Scandinavian and Finnish composers.

Started by Harry, April 13, 2007, 05:33:51 AM

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Dundonnell

"..rural Norway is also the hot spot for Black Metal bands"

So I understand :(

Madness, absolute madness! When I drive through the breathtakingly wonderful scenery of northern and western Norway the last thing in this universe I would want to hear is hideous death metal crap >:(

Now....Richard Strauss's Alpine Symphony, Bruckner undoubtedly, music that elevates the soul, that makes one look upwards in awe-struck admiration at the glories of the natural environment..........

I turned on the radio once in the Lofoten Islands and heard some singer in some god-awful band spouting obscenities masquerading as music >:( I nearly drove into the sea :)

Dundonnell

As if my magic a new CD of Norwegian music is announced for release by Simax next month-

http://www.mdt.co.uk/MDTSite/product/NR_November08/PSC1234.htm

This includes 'Pan' by David Monrad-Johansen a piece I have on an old Phillips LP dating back to goodness knows when(coupled with Saeverud's Sinfonia Dolorosa') and the Piano Concerto of Johan Kvandal-who turns out to be Monrad Johansen's son.

It is interesting to discover another Norwegian composer who, with genuine Scandinavian modesty, eschewed his father's surname in order to try to make a name for himself. Saeverud's son, Ketil Hvoslef, did the same thing(as Ugh! pointed out above).

Maybe Siegfried Wagner should have tried the same tactic!

The new erato

Quote from: Dundonnell on September 24, 2008, 04:01:06 AM
As if my magic a new CD of Norwegian music is announced for release by Simax next month-

http://www.mdt.co.uk/MDTSite/product/NR_November08/PSC1234.htm

This includes 'Pan' by David Monrad-Johansen a piece I have on an old Phillips LP dating back to goodness knows when(coupled with Saeverud's Sinfonia Dolorosa') and the Piano Concerto of Johan Kvandal-who turns out to be Monrad Johansen's son.


It also includes Monrad Johansens noteworthy Piano Concerto.

some guy

Quote from: Ugh! on September 23, 2008, 01:08:07 AM

If however you are looking for something a little more mainstream

Interesting view of what constitutes "mainstream," Ugh! (Reminds me of my favorite label name--MAINSTREAM.)

Anyway, time for other perspectives of what constitutes good music than Dundonnell's, time and past time, indeed!

And thanks for the links for Radkje and Grenager. Very listenable stuff to be sure.

More. Give us more!!

Dundonnell

Quote from: some guy on September 24, 2008, 01:58:26 PM
Interesting view of what constitutes "mainstream," Ugh! (Reminds me of my favorite label name--MAINSTREAM.)

Anyway, time for other perspectives of what constitutes good music than Dundonnell's, time and past time, indeed!

And thanks for the links for Radkje and Grenager. Very listenable stuff to be sure.

More. Give us more!!

I am not exactly sure what you are getting at here but I can assure you that I very much welcome reading other people's perspectives on "what constitutes good music"!

I have absolutely no right to claim-and never would so do-that my particular taste in music is any other than a purely personal perspective which I shall continue to express as appropriate :)

some guy

Quote from: Dundonnell on September 24, 2008, 02:29:31 PMI am not exactly sure what you are getting at here but I can assure you that I very much welcome reading other people's perspectives on "what constitutes good music"!

Glad to hear it!

(I had just misspent a few sad minutes a couple of days ago scrolling through this entire thread looking for something other than the tonal/orchestral/neo-romantic type of folks that were predominating. Finding Ugh!s post was genuinely heartening. Listening to the two folks he mentioned was genuinely enjoyable. I should probably have given more effort to making my post express more the joy at finding some mention of some truly new and interesting music than sorrow at the perspective you are of course more than welcome to continue to express. I may strongly deprecate the folks you and your colleagues promote, but I don't really deprecate the promoting, ya understand!)

Ugh!

Quote from: some guy on September 24, 2008, 01:58:26 PM
More. Give us more!!

Have a listen to the track "Assemblages 2" here:
http://www.myspace.com/eugeneguribye

Let me know if you like it, I may be able to send you the entire work on a CD before it is released anywhere ;)
Eugene.

