Vagn Holmboe (1909-1996)

[Madiel]

Symphony No.8, 'Sinfonia Boreale' op.56 (1951-52)

[asin]B0000016JU[/asin]

Well, here we have what seems to be Holmboe's most frequently praised and most popular symphony. With good reason. I think it's probably the most impressive of the earlier symphonies. And yes, it's no.8 out of the 13 numbered works, but in terms of Holmboe's composing career this IS still the first half. And it's the longest, most imposing work in the series. A full 4-movement symphony.

The funny thing is, hearing it so soon after nos.9 and 10 this time around, it didn't impress me as much as those two works. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood, but I think also that those symphonies are subtler, more complex works. The appeal of symphony no.8 tends to be somewhat more direct.

Coming back to it again today, though, it clicked again in full. What's impressive about this symphony is it's sense of dark power, and energy. The first movement is marked Allegro molto intensivo, and has this wonderful, churning 7/8 bass ostinato figure that feels like it's conjuring something out of the earth. And similar things happen in all the movements. The second movement starts with a dramatic figure that reminds me of something like The Firebird, and then also has a couple of passages of a rising ostinato that is finished off with a bang.

Then there's the Andante con moto 3rd movement, which almost immediately has yet another form of threatening bass in the strings, lurking with intent. The movement's climax is very powerful, with the low strings taking over. The finale is Allegro passionato, again an indication of the power of the music. There is some repose between the climaxes, but the end is grand and impressive.

When I first heard this symphony, I actually felt the urge to stand up and applaud at the end. In my living room. I don't remember that happening with any other work.

[calyptorhynchus]

I think No.8 is a very impressive work (though I wouldn't say more impressive than other Holmboe Symphonies). And Orfeo has identified what I think is the thing makes it stand out, it is a four-movement symphony where all the movements are fast (or fastish), which is quite unusual. (I know Holmboe doesn't often do 'slow movements', but he usually slows down in one or more).

I've been thinking about Holmboe and I know I'll have to go back and listen to all his symphonies again soon (after I've finished my complete Haydn symphonies project!). With other composers I have a pretty good mental picture of their oeuvre in my mind, but I realise that with H I barely 'know' the works.

[Madiel]

Sinfonia III, op.73c (1958-59)

[asin]B002P2SAEO[/asin]

It's taken until now for one of the Sinfonias for strings to turn up in my list. My memory could be playing tricks on me, but my recollection is that the 3rd Sinfonia is the only one that has a reasonably fast basic pulse.* Having said that, the couple of times that the tempo slows down are quite magical - the first one, almost halfway through, has a violin solo that is a lovely change of texture.

The opening dotted figure makes its presence felt quite frequently in various forms, in typical Holmboe fashion. Soon after there is a triplet rhythm which, while initially more subtle, also crops up quite a bit, sometimes competing with the dotted rhythm, sometimes joining with it in a longer phrase.

Throughout the work, Holmboe's contrapuntal lines can be heard clearly. To me this is excellent, satisfying music, never dull. I don't miss the colours of other instruments one bit during this piece.

*Interestingly, the Da Capo recording appears to be a bit faster than the BIS one that I have. It's rare to have an opportunity to compare!

[Madiel]

Symphony No.11, op.144 (1980-81)

[asin]B0000016MM[/asin]

An interesting one, this, because in terms of chronology it's quite isolated. When the only Holmboe works I knew were the symphonies, I didn't really notice this particular gap, but this is a symphonic work from a period where Holmboe was mostly writing concertante works.

It's not a particularly dramatic or showy symphony. Often it's quite delicately scored, like many of Holmboe's 1970s works.  I think it still has some common DNA with the 9th and 10th symphonies despite the gap of about a decade. Each of the 3 movements has internal changes of tempo, which is a feature it shares with the 13th symphony.

