Mats Larsson Gothe needs a page of his own, I think!
Mats Larsson Gothe (b. 1965) has been active full time as a composer since 1995 and has written in most genres, with an emphasis on orchestral music and solo concertos, but also chamber music and not least opera.
He had a major breakthrough with his first full-length opera Poet and Prophetess at NorrlandsOperan in 2008, and the prize-winning Blanche and Marie aroused a lot of attention at the premiere in the autumn of 2014, and was also nominated for the 2015 International Opera Awards.
Happy to recommend his Second Symphony without reservation, really, but all of the works on this CD deserve a hearing. Cross posting from the WAYLT thread.
Here is a quote about the music that I've really enjoyed this afternoon 😊
The symphony was written during a period of depression and stress in the composer's life, after the exhausting composition and premiere of his opera Poet and Prophetess. By Gothe's own admission this intense, dark and brooding work was an exercise in catharsis, its title in this context best understood in Seamus Heaney's interpretation as 'there are tears at the heart of things'. A half-hour single span in a broad extension of sonata form, the symphony is firmly grounded in tonality and bears traces of the composer's earlier studies with Aho, and in its section of obsessive, inescapable driven propulsion, of Pettersson.
Gothe's gift for sustaining tension in long passages of arching, desolate melody comes to the fore in the work's introspective second subject development. A powerful, emotionally harrowing experience. The Apotheosis of the Dance, as the title suggests, riffs on the tumultuous, motoric energy that imbues Beethoven's Symphony No. 7. Gothe borrows some of Beethoven's most startling rhythmic and harmonic gestures and constructs a vigorous propulsionist scherzo in his own style but constantly referring to the original.
The Autumn Diary shares many features with the symphony, though here the mood is one of pervasive melancholy rather than despair and tragedy. 'Diary' because the work consists of discrete episodes of different character suggesting diary pages recounting different experiences and moods, from reflective and melodic to agitated and intense (again with potent rhythmic drive); 'Autumn' to evoke the vast, mist-shrouded, somewhat Sibelian landscapes the piece seems to inhabit. Fredrik Burstedt (conductor).
https://www.recordsinternational.com/cd.php?cd=05R009
Quote from: foxandpeng on January 19, 2024, 06:32:35 AMMats Larsson Gothe
The Autumn Diary
The Apotheosis of the Dance
Symphony 2
Frederik Burstedt
Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra
Ah, this is a great First Listen Friday. Eichberg and Pettersson would be proud.
Dug my copy of this cd out and had a listen to the 2nd Symphony again.
I agree with foxandpeng's enthusiastic endorsement above. As well as the composer's referenced and Pettersson type motor rhythms certainly come to the fore at times, there also seemed to me moments of similarity with French composers like Dutilleux and Jolivet. I couldn't pin down exactly why, maybe in how the orchestra were deployed. A striking piece.
Aside from the works on this cd, for a fairly prolific composer, Mats Larsson Gothe doesn't seem to be particularly well-represented on disk. The Double Concerto, which was originally to feature instead of the symphony on this recording, hasn't emerged and there are a few other pieces available. There doesn't seem to be that much online, from Goethe, a couple of opera excerpts were the only unrecorded items I could find. Hoping for more!
Quote from: Alex Bozman on January 20, 2024, 11:27:24 AMDug my copy of this cd out and had a listen to the 2nd Symphony again.
I agree with foxandpeng's enthusiastic endorsement above. As well as the composer's referenced and Pettersson type motor rhythms certainly come to the fore at times, there also seemed to me moments of similarity with French composers like Dutilleux and Jolivet. I couldn't pin down exactly why, maybe in how the orchestra were deployed. A striking piece.
Aside from the works on this cd, for a fairly prolific composer, Mats Larsson Gothe doesn't seem to be particularly well-represented on disk. The Double Concerto, which was originally to feature instead of the symphony on this recording, hasn't emerged and there are a few other pieces available. There doesn't seem to be that much online, from Goethe, a couple of opera excerpts were the only unrecorded items I could find. Hoping for more!
Good to hear your positive reaction! I have listened to the Cello Concerto today, also.... very impressed :)