Dundonnell

Quote from: some guy on September 24, 2008, 04:45:06 PM
Glad to hear it!

(I had just misspent a few sad minutes a couple of days ago scrolling through this entire thread looking for something other than the tonal/orchestral/neo-romantic type of folks that were predominating. Finding Ugh!s post was genuinely heartening. Listening to the two folks he mentioned was genuinely enjoyable. I should probably have given more effort to making my post express more the joy at finding some mention of some truly new and interesting music than sorrow at the perspective you are of course more than welcome to continue to express. I may strongly deprecate the folks you and your colleagues promote, but I don't really deprecate the promoting, ya understand!)


I quite understand :)

Having read through many of your own postings on this site over the last year I appreciate that you clearly have a more adventurous taste in music than do I :)  I freely admit that my own personal tastes have not changed(developed?) much over the years, although I can appreciate, say, Schoenberg, in a way that I couldn't forty years ago I am still at a loss in the sort of music which you obviously embrace.

I have to say though that I don't "deprecate the folks" who produce such music. I don't understand it; I don't appreciate it; I plain don't like it but that is not the fault of the composers who write such music. They have the total artistic freedom to write what they wish/feel and you have the absolute right to listen/enjoy/promote their music :) I know that you will, equally, allow me the right to continue to promote the sort of "tonal/orchestral/neo-romantic" music I enjoy :)

Oh, and by the way...I am the same person who enjoys the music of Humphrey Searle, Benjamin Frankel and Alun Hoddinott among modern British composers! Ok, I suppose it is their orchestral music which most attracts me but "neo-romantic"? .....No!

some guy

Quote from: Dundonnell on September 25, 2008, 07:22:48 AM
I quite understand :)

[...]

Oh, and by the way...I am the same person who enjoys the music of Humphrey Searle, Benjamin Frankel and Alun Hoddinott among modern British composers! Ok, I suppose it is their orchestral music which most attracts me but "neo-romantic"? .....No!

Indeed.

Frankel's not someone I've heard, yet. I have Hoddinott's 2nd, 3rd, and 5th symphonies, but couldn't stomach the sixth. Searle, well, very nice!! You should be perfectly able to enjoy the Norwegians Eugene listed for you then. And once you've a belly full of Nordheim, you should be able to enjoy people like Bodin and Bock and Grippe and Enström and maybe even Rozmann. (Yes, I know, but I know the Swedes better than I know the Norwegians. That's why I was so keen for Eugene to continue naming names.)

Speaking of whom, the answer is "yes." And I've sent you a PM with details.

Dundonnell

Quote from: some guy on September 25, 2008, 09:29:55 AM
Indeed.

Frankel's not someone I've heard, yet. I have Hoddinott's 2nd, 3rd, and 5th symphonies, but couldn't stomach the sixth. Searle, well, very nice!! You should be perfectly able to enjoy the Norwegians Eugene listed for you then. And once you've a belly full of Nordheim, you should be able to enjoy people like Bodin and Bock and Grippe and Enström and maybe even Rozmann. (Yes, I know, but I know the Swedes better than I know the Norwegians. That's why I was so keen for Eugene to continue naming names.)

Speaking of whom, the answer is "yes." And I've sent you a PM with details.

Haven't received the PM to which you refer!

I can see that you would not like Hoddinott's 6th but would prefer Nos. 2, 3 and 5 :)

I also like the symphonies of the Schoenberg pupil, Egon Wellesz btw and plan to start a thread on him shortly :)

some guy

Dundonnell, the PM was for Ugh!, though rereading my post, I see that I am clearly referring to "Dondonnell" when I say "you." And me a writer. Pffft.

And I don't see that PM to him in my outbox, either. So I don't know even if he's gotten it.

Wellesz is a lot of fun. I thought he was a rather sad figure at first, Bruckner manque then Schoenberg manque. But however much that may be true, he managed to write some very interesting pieces that can be listened to over and over again.

I find that people like Krenek and Searle and Sessions are easier to listen to repeatedly, but all one has to do with the Welleszes and the Schumans and such like is just leave longer times between listens. Simple.

