After seven years of violin studies during his childhood, Åsmund Feidje founded the Norwegian experimental rock band RAIN in 1967. In 1969, the group was employed by the National Theatre in Oslo to take part in the pop musical Din egen vri (Your own thing). Ever since then, Feidje has worked primarily with theatre music, both individually and in collaboration with the other members of RAIN. He was permanently employed at the theatre in 1973, playing in numerous productions over a wide range of styles, yielding him countless experiences within several musical genres. He also played with the Terje Rypdal Ensemble, and would later co-found the contemporary music ensemble Octoband.

Since the end of the 1970s he has focused more and more on composition, taking a year off in 1989/90 to study in Salzburg with the Polish contemporary composer Bogusław Schaeffer, professor of composition at the Mozarteum. He has subsequently composed chamber music for soloists and various ensembles while maintaining his work for the stage, for which he has composed music for more than 150 productions, including for all the major Norwegian theatres, for radio theatre, and for film and TV. Many of these productions in collaboration with Carl Jørgen Kiønig, his colleague from RAIN, who, from the 1980s and onwards, became one of the leading theatre directors of Norway. He has also composed music for several ballet companies at home and abroad, including for the Finnish and Icelandic national ballets. He has enjoyed a close working relationship with choreographer Sølvi Edvardsen, collaborating on the ballet Access for the Norwegian National Ballet, which premiered on the main stage at Oslo’s prestigious new opera house (The Norwegian Opera & Ballet) in 2010.

In 2002, they were commissioned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to create the ballet Beyond Borders in New Delhi with leading Indian and Norwegian dancers, marking 50 years of aid to India. Åsmund Feidje has been represented at a number of festivals, including the ImPuls Dance Festival in Vienna, the Avignon Festival, the San Marino Festival, the Bergen International Festival and the Ibsen Festival. Feidje has received the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation’s Blå fugl (Blue Bird) prize (for artists who have given extraordinary service to radio theatre), and he also won two Edvard Prizes (named after Edvard Grieg) and awarded to Norwegian composers and writers annually.

Bach composed ten partitas – three for solo violin, one for solo flute and six for keyboard. As the term partita may mean, to quote from the Oxford Composer Companion to Bach, “a suite of dances or a set of variations” – it is no more precise than many other musical terms. If there is no obvious difference between the partita and the suite, there seems to be no justification for two separate terms. In the sixteenth century partita indicated one of a sequence of variations, but this meaning evolved, coming to signify a collection of movements and later – by the time of Bach's keyboard partitas – a suite of dances. Bach's six partitas for keyboard, BWV 825-830, were published individually beginning in 1726, then, in 1731, as a group entitled Clavier-Übung 1 (Übung may be translated as practice or exercise). Among what may be described as Bach's various sets of dance-suites – also including the English Suites and the French Suites – the partitas are the most technically demanding. Johann Kuhnau, Bach's predecessor as cantor of St. Thomas's Church in Leipzig, had published a collection of partitas under the title Clavier-Übung – two volumes (1689 and 1692), each containing seven works. These two collections by Kuhnau, together with two other volumes which he published during his time at Leipzig, proved to be an important influence on German keyboard music. Bach's keyboard partitas in general mark a further advance on his French Suites – even more adventurous in terms of new handling of the dance-forms, more favouring of galant melody-with-harmony rather than imitative counterpoint, and new types of texture. With eegard to the dance-movements in particular, Bach shows remarkable creative freedom and diversity while departing from the traditional models. On this recording, Norwegian pianist Nils Anders Mortensen presents three of the six partitas for keyboard (nos. 1, 5 and 6). There will be a second CD with the three remaining partitas (nos. 2, 3 and 4).

Ketil Hvoslef (b. 1939) is a productive, versatile and undogmatic composer who — even now, in his 80’s — continues to write music at a furious pace. Hvoslef’s style is characterized by an economy of means, the accumulation of latent energy, rhythmical ingenuity and, often, an element of humour.

Johan Kvandal’s string quartets nos. 1–3 have already been recorded, but here we are also introduced to his other works for this classical ensemble. The Engegård Quartet are ideal interpreters of these often challenging works spanning almost four decades of the composer’s life. Thus they show the artistic development of one of the foremost Norwegian composers of the post-war generation.

