Courtesy
of the Proprius label I have been dipping extravagantly into Scandinavian
choral music of the Twentieth Century. What is it that makes it
distinctive, I wonder? This is a disc of fresh and tonal Swedish
a capella choral music from the last century. There is
about it not a shred of the airless indoors nor of Victorian fustian.
The
present disc is by no means the anodyne pop anthology we have
become used to from some quarters. Instead if you glance down
the contents list you will see a long roll-call of ‘serious’ composers
- some of them associated strongly with the avant-garde of the
1970s and 1980s. Bäck, Johanson (who elsewhere has a Proprius
CD to himself), Lidholm and Werle are there. The velvet toned
cumulo-nimbus of Kung Liljekonvalje contrasts with the
gorgeous Delian sunset of Lindberg's Pingst, Lidholm's
Troget och milt, Åhlén's Sommarpsalm
and Sjöström's anguished white-hooted Bluebird
of a piece. Lidholm, far from requiring modernistic somersaults
touches on techniques required in Bax's Mater Ora Filium.
Traditional
carols are represented by the light as down peck-noted Den
Blida Vår arranged by Gunnar Eriksson. Johanson's plainchant-flavoured
Nu är det sommarmorgon is like some magical distillation
of the Allegri Miserere and Bax's I Heard a Piper -
a treasure of world choral writing. We must hear more Johanson.
There
is nothing here to trouble the modern-averse listener - certainly
nothing wild or Ligetian. Equally there is not a shred of cathedral
Englishry to weigh down the soul. This collection will appeal
to anyone who enjoyed the recent Danacord anthology of Shakespeare
choral settings, who dotes on Stanford's Bluebird but does
not know where to go next or who has fond memories of the Swingle
II RCA collection of English and French partsongs (BMG, Britten,
RVW, Debussy, Poulenc).
All
words are provided but no English translations of the texts. Background
notes are supplied in both Swedish and English as is a profile
of the sixteen strong Rilke Ensemble.
Rob
Barnett
Rilke Ensemble