The very opening idea certainly sounds like the kind of musical cell that Holmboe would take and develop, but in fact it doesn't dominate proceedings. The following flute solo points the way forward - high, floating woodwind solos occur at many points, and the flute often takes the lead. But after that is the idea that really makes its presence felt in this symphony: an uneven, broken pulsing that to me is a little bit of magic. It gives much of the first movement a strange stately quality, even when the pace picks up a little bit. But then, as the pace accelerates again, the pulsing is there to drive the music forward and impose itself.

The second movement starts with a slightly different idea with the same basic characteristic - uneven rhythms with sudden pauses. The strings take some ideas and play with them, before providing some static support for the woodwinds, and then the brass crash in and try to firm things up. Without much success... after they leave again the strings embark on a fairly nebulous scherzo. But when the brass come back a second time, they bring the pulsing rhythm with them and the movement ends with a nice strong fanfare.

And then, the finale totally fails to feel like a finale after that. It starts delicately and subdued, with the pulsing again and a lovely touch of vibraphone. This is dreamy music. Even when the middle section of the movement speeds up and firms up a little, it never feels like we're going to get a grand finish. In the closing section, the pulsing has finally been banished, the opening flute comes back again and everything ends in quiet peace.

[Madiel]

Sinfonia II, op.73b (1957)

[asin]B002P2SAEO[/asin]

This is very pure, un-showy music. The different lines spend most of their time moving slowly, steadily, step-wise. The fastest-moving line often uses that particular kind of movement where the second quaver of one pair is the same note as the first quaver of the next pair (there's probably a specific name for that, but I can't think of it). Only twice in the music's 20-minute span does the pace increase.

That might sound a bit dull, but personally I think Holmboe is able to demonstrate his great skill in shaping the music, through changes of texture and register, and to some extent volume and tempo. Because this is lacking those 'wow' moments, you can concentrate on just how good he is at creating a musical argument and a sense of structure as the lines flow past each other. It certainly feels to me like this is music with shape and movement. It doesn't drag.

[Madiel]

Symphony No.2, op.15 (1938-39)

[asin]B000025UUK[/asin]

The prize-winning symphony. Arguably the key moment in Holmboe's career. And it nearly didn't happen... as the notes to the BIS recording (the only recording?) explain, it was eliminated in the first round of the competition, only for one juror to reinstate it. It won first prize.

This is big, impressive-sounding, colourful and dynamic music. This is Holmboe at the very beginning of handling a full-scale orchestra in his adult career - just before this in the catalogue are an incomplete 'concerto-symphony' for violin and orchestra (op.13b), and a violin concerto that apparently was never performed in Holmboe's lifetime (op.14). Before that, you have to go back a decade to the Concerto for Orchestra (believed to have been performed for the first time when it was recently recorded) to get a composition on this scale.  So just imagine the effect the success of this symphony had on the composer!

What I want to know is... why didn't it initially impress the other jurors? Was Holmboe's style just too subtle for them to grasp? Because so many Holmboe characteristics are already here. I say 'already' because this is early in the scheme of things, even though he was 29 years old.

There's the linkage between movements: instead of the 1st movement ending triumphantly, it suddenly quietens and flows more directly into the 2nd movement. 'Flow' being the operative word for so much of the music. It's interesting, having listened to the symphonies out of order, that Symphony No.2 is not as obsessive with its rhythms and motifs as symphonies 3 to 5. Instead there's a kind of freely evolving variation that arguably has more in common with the 'metamorphosis' technique of a later period.

This doesn't at all sound like a composer still finding his feet. It sounds like a young composer who's got a very good idea of what he wants to say musically and the skills to orchestrate it.

(PS Amazon has at least 3 different pages for this disc, I just picked the one with a good picture!)

[Madiel]

Sinfonia in Memoriam, op.65 (1954-55)

[asin]B000025UUK[/asin]

The 9th symphony that got un-symphonied... it's not entirely clear why. I wouldn't personally list this as one of Holmboe's top masterpieces, but it's still a strong work that is worthy of the composer and I think the match of many in the cycle. Perhaps he simply decided that it's association with a particular, memorial occasion was more important?

