Classical Music

Classical Music

Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983) is a distinctive voice in twentieth-century classical music, and together with the master of the tango, Astor Piazzolla, he is the towering musical figure of Argentina. Born in Buenos Aires of an Italian mother and a Catalonian father, Ginastera is a complex composer and personality, shaped by the traditional folk culture and history of his native country and by impulses from the world at large, during a time of radical upheavals in the realm of Western classical music. The Harp Concerto was commissioned in 1956 by Edna Phillips. The work was not premiered until 1965, and then it was the Spanish harpist Nicanor Zabaleta. When the concerto first appeared, it became a brilliant addition to the harp literature and twentieth-century instrumental concertos. Variaciones concertantes was completed more than ten years earlier and was premiered in Buenos Aires in 1953. The music is an irresistible combination of orchestral timbres and virtuosity communicating directly with the listener, especially as regards the entertainment aspect inherent in virtuosic orchestral sound and a demanding soloist performance.

Classical Music

Today, one finds female choirs in almost every nook and cranny of Norway. The time when Norwegian choral singing was dominated by male choirs can seem like the distant past. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, only eleven years after women were admitted for the first time ever as students to the university, three medical students joined forces and founded a university choir for women. The year was 1895. The Women's Choral Society of the University of Oslo was a reality. It was in fact the world's first academic choir for women, and has recently been ranked as the world's best female choir by the music organization Interkultur. The collection of arrangements and compositions on this album bears the imprint of both National Romanticism and traditional Norwegian folk music. At the same time, it perhaps contains a greater variation of sources and styles than is typical for National Romantic male choir music. In the course of it's long existence, KSS has in many ways created it's own version of the tradition-bound, nation-affirming music. And it is this distinctive interpretation of the National Romantic element that represents much of what is unique about KSS. This release, "Som den gylne sol frembryter," seeks to embrace something of the identity that distinguished KSS 123 years ago, and still does so today.

Classical Music

With but a handful of songs, a few piano pieces and some incidental music, Ricard Nordraak, at the age of twenty-three, succeeded in achieving mythical status in Norwegian cultural life. He lived at a time when an early death had led to such a status, from Goethe's ''Sorrows of Young Werther'' via Mozart, Schubert and Mendelssohn, to our own Henrik Wergeland. There is so much that remains unexpressed and unrealized in the figure of Rikard Nordraak, so much that has to do with what he could have accomplished. Would he have composed the lofty Norwegian opera of which Bjornson had dreamed? Might he have written the great Norwegian Romantic Symphony? Or, owing to his rather easy-going disposition, might he have slipped steadily into obscurity?

Ssens Trio (pronounced "Essence") was established in 2014 by three musicians with a wealth of experience in the international music scene. The trio has appeared in concert with Geir Inge Lotsberg, Elvind Ringstad, Havard Gimse and Leif Ove Andsnes, among others. Their first album, "Beethoven: String Trio Op. 3 & Serenade Op. 8" received Pizzicato Magazine's "Supersonic Award" and a prestigious ICMA Awards nomination in 2018. Fanfare Magazine wrote: "With absolutely no hesitation I will say that it goes right to the top of my Beethoven String Trios list." (Jerry Dubins). And the following from a review in Pizzicato Magazine under the heading 'Beethoven With A Communicative Joy of Music Making:' "Their performance is brimming with the joy of playing together. An outstanding 'trialogue,' with each performer fully sensing the other. Through this interactive music-making, which in the Adagio and Minuet movements invokes a remarkably intimate mood, Beethoven's works gain in depth and sensuousness. And when one combines the sensitive playing with a wonderfully eloquent virtuosity, the way is clear for pure listening pleasure." (Alain Steffen)

Classical Music

It was Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov’s older brother, Voin, who first put ideas of travel, ships and the sea into the would-be composer’s head. The young Nikolay had never set foot aboard a boat but Voin’s evocative letters home from the Far East, where he was stationed in the Imperial Russian Navy, proved more than sufficient. Nikolay’s career path looked set even from his childhood bedroom, where he learned nautical terms, rigged-up model ships and practiced tying knots, his mind full of the adventure and romance of seafaring. In 1856, he enrolled as a naval cadet and completed six years of training. During that time another passion nudged its way into Rimsky’s heart: music. Barely a year into his studies at the naval academy, the young Nikolay saw his first opera. Soon he heard symphonies by Beethoven and Mendelssohn and encountered a piece by his senior Mikhail Glinka, Jota Aragonesa. Even before he embarked on a three-year voyage around the world aboard a clipper, Rimsky knew he wanted to be a composer, not a seaman. Afterwards, having sailed into some of the great ports of the world, he returned home happy never to leave Russia again – the only journeys Rimsky wanted to make were musical. This new release is a new, stunning release by Vasily Petrenko conducting the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra in a exhaustive survey of Rimsky-Korsakov orchestral output, including the most idiomatic Scheherazade.

The annual Christmas concert series at Oslo Cathedral, 'Klinge skal et jubelkor', has long been a highlight of the pre-Christmas period in Norway's capital city. Once every year, all of the choirs associated with the cathedral come together to perform a programme of Christmas music, from the youngest fledglings in the boys' choir to the veteran choristers who have sung at the cathedral their whole lives. Together with brass, timpani, harp, and two organs, the choirs perform Christmas carols central to the traditions of the Church of Norway.�This recording of Oslo Cathedral's Christmas programme demonstrates that the cathedral continues to thrum with it's rich musical tradition.

The six cello suites on this recording have their parallel in six sonatas for solo violin, also from Bach's time in Kothen, before he moved to Leipzig. On the title page of the violin sonatas the composer wrote Libro primo. The original manuscript of the cello suites has vanished, but both wife Anna Magdalena and others left copies. Did the composer perhaps call the cello suites Second Book? Traditional dance forms are the bones of the suites as they are in other suites by Bach and other Baroque composers. But this is not music for a palace ball. The dance tradition serves as the basis for an unrelenting elaboration and exploration of contours, sounds, and rhythms. Bjorg Lewis is one of Norway's most sought-after and admired cellists. She plays on a Gennaro Gagliano dated 1748.

Prokofiev's imaginative orchestration has made the ballet Romeo and Juliet world-famous, primarily through the orchestral suites as opposed to the ballet as a whole. Unmistakably a child of the Rimsky-Korsakov school of orchestration, Prokofiev's orchestra arsenal for the ballet includes tenor saxophone, four mandolins, cornet, celesta, organ, piano and a number of percussion instruments. This richness in orchestration allows for unique timbres that the composer employs in the illustration of one of the world's most iconic love stories. While Russian music has been integral to the Oslo Philharmonic's recording and performance schedule in the three years that Vasily Petrenko has been at the helm, it has held an important position in the orchestra repertoire dating back to it's recordings with Jansons in the 1980s and 1990s. The exploration of this vast musical catalogue is set to continue in the orchestra's future projects with Petrenko, whose tenure as Chief Conductor was recently renewed until the 2019-20 seasion. The Oslo Philharmonic is known for it's spirit of discovery and it's reputation for finesse. Under new Chief Conductor Vasily Petrenko, it works at the highest levels of detail and style. The orchestra travels the globe, but never feels more at home than on their stage in the Oslo Concert Hall.

Classical Music

Classical Music