Trio Brax is a chamber music ensemble based in Tromsø, Northern Norway, founded in 2015. In this first recording they showcase music by the three Norwegian composers; Kjell Habbestad, Håvard Lund, and Helge Iberg, as well as music by Paul Hindemith. With the unusual combination of viola, tenor saxophone, and piano, Trio Brax is an odd flower in the world of classical chamber music. The highlighting of two instruments that are not commonly identified as solistic is intriguing and offers a different palette to the listener.

The Bergen Philharmonic and Chief Conductor Edward Gardner present Arne Nordheim's "The Tempest" (Suite from the Ballet). Arne Nordheim was Norway’s most significant and respected composer until his death in 2010, and one of the few figures in contem­porary western music who proved himself able to move beyond traditional harmonic re­lationships while maintaining a distinct ability to communicate widely through his striking, physical music.

Jon Øivind is a linguist on a forest walkabout, a collector of strange words and strange places, a romantic ironist who is deeply sincere in all his ambiguity. You can hear the forest and the gorges in Mørkgånga, partly because Jon Øivind is like a Tolkien-esque ent, and partly because the title, in all its eeriness, evokes a sudden drop in temperature, evil spirits and darkness in broad daylight. Marmæle is not your archetypal instrumental concerto in the sense that the individual stands in contrast to the collective. Rather, it works as a symphonic poem with an extensive cello solo part, where the soloist comments on and illuminates the work's structure and content.

In this darkness, it becomes harder and harder to see, and the other senses take over. It is quiet. Or is it? Isn't there something moving?... Is it merely the stream in the distance, the wind in the trees and our own footsteps and breathing that we can hear? Or is there something else out here? The shadows are no longer what they are purporting to be. There’s the smell of earth and wet forest. Mist. The air feels cold and slightly damp against the skin. The birds are beginning to calm down. Or are they? It is at this moment that reality fades away, and the fairytales take over. This is the hour of the wood spirit. It lurks in the shadows and then observes us as we wander deeper into the forest. Here lives the ‘hulder’ with her long, beautiful hair and her beguiling tones. She has taught many a fiddler her songs, but we must also be careful not to be lured completely into the dark. Look for her tail. In a clearing there are live flowers growing. Here we meet Alice. On her walk in Wonderland, she meets the Red Queen who rather whimsically turns into a sheep sitting inside a dark shop where nothing is what it seems. Deep inside the shop, she ends up in an intense discussion with Humpty Dumpty about what would happen if he fell from the narrow shelf he is sitting on. The birds in the forest observe all this from a distance. They fly between the trees and keep an eye on the adventures of the forest. This is the kingdom of the night birds, until the sun rises and the birds of light take over. — Ida Løvli Hidle

What is the nature of the relationship between music and the wider reality that it exists within? Does art imitate life, or can life imitate art? Can the two meaningfully coexist? When a sound is taken from the real world and placed into a musical context, does it mean the same thing? Where does meaning come from, and how do we decide what a sound means?

Henrik Hellstenius first began investigating these questions in 2007, with Places of Sound, a work composed for a choreographed performance at the Norwegian Opera and Ballet, that combined two singers, strings and sounds from the real world. Some years later, Hellstenius returned to this, exploring in more depth what he refers to as a “polyphony of signs”, bringing together the worlds of composed and found sounds and investigating their impact and effect on each other. On this recording he presents three works: Places of Sounds and Words for Soprano, Ensemble and Electronics, Unfolded for Piano Trio, and Instrument of Speech for Ensemble and Electronics. Participating musicians are soprano Elisabeth Holmertz, and the ensembles Cikada and asamisimasa.

Tine Thing Helseth is back with a new release – “Seraph” – this time together with Ensemble Allegria. Helseth and Allegria have had a close association for many years and have appeared together at the Bergen International Festival, the Northern Lights Festival in Tromsø, the Oslo Chamber Music Festival, and on the main stage at the Norwegian National Opera. This release features some familiar as well as lesser known works for trumpet and string orchestra by composers from Norway and abroad, with the first four written for this instrumentation, while the last three were arranged by Jarle Storløkken. In Tine’s own words: “Seraph” is an album I have wanted to record for a long time, both because of the repertoire and the ensemble I’m playing with. I studied together with these musicians and many are good friends I’ve known for a long time. This makes it all the more rewarding, fun and inspiring to play together!

