There are some old favourites here but there are also some little known works that will catch the eye and ear. Many are rooted in the Leipzig tradition though some are more nationalist in outlook but most are light – in the best sense – and immediately appealing. The orchestral version of Sinding’s Rustle of Spring – wasn’t this as obligatory for pianists as The Harmonious Blacksmith? – becomes turbulently romantic in this guise and flows with effortless ease. I’d forgotten that Sinding was a Nazi sympathiser. Agathe Backer-Grøndahl studied with von Bülow and also with Liszt in Weimar. She cultivated an interest in folk music but her compositions for orchestra were tiny – only two pieces of which Summer Song was, like the Sinding, originally written for piano. It’s a charmer. Svendsen achieved a degree of celebrity in his lifetime both as a composer (all violinists played his Romance) but also as a composer. Grieg went so far as to reckon him the best conductor in Europe (which of course meant the World at the time, but also meant competing with Nikisch and Mahler amongst others). The Wedding at Dovre is a bit foursquare but has a nice lyrical B section and a good ceremonial cast. Fine playing from the lower strings and brass of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. The Norwegian Artist’s Carnival is a delightfully bouncy affair written in 1874.

We have Halvorsen’s famous Entry of the Boyars, written in a day, and mentioned by Strindberg in The Dance of Death and Ole Olsen’s Funeral Music, written for his brother-in-law but that became the royal funeral music. Nordraak’s music from Maria Stuart impresses, especially Purpose, the first of the two extracts here though he seems reluctant to let the tune go (understandable as it’s a good tune, though one we hear a bit too often). Sigurd Islandsmoen’s Forest Clearing is a 1902 song, arranged by the composer for string orchestra – chaste and cool. The well-known Grieg pieces are idiomatically played – and not overplayed with too much vibrato – and they begin and end this attractive programme with real charm.

Jonathan Woolf

 

 

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