It's in 3 movements, with the fastest movement in the centre, which already gives you some idea of the nature of the work. Certainly the 1st movement is quite bleak much of the time, not quite Shostakovich-bleak but heading for that sort of mood. It starts with some unfriendly brass blares, which return at key points to add some power, but the movement never really reaches a big climax and it dies away uneasily.

The opening of the 2nd movement is all agitated strings with sharp percussive accents. In periods when the music calms down a little, there's arguably a slightly dance-like quality, but any repose tends to get interrupted. It's a highly dynamic movement that contrasts with the more static feel of the 1st. And it ends with a triumphant-sounding bang.

But then the opening of the 3rd immediately sounds unsettled again. The violins find a note and refuse to let go of it for a while as the lower strings engage in something like a recitative. When the violins finally start participating in the music, we reach what I think is my favourite part of the symphony, because there is a touch of warmth and passion that is so effective because it is different from what we've heard before in the work. This isn't happy music by any means, but it feels something in a way that the 1st movement didn't. And the close has a real grandeur.

[calyptorhynchus]

I guess it mirrors the Danish experience of Nazi occupation, grim, but not as horrific as elsewhere in Europe.

[Daverz]

Also... how good are these recent Da Capo recordings!

This one was recorded at a whopping 352.8kHz sample rate (DXD).  I have the 192 kHz download.  I haven't decided yet whether it really sounds better than plain old 16-bit/44.1 kHz.  Maybe slighly warmer?

That said, it's a resonant recording in a large sounding space, and I tend to prefer a more close up recording.

[CRCulver]

Holmboe's oeuvre is so big that I have a hard time appreciating it as a whole: by the time I reach the end of a multi-month listening project to hear it all, I've forgotten about the pieces I listened to at the beginning. This difficulty to remember what is what is aided by the fact that Holmboe maintained a fairly unchanging style over his entire career. Of course there are some subtle evolutions in his sound, but his music doesn't fall neatly into very distinct stylistic periods like e.g. Per Nørgård's or Wolfgang Rihm's. Everything tends to be jumbled in my memory into one big neo-classical mass.

[Karl Henning]

Takes a degree of familiarity, and then one's ears adjust (so to speak).  Consider the Haydn symphonies!  In cases like these where there is a lot of music (which is a great problem to have, the music being excellent), it takes a few circuits of the course.

In that way, it is just like applied music:  there is no substitute for practice time, and patience 

[Madiel]

Chamber Symphony No.3, 'Frieze', op.103a (1969-70)

[asin]B0081UG17M[/asin]

An interesting one, this, with six relatively short movements (none over 6 minutes). It seems to be an exercise in different colourings. The first movement starts off sounding like it's going to be another string sinfonia, weaving lines of music together, before the brass finally come in. Then the second movement is quite different - fast, choppy, and with a xylophone and vibraphone making their presence felt very strongly. Then immediately in the third movement, the strings and brass re-assert their dominance. Towards the end of the movement, I'm fairly sure the strings return to their theme from the very beginning of the work.

The fourth movement, Grave con metamorfosi, uses all the different instrument groups over time, but the vibraphone is distinctive and often prominent. The brief 5th movement intermezzo takes some of the stranger sounds of the 4th - sliding strings, woodwind solos, the xylophone - and turns them into one of the most atmospheric bits of the work. The finale is fast, dynamic, almost a scherzo. The drums are prominent. After a pause, the movement ends emphatically but with the reverberations of the vibraphone continuing on ever so briefly.

To some extent the effect is, as the CD notes say, of a series of character pieces. A 'frieze' of different little works. It doesn't have the grandeur of some of the big symphonies, but it's a neat package of Holmboe's orchestral skills.

[Madiel]

Holmboe's oeuvre is so big that I have a hard time appreciating it as a whole: by the time I reach the end of a multi-month listening project to hear it all, I've forgotten about the pieces I listened to at the beginning. This difficulty to remember what is what is aided by the fact that Holmboe maintained a fairly unchanging style over his entire career. Of course there are some subtle evolutions in his sound, but his music doesn't fall neatly into very distinct stylistic periods like e.g. Per Nørgård's or Wolfgang Rihm's. Everything tends to be jumbled in my memory into one big neo-classical mass.