Ugh!

I've received the PM and replied ;) Speaking of Swedes, anyone familiar with Karl Birger Blomdahl (1916-68)? One of the most interesting Swedish modernists IMO, I am particularly taken with Forma Ferritonans (1961). This orchestral work was commissioned for the opening of a steel factory, and the composition was partly based on physical formulas associated with the steel-making process. It starts the most pianissimo imaginable, barely audible, starting to boil, buzz and exhume gasses (portrayed by the winds), gradually building into a "climax like a swirling cauldron of molten ore" as one observer noted.

It was thoroughly reviewed in Notes, Second Series, Vol. 26, No. 3, Mar., 1970, for those who have access to JSTOR...


Dundonnell

Yes, I know Karl-Birger Blomdahl's symphonies! I like all three(BIS-611: swedish radio Symphony Orchestra, Leif Segerstam). The 3rd, Facetter, is the most admired. Blomdahl died far too you(aged 52) :(

pjme

I discovered Blomdahl's third symfony on a Turnabout LP

TV-S 34318, LP, issued 1970: Contemporary symphonic music from Sweden.
Rosenberg Symphony No 6, Sinfonia semplice from 1951 played by Stockholms SO, Stig Westerberg recorded 1960-05-22.
Also includes Karl-Birger Blomdahl's third symphony, Facettes.

Two very strong works.

P.



vandermolen

Quote from: pjme on September 26, 2008, 06:57:04 AM
I discovered Blomdahl's third symfony on a Turnabout LP

TV-S 34318, LP, issued 1970: Contemporary symphonic music from Sweden.
Rosenberg Symphony No 6, Sinfonia semplice from 1951 played by Stockholms SO, Stig Westerberg recorded 1960-05-22.
Also includes Karl-Birger Blomdahl's third symphony, Facettes.

Two very strong works.

P.




Like Holmboe's 8th Symphony, also on Turnabout, that was a great LP.
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

Dundonnell

Quote from: vandermolen on September 26, 2008, 07:37:21 AM
Like Holmboe's 8th Symphony, also on Turnabout, that was a great LP.

That's going back a bit, isn't it :)

vandermolen

Quote from: Dundonnell on September 26, 2008, 07:55:36 AM
That's going back a bit, isn't it :)

Yes, but I'm a History teacher after all  ;D
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

The new erato

Quote from: pjme on September 26, 2008, 06:57:04 AM
I discovered Blomdahl's third symfony on a Turnabout LP

TV-S 34318, LP, issued 1970: Contemporary symphonic music from Sweden.
Rosenberg Symphony No 6, Sinfonia semplice from 1951 played by Stockholms SO, Stig Westerberg recorded 1960-05-22.
Also includes Karl-Birger Blomdahl's third symphony, Facettes.

Two very strong works.

P.



I have that LP. Somewhere. The Rosenberg nr 5 here is also reissued on Phono Suecia PSCD 100, coupled with Rosenbergs 6th under Blomstedt. I have that as well. Wonderful music.

Dundonnell

Quote from: erato on September 26, 2008, 09:08:18 AM
I have that LP. Somewhere. The Rosenberg nr 5 here is also reissued on Phono Suecia PSCD 100, coupled with Rosenbergs 6th under Blomstedt. I have that as well. Wonderful music.

No...it is the Rosenberg No.3 which is on that CD coupled with No.6.

No. 5, unfortunately, is only available in an ancient(1940s) recording conducted by the composer.

The new erato

#379
Quote from: Dundonnell on September 26, 2008, 09:48:39 AM
No...it is the Rosenberg No.3 which is on that CD coupled with No.6.

No. 5, unfortunately, is only available in an ancient(1940s) recording conducted by the composer.

How could I screw that up with the CD in front of me. No 6 (the semplice) from Turnabout and nr 3 with Blomstedt. Rumour has it that BIS once upon the time were ready for a Rosenberg symphony cycle, but that it was screwed up because of some disagreeement with some conductor. Some of his symphonies are real beasts. The 5th in particular is in need of a modern recording, I agree.