On his new release, Études Poétiques, pianist Rune Alver presents the listener with piano pieces of Signe Lund (1868 – 1950). Lund is one of the most distinguished female composers in Norwegian musical history, but the release is controversial nonetheless. In the early 1930s, Lund began to take an interest in National Socialism, and in 1935 she became a member of the Norwegian National Socialist party, Nasjonal Samling. Convicted of treason after the Second World War, she remained sympathetic to the Nazi ideology until her death. However, all the pieces on the album were composed between 1896 and 1928, when Signe Lund was a committed socialist and dedicated feminist. During this time she was involved in a number of causes, including an effort to strengthen the rights of Norwegian composers, and she was one of the initiators of the movement that led to the founding of the Norwegian Society of Composers in 1917. This release features a selection of Lund’s most familiar pieces, among them, the languorous and melancholy “Legende”, and “Fredsklokker” (“Peace Chimes”), which she composed upon hearing that World War One had ended. Her distinct tonal language is characterized by a combination of clarity and melancholy darkness. Despite the controversies, Alver’s album helps us gain important knowledge of the role of women in the history of Norwegian music. Études Poétiquesis the first of two releases of Signe Lund’s complete piano works on the LAWO Classics label. Rune Alver (b. 1957) made his debut as pianist at the age of twenty. He was born in Bergen and educated at Bergen Music Conservatory and the Norwegian Academy of Music. Alver is active as soloist and chamber musician and maintains a rigorous concert schedule, with performances in Germany, France, Russia, China, South Africa and the USA.

Hege Høisæter’s new album features the artist exploring contemporary Norwegian vocal music: “I have had along the way experienced companions in all the superb composers and writers for whom I have been allowed to be an instrument. I had an ardent wish to be able to re-cord and share some of these musical treasures from my own generation, while my human, transient voice is still in its prime and I can function as an instrument for these works. In close interaction with the musicians of course — one by one in this somewhat unusual repertoire — in serious, beautiful, jarring, strange songs, which deserve to be heard and preserved for posterity.”

Cesar Franck’s significance for French musical life in the period of High Romanticism was considerable. He came to be regarded as one of the greatest of his time, as performer, composer, and, in due course, as professor of organ at the conservatory in Paris. Through his friendship with Liszt, Franck was encouraged to study the music of Beethoven, Bach and Wagner- three composers who each clearly left their mark on his compositions. It was especially after 1859 that Franck found his distinct voice: the new Cavaille-Coll organ, which had just been installed in the basilica of Saint Clotilde, was an important source of inspiration for the recently appointed “titulaire.” The first decades of the 19th century saw a decline for the organ in France. The abundant repertoire of 18th century French organ music had all but sunk into oblivion. What one heard for the most part was improvisation, often based on music that was popular at the time, opera in particular, and, above all, Rossini. When French music began to turn away from its hitherto one-sided focus on opera and towards chamber music and symphonic works of the 1870s, Franck was a central source of inspiration. This album features some of Franck’s greates torgan works, performed by Bjorn Boysen on the Kuhn organ in Uranienborg Church.

Ensemble Ernst’s “Xtended Hearts and Unheard Herds” is the second release on the LAWO Classics label by the distinguished contemporary music ensemble. This album is a continuation of their first, “…BUT…”, as they combine their own commissions with works with international appeal. Their intention is to let well-known names help Norwegian composers gain greater recognition worldwide. We hear works of the Norwegian composers Ragnhild Berstad, Jan Martin Smordal and Jan Erik Mikalsen, together with Serbian-Swedish composer Djuro Zivkovic. The result is a contemporary music bag of sweets in which hopefully everyone can find a favorite. Ensemble Ernst was established in 1996, an offspring of the contemporary music ensemble at the Norwegian Academy of Music. Thomas Rimul has been the conductor from the start, and most of the musicians have been members since the very beginning.

