Vagn Holmboe (1909-1996)

[kyjo]

Lately I'm starting to get into Holmboe's non-symphonic orchestral works, and discovering that there's plenty of riches to be found there! First, I listened to his Ten Preludes for Sinfonietta (chamber orchestra), composed near the end of his life between 1986 and 1991. They're quite unlike anything else I know, each prelude being like a mini-tone poem and bearing colorfully evocative titles such as To a Pine Tree, To a Dolphin, To the Unsettled Weather, etc. While I wouldn't necessarily say that the musical content of each prelude obviously depicts its subject matter, that's not really a quibble. Unlike the majority of 20th century composers, Holmboe's style didn't become more "difficult" or enigmatic as he aged. These Preludes are couched in Holmboe's signature modal style, with enough dissonance added to keep things interesting and unpredictable. And the orchestration is ear-catching and luminous throughout, often with prominent roles for percussion.




Now, I'm starting to explore his significant cycle of 13 chamber concertos. Little did I know that the Chamber Concerto No. 1 (1939) is a full-fledged piano concerto in disguise with an accompaniment of string orchestra and timpani. It's unusually structured, with a 22-minute first movement followed by a 6-minute second movement. The first movement, marked Molto moderato, explores a wide range of moods within a single tempo, from hushed tranquility to doom-laden tragedy (I'm thinking particularly of a powerful passage about 16 minutes in). By contrast, the second movement is a fun, folksy romp complete with "country fiddle"-like violin solos. Great stuff, and I'm certainly looking forward to exploring the rest of the cycle!

[Daverz]

For me the chamber concertos are central Holmboe repertoire and more intimate and accessible than the "big" symphonies, while the  sinfoniettas preludes are relatively uninteresting despite the evocative titles.  However, I should probably revisit them.

[Madiel]

The borderline between a concerto and a 'chamber' concerto is... hazy. BIS recorded many of the same works without the chamber label.

In general I prefer the BIS versions (I think I prefer their piano concerto though I've not heard it in a while), but there are exceptions. In my view the Dacapo version of the clarinet concerto is far better.

There are something like 20 concertos in total!

[Symphonic Addict]

I remember being quite enthralled by most of the concertos, but less so with the preludes to sinfoniettas which sounded to me somewhat melancholic, "gray" and languid for the most part. Mind you, as Kyle pointed out, the orchestration stood out. I'm more attuned to the sound world of the four symphonic metamorphosis, actually.

[Daverz]

I remember being quite enthralled by most of the concertos, but less so with the preludes to sinfoniettas which sounded to me somewhat melancholic, "gray" and languid for the most part. Mind you, as Kyle pointed out, the orchestration stood out. I'm more attuned to the sound world of the four symphonic metamorphosis, actually.

Listened to both discs of Preludes earlier, and the one that really stood out was To the Pollution of Nature.

[Madiel]

I just looked back, in 2015/6 in this thread I went through all the recorded concertos.

I thought I might have written out a list of them all, but I didn't find one.

However, I did at one point claim there were 23 recorded concertos. Which is plausible off the top of my head, the numbered series is 13 but there is also a large cluster of much later works.

Edit: Back home and yes, I've worked out how I came up with 23. PLENTY to listen to.

[krummholz]

Lately I'm starting to get into Holmboe's non-symphonic orchestral works, and discovering that there's plenty of riches to be found there! First, I listened to his Ten Preludes for Sinfonietta (chamber orchestra), composed near the end of his life between 1986 and 1991. They're quite unlike anything else I know, each prelude being like a mini-tone poem and bearing colorfully evocative titles such as To a Pine Tree, To a Dolphin, To the Unsettled Weather, etc. While I wouldn't necessarily say that the musical content of each prelude obviously depicts its subject matter, that's not really a quibble. Unlike the majority of 20th century composers, Holmboe's style didn't become more "difficult" or enigmatic as he aged. These Preludes are couched in Holmboe's signature modal style, with enough dissonance added to keep things interesting and unpredictable. And the orchestration is ear-catching and luminous throughout, often with prominent roles for percussion.




Now, I'm starting to explore his significant cycle of 13 chamber concertos. Little did I know that the Chamber Concerto No. 1 (1939) is a full-fledged piano concerto in disguise with an accompaniment of string orchestra and timpani. It's unusually structured, with a 22-minute first movement followed by a 6-minute second movement. The first movement, marked Molto moderato, explores a wide range of moods within a single tempo, from hushed tranquility to doom-laden tragedy (I'm thinking particularly of a powerful passage about 16 minutes in). By contrast, the second movement is a fun, folksy romp complete with "country fiddle"-like violin solos. Great stuff, and I'm certainly looking forward to exploring the rest of the cycle!

I find that first Chamber Concerto to be a real gem, and your description of that wide-ranging first movement is IMHO spot-on. I love all of Holmboe's Chamber Concertos, but the ones that stand out most to me are #1, #6 (violin and chamber orchestra, for its uncharacteristically Romantic and richly expressive slow movement), the "concertos for chamber orchestra" #8 and #10, and #13 for oboe and viola, for its uniquely astringent harmonic language and wonderful interplay between the oboe, viola, and orchestral winds.