MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger


 
REVIEW


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

Support us financially by purchasing
this through MusicWeb
for £12 postage paid world-wide.


Eyvind ALNĘS (1872-1932)
Symphony No. 1 in C minor op. 7 (1897) [41:18]
Symphony No. 2 in D major op. 43 (1923) [36:56]
Latvian National Symphony Orchestra/Terje Mikkelsen
rec. Reforma Baznika, Riga, 31 July-1 August 2008. hybrid SACD. DDD
STERLING CDS 1084-2 [78:14]


This is volume 1 in Sterling’s Norwegian Romantics series. They spawn as many series as Naxos but their rate of production is of necessity more sedate. That they produce so much and of such quality is down to the overarching sense of direction and energy of Bo Hyttner. The span of his achievement and that of his sponsors, principally the Swedish Cultural Council and in this case Norsk Kulturrad can be seen at the Sterling website. Not that Sterling has finished with the Swedish Romantics but this disc is one of a stream of nationally-themed Romantic composer series – this time from, Norway.

Eyvind Alnęs was born in Fredrikstad on 29 April 1872 and died in Oslo on 24 December 1932. He studied music in Oslo and then in Leipzig with Carl Reinecke. He was one of the progenitors of the Norwegian performing arts organisation TONO as Atterberg was for its equivalent in Sweden. Alnaes was however less productive than his longer-lived Swedish counterpart.

His long-limbed First Symphony is in four big movements. The style epitomises the nationalist late-romantic ethos. It is the work of a seemingly confident young man at ease in an idiom that partakes of late Tchaikovsky and of Dvorįk. The Adagio sings soulfully and when it veers towards bleak there is an affectionate underpinning that pulls the spirit from the slough – yet with enough struggle to avoid victory. This follows a first movement which has a nocturnal conspiratorial accent, a determined turbulence and a theatrical tension. Some of the writing recalls Tchaikovsky 4 and 5 and some looks to Berlioz. Much of the orchestration is airborne and shows a deft lightness of touch. You can sense that in the final Non troppo allegro (IV) which is romantically haunting and gently winged. The music is typically endearing although the final flourishes are conventional. The symphony secured a performance in Berlin in 1897. The four movement Second Symphony from a quarter century later holds true to the same idiom. The flowing and flourishing first movement is dramatic – a plot played out against minatory black clouds. The second movement has both a hymnal element and the pregnant tension of the prelude to Berlioz’s Marche au Supplice – there’s a chill in the air and the music shivers. After a chucklingly good-humoured but not daft Allegro Scherzando with a lyrical swooning core we come to the finale. This combines stately aspects with some of the strongest facets of nationalism to surface across the eight movements that make up Alnaes’ two symphonies. The cheery mindset of this movement does perhaps diffuse some of the symphonic tautness set up by the earlier movements. Nevertheless it’s a work full of character and pleasing inspiration.

His output was not large. There are many songs of which you can hear four sung by Kirsten Flagstad on an Eloquence CD. Chaliapin also recorded some of them. In 2007 we had the first recording of the Alnaes Piano Concerto in D major on Hyperion. The coupling was the Sinding Piano Concerto.

The apt and extensive notes are by Audun Jonassen.

There you have it: two very satisfying large-scale dramatic-romantic Norwegian symphonies in the idiom caught between Grieg, Tchaikovsky and Dvorįk. Sterling remain part of the vanguard of worthwhile and compelling revivals.

Rob Barnett

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools






Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.