On their first release for LAWO Classics, vocal ensemble Consortium Vocale Oslo presents a rarely heard cultural treasure from medieval Norway. The “Historia Sancti Olavi” consists of around 30 pieces that for more than 300 years were sung on the feast day of St. Olaf, July 29. The present release is the most comprehensive recording of this material to date. “Historia Sancti Olavi” is unique in its status as a monumental music work from medieval Norway. This release represents an important contribution to our understanding of this era in Norwegian cultural history. Consortium Vocale Oslo is a male ensemble based at Oslo Cathedral. The group specializes in Gregorian chant under the leadership of Alexander M. Schweitzer, president of AISCGre, the International Association for Studies of Gregorian Chant. Consortium Vocale Oslo is one of three ensembles to have been chosen to record key parts of the Gregorian repertoire as published in the “Graduale novum.” For this recording of the “Historia Sancti Olavi” Consortium Vocale has collaborated with the ensemble Graces & Voices. The recording is part of the EU programme Lifelong Learning/Leonardo da Vinci, whose aim is to study the practice of Gregorian chant at a national level. The music was edited and prepared by professor Roman Hankeln.

Schumann’s most popular song cycles performed by mezzo-soprano Marianne Beate Kielland, who is established as an exceptional performer with a wide-ranging repertoire from baroque to contemporary. Schumann’s astonishing outpouring of songs in his so-called “Liederjahr” was inspired by his love for Clara, whom he married in September that year after prolonged and acrimonious opposition from her father. Schumann survived the ordeal of court appearances in which Friedrich Wieck attempted to defame his character. Myrthen (Myrtle Wreath), a group of twenty-six songs based on texts by several poets, including Ruckert, Goethe, Burns, Byron and Thomas Moore, was published on the day of Schumann’s wedding. It contains many of his most popular songs. The majority of Schumann’s most popular songs (and song-cycles) date from 1840 but his extensive and treasurable work in this genre continued until 1852. At the end of that year he set five poems doubtfully attributed to Mary, Queen of Scots and translated by Gisbert von Vincke – Gedichte der Königin Maria Stuart, Opus 135. Written in one of Schumann’s least productive years, they were his last songs.

Unfortunately, there is no real Norwegian language equivalent to the expression “unsung hero,” but one can immediately place Franz Danzi in that category. His upbringing in Mannheim in the 1770s and 80s provided him with the perfect backdrop to experience the most important musical currents of the time, where people puttered around with such things as synchronized bowings and soloistic wind parts in the orchestra – elements commonplace to us today, but considered quite groundbreaking then. The young Danzi also met Mozart, who showed a great interest in the pioneering work in Mannheim, and Danzi expressed boundless admiration for the old master throughout his entire life. Danzi’s big dream was to further develop the German Singspiel genre, where Mozart, with the operas The Abduction from the Seraglio and The Magic Flute, had laid a golden foundation. Danzi’s wife, Margarethe Marchand, was an outstanding soprano and an enthusiastic promoter of her husband’s works, but when she died at the young age of 32, Danzi seemed to lose interest in the genre. However, he was an avid supporter and inspiration to his younger colleague, Carl Maria von Weber. Weber’s Singspiel Der Freischutz (The Marksman) took the genre to new heights, with the manifestation of nature as a singing creature. For this we must thank Danzi! This release features works by Danzi, as well as Mozart and Beethoven, beautifully performed by Christian Ihle Hadland and the Oslo Kammerakademi.

It took many hours of rehearsal for the Weimar Orchestra to get its lips and fingers around Richard Strauss’s tone poem "Don Juan" in the Autumn of 1889, even with the benefit of the composer himself in charge. Not much about this music was conventional. Certainly not its opening page. The piece launches, off the beat, with an elusive upward flourish metamorphosing into a string of motifs that spans more than three octaves. It is the libertine Don Juan leaping out in front of us, and the 25-year-old Strauss introducing himself to the world with the piece that would make his name.

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REVIEWS:

It showcases three of the composer’s most vividly pictorial works in performances shot through with the same sense of discovery and flexibility, and of conductor and orchestra thoroughly enjoying themselves. Tuck's playing is beautifully integrated and superbly eloquent. But it’s largely Petrenko’s conviction that makes the performance so special, with no bar allowed simply to play itself, the music’s descriptiveness vividly but never doggedly conveyed.

