Let's say, just for the sake of argument, that you had to put Vagn Holmboe, Denmark's greatest modernist, up against Igor Stravinsky, Russia's greatest modernist composer. To make it fair, let's put Holmboe's Sinfonia Sacra from 1941 up against Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms from 1930 and Holmboe's three-movement Symphony No. 5 from 1944 up ...
This set of symphonies by Vagn Holmboe is the strongest possible argument that Holmboe is not just the greatest Danish symphonist and not only one of the greatest modernist symphonists: it is proof positive that Vagn Holmboe was the greatest modernist symphonist of all. Committed, compelling, and cogent; driven, dedicated, and deep; linear, lucid, ...
Because BIS recorded the first 12 symphonies of Vagn Holmboe with Owain Arwel Hughes conducting the Århus Symphony Orchestra, Holmboe wrote his 13th and last symphony. At 84 years old and in failing health, Holmboe had lived to hear his symphonies brilliantly recorded in superb performances by Hughes and the Århus and, rejuvenated by what he heard ...
Active in the first half of the twentieth century, Knudåge Riisager was known as a successful composer of Danish ballet music. This 2005 CD by Bo Holten and the Århus Symphony Orchestra presents two of Riisager's colorful if lightweight dance scores from the prime of his career, Qarrtsiluni, Op. 36 (1938, its title roughly translated as "Expectant ...
If you want to start the BIS' series of recordings of the 13 symphonies of the Danish composer Vagn Holmboe, start here. The Symphony No. 1 for chamber orchestra from 1935 is an appealing work of lean, Danish modernism in three light movements. The Symphony No. 3, "Sinfonia rustica," from 1941 is a work based on folk songs built into ferocious ...
It takes a lot of faith in your basic materials to write a 20-minute-long symphonic movement or a 25-minute symphony in one movement. Every note has to bear the weight of every note that went before it and the whole has to be unified and diverse, convincing and compelling, radiant and luminous. Of the great modernist symphonists of the twentieth ...
James Loughran and the Århus Symphony Orchestra recorded Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 7 in E major in the highly resonant Åarhus Cathedral, and this venue's acoustics were an important factor in the luminous sound of this live concert performance. By giving the brass section a marvelous resonance in its towering climaxes and the whole orchestra a ...
Danish composer Vagn Holmboe once described his music as "a microcosm, the reflection of an order which is in itself unfathomable and impossible to form -- like the structure of atoms, or the galaxies of the universe." It is, apparently, all a matter of scale. In Denmark, Holmboe is the great symphonist of the twentieth century. In the great wide ...
Appreciation for the compositions from Scandinavian countries seems to be somewhat of an uphill battle. Apart from the works of Grieg and Nielsen, most other composers from this area of the globe are overlooked. This album of violin concertos by Norwegian composers Johan Svendsen and Peter Lange-Müller seeks to break this injustice. Svendsen's ...
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