I suspect that, as much as anything else, the discipline of writing notes about these works is meant to help me concentrate on what I'm listening to and get a better grip of it. Certainly that was happening with the string quartets.

I'm sufficiently interested in Holmboe's music to really want to know it a lot better than I previously felt I did.  And I think the effort is paying off for me - I've no idea, really, whether it's paying off much for any of the people reading my notes!

[Madiel]

Sinfonia I, op.73a (1957)

[asin]B002P2SAEO[/asin]

Gosh, it's interesting coming back to the string sinfonias and really listening to them as separate works (even though they all ended up relatively close in my shuffled list).

So this is the 'original' one, although written only a short time before the 2nd and 3rd sinfonias it was for a different group. It's not that long a work - about 11 or 12 minutes on both recordings (which makes it the shortest on the BIS recording, but not on the Da Capo one). What struck me about it this time around was its sense of colour, even though the only forces are strings.  There's often a beautiful warmth to the harmonies when the textures become thicker and richer.

Whereas the 2nd sinfonia is mostly a large, slow arch, and the 3rd sinfonia is mostly Allegro con brio, this 1st sinfonia changes pace a number of times. The first third of it is slow, and a little mysterious, but after that there are several changes of gear within what is marked as an Allegro leggiero. The music slows down at the end, but without a sense of definite conclusion. I'm not listening to the whole combined 'Kairos' this time around, but I imagine the lack of closure works quite well in the context where this sinfonia is the first main 'movement' of the larger work.  On its own, it still makes for an engaging piece that is on a manageable scale for someone who wants to give Holmboe a try. 

[HIPster]

I suspect that, as much as anything else, the discipline of writing notes about these works is meant to help me concentrate on what I'm listening to and get a better grip of it. Certainly that was happening with the string quartets.

I'm sufficiently interested in Holmboe's music to really want to know it a lot better than I previously felt I did.  And I think the effort is paying off for me - I've no idea, really, whether it's paying off much for any of the people reading my notes!

It is for me, orfeo!  Thank you for your posts here.  This is a very rich and rewarding thread and your recent posts have me purchasing and wish listing many recordings here!

Thanks!

[Madiel]

Dear me, I'm getting slightly remiss in my 'duties' lately...

Symphony No.7, op.50 (1950)

[asin]B0000016IR[/asin]

This symphony is officially in one movement, although it does fall into a number of distinct sections. There are an Allegro con fuoco, an Adagio, a Presto and an Andante coda, separated by 3 shorter 'Intermedios' that share a common theme (and strong hints of that theme appear in some of the larger sections). The single movement doesn't actually feel very long as a result, and this is one of the shorter symphonies.

Stylistically this symphony definitely slots in nicely to the overall cycle. There's a passage in the first section that reminds me of the 5th symphony, and elsewhere I hear slight parallels to the 6th and foreshadowings of the 8th.

Personally, I find the second half of the symphony a fraction weaker than the first half. I very much like the lean, athletic Allegro con fuoco, and the first 'Intermedio' has a nice change of colour. The transitions in and out of the Adagio are seamless. After that, the Presto takes off as a soft scurry, but it's the louder sections that feel to me a tiny bit bombastic, at least in this performance. Others may differ. One interesting effect of this, though, is that the symphony practically ends here. After the rousing conclusion of the Presto, there is a complete pause before the music starts again, with the conclusion repeated again more softly weaving into the final 'Intermedio'. The coda begins with the brass getting a bit rowdy again, but after that most of the last several minutes are actually quite subdued. Not for the first time there's a recall of the very beginning of the symphony, but its attempt at drama is soothed away.

[Madiel]

Sinfonia IV, op.73d (1962)

[asin]B002P2SAEO[/asin]

Whoa. I knew this was coming, but still, after not having heard it for a while...