– Gramophone

The lunatic, the lover, and the joker are of imagination all infinite in these supremely vivid interpretations. Petrenko takes his time over the first unravelling of the melancholy knight’s wits. A shame the Oslo Philharmonic viola isn’t credited: this is the most golden tone I’ve heard for Sancho’s garrulousness. For this trio, there’s no better recommendation right now.

– BBC Music Magazine

Georg Philipp Telemann (1681–1767) gained fame over much of Europe during the middle of his own life for his gallant and mixed style. In 1726, learned poet Christian Friedrich Weichmann (1698–1770) compared him to the greatest musicians in Venice, Rome, Paris and London (Poesieder Nieder-Sachsen, part 3) and he was to receive increasing acclaim over the next 10 years. In 1740, influential music writer Johann Mattheson asserted in his Grundlage einer Ehrenpforte that Telemann had even eclipsed the two pioneers of the era, Lully (French style) and Corelli (Italian style). Colorful instrumentation is a feature of Telemann’s oeuvre and this can especially be heard in his cantatas, operas and orchestral suites, or in his original configurations such as the Concertos for Four Violins without orchestra. Another typical feature of his work, and one which strongly appeals to musicians such as Caroline Eidsten Dahl, is his ability to compose idiomatically. This is hardly surprising, as according to his autobiographical texts, he played harpsichord, lute, violin and recorder during his childhood, and then later learned basic skills on the oboe, the transverse flute, the viola da gamba, double bass and the trombone. This is a fantastic performance of Caroline Eidsten Dahl on recorder alongside Kate Hearne on Baroque Cello and Christian Kjos on Harpsichord.

Trygve Aarvik has been one of Norway’s leading oboists for decades. As the solo oboist in the Norwegian Radio Orchestra between 1981 and 2018, he is also the most heard oboist in Norway, with countless radio and television broadcasts to his name – “everyone” has heard Trygve’s singing oboe. Now he steps forth as soloist in works by three central Norwegian composers. The newest and most broadly conceived work among them is a concerto for oboe and orchestra by Kjell Habbestad, in addition to two hidden classics, “Cantus VIII” by Egil Hovland for oboe and string quartet and “Concerto for Oboe and Strings” by Johan Kvandal. The string quartet consists of Kolbjørn Holthe and Henrik Hannisdal on violins, Jon Sønstebø on viola and Frida Fredrikke Waaler Wærvågen on cello; Ingar Bergby is conducting. In “Cantus VIII” we find the essence of several of Hovland’s many sources of inspiration: both post-war musical modernism and his close relations to sacred music. In Kvandal, the influence from folk music is more prominent, and Trygve is in particular given the opportunity to amaze with long, beautiful lines for the solo oboe in the second movement of the concerto. Kjell Habbestad’s concerto for oboe was ordered by Trygve Aarvik and had its world premiere with Aarvik and the Norwegian Radio Orchestra in 2012. For all his stylistic eclecticism, one finds that Habbestad is firmly based in the sacred music tradition, like Hovland. Habbestad draws inspiration from famous poems (Plath, Celan, Bjerke and more). The piece traverses through all the planes of human existences, from everyday life, through emotions and memories, and ends on a spiritual-religious level. With broad orchestral brushstrokes and a virtuoso solo part, the concerto is an important contribution to Norwegian music in general and to the oboe repertoire in particular.

The idea of arranging Janacek's two string quartets for string orchestra has implicated two different approaches for me. The first is timbral: while the quartets' ever-changing dramatics make it challenging to ''resonate'' with the solo instruments in a string quartet, the collective sound of the orchestra adds a new dimension to the music. The other approach was to incorporate Leo Tolstoy's novella The Kreutzer Sonata into Janacek's music of the same name, and thereby introduce a new form of drama. In his quartet, Janacek does not follow the storyline of Tolstoy's novella as closely as Arnold Schoenberg once did with his musical setting of Richard Dehmel's poem, Verklarte Nacht. However Janacek's writing brings on intense emotions with strong linguistic and theatrical gestures, which, in my opinion, would be further reinforced in direct connection with the novella. Tentatively, we introduced a selection of quotes from the novella in our concerts and this eventually led to the idea of developing a radio drama performance. In this arrangement, the quartet's four movements are performed in their entirety, ''strategically'' positioned in four crucial points in the story, while parts of the music also serve as a dramatic foundation for the text. In the process of text adaptation, the novella's plot and emotional aspects were given priority over its philosophical considerations.