Olli Mustonen about his works: “It is not a coincidence that many composers seem to have written some of their most important and meaningful works for the string quartet. I grew up listening to string quartets, especially those by Beethoven and Bartók, and those works have had a tremendous impact on what I am as a composer, musician and as a human being. In many of my works one can see some sort of journey from darkness toward the light, in various forms. In the case of my String Quartet this journey is exceptionally arduous. There is an element of hope in some sections of the third movement, but the hope it offers is more of an otherworldly variety. In the beginning of the fourth movement the very dramatic elements of the beginning of the quartet return. Just at that point, as the listener thinks that the darker elements will ultimately prevail, the music reaches an important turning-point…

"My Piano Quintet consists of three movements. The first movement is filled with drama and passion. Its’ atmosphere can be seen to be related to my Second Symphony “Johannes Angelos” – a work that has been inspired by a historical novel taking place in the middle of the turbulent times during the last months of the Byzantine Empire in Constantinople. The second movement is a set of polyphonic variations in a form reminiscent of a passacaglia. The music seems to be hypnotized by a theme consisting of a chromatic cluster of ten notes. Finally, the passacaglia winds down to along, single low G sharp played by the first violin.”

Ensemble Allegria presents here a combination of works as an invitation to enjoyment as well as reflection. We are offered variations, metamorphoses and fragments, three different artistic working concepts. Variation and metamorphosis are similar artistic tools inasmuch as the material to be used is workable and encourages modification. At the same time, the basic material is recognizable or, in any case, reconstructible. Music cannot be created out of nothing. Whether deliberate or not, we find metamorphosis and variation in all compositions of a certain scope.

Of course in the works heard here the motif of transformation is intended. And whereas musical variations — as with Benjamin Britten — typically retain a theme’s form and length more or less unaltered, a metamorphosis — as Richard Strauss calls his work — can by contrast pertain to everything from the shortest motifs to entire movements. A fragment — a form often associated with Romanticism — is on the other hand an idea that has not reached a final form and remains an intimation of something more. Lars Petter Hagen’s Strauss Fragments were commissioned by Ensemble Allegria.

“As my career has progressed, I have had the chance to make numerous recordings featuring a variety of repertoires, and I have always felt the desire to record the songs of Sibelius. A wonderful opportunity presented itself when the Norwegian Radio Orchestra with Chief Conductor Petr Popelka expressed its willingness to be part of such a recording. Virtually all Sibelius songs are written for voice and piano, but many of them seem as though made for orchestral sounds and instrumental subtlety. Therefore a number of his finest songs have fortunately been orchestrated, and it is these editions we have used for this recording. A few of the orchestrations were done by Sibelius himself, one by his contemporary, Simon Parmet (né Pergament), while several were orchestrated by his own son-in-law, conductor Jussi Jalas. This album presents orchestrated songs of Sibelius from four opus numbers: 17, 36, 37 and 38.” (Marianne Beate Kielland)

All the music on this release has the countertenor as a common denominator. There is something beautifully unsettling about the voice type. It throws us back to a fortunately bygone time when the same vocal properties were reached by the barbaric practice that produced the male “castrati”. Nowadays, male singers who wish to sing in this register develop their falsetto and head voice techniques in a natural way. The three composers represented here are all honest seekers who choose to adopt different musical approaches according to their temperaments. In some cases we hear an explicit adherence to more traditional tonality. In others the connection to a tonal root is tenuous at best. Yet, each and every piece in these recordings has a particular beauty born of its inner necessities. And it is all recognizable as music.

“Despite its loudmouthed reputation, there is so much beauty in the bass trombone. The aim of this album is to showcase all the best sides of the bass trombone: robust yet fragile, colorful and flexible, juicy bass notes and beautiful melodies. By commissioning and playing new works and allying myself with great friends on trombone, organ, harp and piano, I have attempted to give new color to the bass trombone repertoire. I hope the album can be of inspiration for many future bass trombone recitals.” – Clare Farr