This might share an opus number with the other string sinfonias, and even be combined with them into a single work, but this is a completely different sound world. In its form as a separate piece it's actually a little hard to imagine it could be integrated with the other three. And arguably it's not integrated, as in 'Kairos' it's used to punctuate and frame the others, separating them from each other by being different.

And of critical importance to that difference is the date of composition. We've shifted from the late 1950s into the early 1960s, and while the gap is only a few years we have, as far as I can tell, crossed into a unique period for Holmboe's compositions. The first half of the 1960s is when his music pushes into something more avant garde. We're in the world now of things like the 6th and 8th string quartets, and (from what I've heard of it) the Requiem for Nietzsche.

This is certainly a fair way away from 'normal' Holmboe. Beautiful flowing counterpoint is rare. This music is filled with quivering trills, slides, semitonal clusters, strange pizzicatos and odd bowing techniques. The textures are also thinner than is generally the case in the other sinfonias, with a considerable number of solos. Well worth a listen, but if you know Holmboe from, say, the first 8 symphonies, you might be rather surprised by how this sounds.

[Madiel]

Monolith, op.76 (1960)

[asin]B0000268PM[/asin]

This is the shortest piece in my list of 'symphonic' works, but it's taken a number of listens to get a handle on it. It packs a lot of colour and action into less than 9 minutes. Being 'colourful' seems to be a bit of a characteristic of the metamorphoses on this disc - which might be one reason a number of GMG'ers seem to quite like them.

Within what is on some level a ternary fast-slow-fast structure, Holmboe is engaging in his typical 'metamorphosing' of a small number of recurring motifs. In the early stages there's a slightly jagged dotted figure, a rather 'blocky' one, and an unstable triplet figuration.  It's the triplets that take over much of the first fast section before the other figures return at the end. The slower section seems to be characterised by 'dots' of different musical instruments for a while, before the triplets start making their presence felt again. It's the 'blocky' figure that heralds the return to a faster tempo and gradually increasing intensity. By the end the drums are hammering away, but the end is quite a surprise. There's no sense of resolution, just a sudden end.

Not a large-scale masterpiece, but a good bit of bite-sized Holmboe.

[Octave]

Very late thanks for all the Holmboe listening notes, orfeo.  I've revisited a few pieces already after reading, and they are new creatures for it.

[Madiel]

Symphony No.1, op.4 (1935)

[asin]B0000016JI[/asin]

What a cracker of a little piece the 1st symphony is!

I say that for a number of reasons. One reason for saying 'little' is that this is in fact a 'chamber symphony' without that name.  In terms of the instrumental scoring, it uses an orchestra that is far closer to the ones used in 3 later chamber symphonies than to the orchestras used for the other 12 'regular' symphonies. I suppose at this stage, with his first mature effort, he didn't know he would want to distinguish later on between the two types.

As for saying it's a cracker, well... the first movement is a delight from the very beginning. It's a mixture of neoclassical and folk influences, with some similarity to the 3rd symphony but in some ways more interesting because it seems to be using fragments of a number of different 'folk tunes' rather than just obsessing over one.  The changes of pace in some sections, as one fragment gets interrupted by another, are masterfully handled by conductor Owain Arwel Hughes.

The longer second movement is in a similar vein, but it starts off in a subdued fashion and tends to hold onto each of its musical ideas for longer. There's more of a steady tick-tocking pace, until the music seems to get a little 'stuck'. By the time it transitions from Andante to Allegro energico (according to the BIS track divisions, although there's not much of an audible tempo change at that moment), the rhythm becomes more 'broken' and syncopated.

The whole thing is, to my ears, thoroughly convincing and constructed with great skill. It's a great introduction to Holmboe's 'early' style (when he was in his mid-20s, but taking into account that 1935 was the very year that he first wrote works that he decided were worthy of opus numbers). It already has 'Holmboesque' traits such as the sense of line and counterpoint, and his enjoyment of percussion. He might have gone on to write more sophisticated or complex music, but this is a fine piece in its own right.