboe’s chamber works but like his other music, this one is a must.


FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley

Bent Sørensen's music can feel like the product of a dream, at once vague and precise, present and intangible. With Rosenblad and Pantomime, the recording of Sørensen's trilogy Papillons is complete. This is music filled with the ebb and flow of fear, hope and nostalgia and unified by common musical material through the same anchoring piano part across it's movements. All works including the Fantasia Appassionata for solo piano are written for Katrine Gislinge, Sørensen's wife and one of the most significant pianists in Scandinavia, here accompanied by Esbjerg Ensemble and the Stenhammar Quartet. All of the pieces on this release are premiere recordings, and are being released at the same time that Sørensen will receive the prestigious Grawemeyer Award.

The viola occupies a special place in the psyche of musicians and composers. It is an instrument of mystery, soulfulness and even of protest and revolt. Rafaell Altino, principal viola of the Odense Symphony Orchestra, presents this exploration of his instrument's power and possibilities as realized by six leading Danish composers. Some explore the viola as a tool for sound production while others relish what it's distinctive also singing voice does to melodies. The results are as touching and warm as they are fearsome and defiant. All works on this release are commissioned by and dedicated to Altino by Danish composers, including Grawemeyer Award winner Bent Sorensen. Liner notes have been provided by Andrew Mellor, journalist and critic with a particular interest in the culture and music of Denmark and the Nordic countries.

If you don’t know Danish composer Ole Buck, you’ve been missing something special. His music is approachable, imaginative, often nature-inspired, and crafted with remarkable precision. Each of these pieces is written for a different number of instruments or players (the notes unfortunately don’t tell us which ones), and each of them matters. Buck is a master of musical timing (the notes do say that, and it’s the truth). In Fiori di ghiaccio (Ice Flowers), for example, just when you think all nine players have made a contribution, in comes a trumpet injecting a new flash of color (and melody).

A Tree, for thirteen musicians, predictably features some wooden percussion, but nothing else about the piece follows conventional paths. The title is the only naive thing about it. [Untitled], for eight instruments, is the most austere work here, and also the shortest, but it’s also incredibly imaginative. It’s a sort of “Pictures at an Exhibition” dedicated to paintings that are, as you might have guessed, untitled. Use your imagination. Flower Ornament Music, for seventeen instruments, is a major statement. There are, perhaps, Asian overtones in the central section, with its crashing tam-tam, and the ebullient closing minutes have minimalist overtones, but there’s nothing really like it in the modern repertoire.

The performances sound totally at home with the idiom; the players clearly relish their solo opportunities, and conductor Jesper Nordin has a good feel for the music’s carefully gauged pacing. Great sound, and just a great disc.

– ClassicsToday (David Hurwitz)

Per Nørgard is one of the most frequently played composers of his generation. He has written more than 400 works in all genres and inspired innumerable colleagues in Denmark and abroad. This album presents all of Nørgard's music for the Oscar winning Babette's Feast film version by Gabriel Axel of Karen Blixen's short story - not just the snatches of it one can hear in the film. One can also get to know the hypnotic Spell, the ripples and bubbles in Whirl's World and Trio Breve, which according to the composer himself are to be regarded as three as short expressive phrases - dream-like pictures - that change between light and dark, fast and slow but with introvert melodic features in common.

Duo Åstrand/Salo follow up their first installment of sonatas by Friedrich Kuhlau with a selection of some of the composer’s most impressive works for violin and piano. Friedrich Kuhlau fled to Denmark as a young man and with his strong cosmopolitan personality became a loner- and at the same time a key figure- in the Danish Golden Age. In 1813 Kuhlau was granted Danish citizenship and the honorary title of Royal Court Musician. Included on this release is what some consider the first Danish violin sonata in the Romantic style, a work that glances towards the composer’s idol Beethoven but contains plenty of individual spice and allure. It is followed by sonatas in all but name, the Trois Duos brillants from late in Kuhlau’s career. They are brilliant, as the title suggests – three varied, evocative snapshots of the great cosmopolitan of Denmark’s Golden Age.

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REVIEW:

Kuhlau’s music sounds thoroughly Germanic, and he makes no attempt to develop a Danish national style. He is definitely one of the best composers of his era, though; and it wouldn’t be until Schumann in the early 1850s that anyone would write better for violin and piano.

– American Record Guide

This album is a unique collaboration between the young Danish composer Kasper Rofelt and accordionist Bjarke Mogensen, to whom all works on this premiere recording were dedicated. From the intimate Nightsongs to the colorful Light Falling, this CD offers both solo and chamber works with a variety of musical characters and idioms. "Bjarke Mogensen is an astonishment on record. Once heard, never forgotten" - the Arts Journal, New York 2011.

"There are so many musical gems on this release that, as a curious listener, you should indulge yourself and become acquainted with these concertos." - Christian Times, Denmark

"Subtle interpretive qualities and restraint combined with an abundantly accessible melody in tonal anchoring makes Koppel's music immediately appealing to the listener." - Upsala Nya Tidning, Sweden

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Anders Koppel (b. 1947) is to a rare degree a composer of his time. With one foot firmly planted in the classical European musical tradition and the other in world music, rock and jazz, Anders Koppel's career as a composer can be seen as one long continuous mission to unite these cultures in a contemporary musical idiom. This has resulted in a long succession of original works, all bearing the mark of a special ability to communicate emotions and energy, powerfully and straightforwardly, between musicians and audience.

The music on this CD confirms the special position of the composer Jorgen Jersild (1913-2004) in Danish music. It is captivating chamber music written over a half-century during which the composer underwent great musical development, but at the same time persisted in his own personal style - from the early works from the 1930s and 1940s to the later string quartet showing US a courageous, mature composer seeking out new musical areas.