There was a time in Norway when the position of organist was one of the most natural points of departure for a career as a professional musician. Edvard Grieg had plans to become an organist while he was betrothed to his Nina in the 1860s. Church composers such as Knut Nystedt, Conrad Baden and Egil Hovland were organists, but also Klaus Egge and Edvard Fliflet Bræin received a comparable education. Arne Nordheim studied to be a church musician at the same time as Johan Kvandal, who graduated in 1951. Nordheim’s path led away from the organ gallery, but Kvandal found his place there, in Vålerengen Church in Oslo from 1959–1974. Although he was also a music critic, and a highly respected one for the newspapers Morgenposten and Aftenposten, he held on to his post as church musician. Most of the works on this album were composed during the Vålerengen period, though some came earlier, and some later. “Fantasi for orgel” is one of his very last works, composed three years before his death. Here he decisively marks the end of his career on the organ bench, both with dissonant contemporary sounds and with strains of inspiration from the realm of traditional folk music. It is a finale worthy of this towering church composer. How engaging were the religious texts for Kvandal? He used them regularly, also in church music not found on this recording. He said in an interview in Aften posten in 1984 reprinted in the Festschrift, after having told of a week-long performance of Wagner’s Ring: “It became a kind of closing of the ring in me. Quite simply put, at this time I rediscovered my childhood faith and the wonder I felt at the forces in play governing our lives.”

The soundworld of the violin and of electronic music may not be as far apart as one would immediately think. When composer and radio engineer Pierre Schaeffer stated in the middle of the 20th century that sound recording and speakers created a new listening situation by detaching the sound from the sound source, he alluded to the ancient mathematician Pythagoras. The latter experimented with lecturing for his students behind a curtain, because he wanted them to listen more attentively to what he was saying. This was the same Pythagoras who also demonstrated how the length of a string is in proportion to the pitches that the string can produce. At the same time, the meeting between a violin and electronic sounds points toward oppositions that have structured our Western self understanding: tradition vs. innovation, material vs. immaterial, history vs. present, nature vs. science. The works of this recording explore, accentuate, attack, and erase these contradictions between the violin sound and electronic sound in various ways.

“Trio for Soprano, Alto and Piano” was written the same year as “Kvartoni”, one of Hvoslef's early masterpieces. Not surprisingly, then, the two works are based on similar melodic material. Both compositions fit comfortably within Hvoslef's early production. The choice of ensemble (two female voices and piano) is very telling in regard to Hvoslef's musical ideals. We have two innocent and playful voices set against one of the largest and potentially most overpowering instruments. Hvoslef's love of contrast is, thus, readily served from the outset. What on earth, you may ask, might trombones and string instruments have in common? They do share one property: they are unchallenged among musical instruments in their ability to produce continuous glissandos. String instruments, however, can cover a much larger range than trombones can. In “String Quartet no. III”, large glissandos occur, collectively (the ensemble indeed functioning as a unified group) four times. In the third of these the gliss. changes direction at the end, presaging the end of the piece: an upward glissando preceded by a quagmire of small simultaneous slides at different speeds and in different directions. Whereas the third string quartet appears to be music of the city, the “Sextet for Flute and Percussion” seems to take place in the jungle. As was the case in “Trio for Soprano, Alto and Piano”, the instrumental forces here are ostensibly right out of balance: a vulnerable flute against five potentially fierce and merciless percussionists. The latter do, in the end, beat the flute into submission, rendering it “voiceless”: when the percussion finally recedes, we are left with the rhythmical sound of the flute's keys.

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