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Arne Nordheim: Partita Fur Paul

Work for Violin and Digital Delay Unit.

Ole Buck: Rejang

Programme NoteIn REJANG for solo percussion I have linked elements from the music of the Far East to a more Western way of thinking. The title can be understood partly as a description of the instruments played, yielding local associations, and partly as having an undefined ritual flavour, inasmuch as it contains a particular idea.To the almost aggressive character of this work I have added a sound from nature, conveyed by a set of genuine Balinese Wind Mills (surely used here for the first time in a Western work), which endow the work with a more conciliatory transition between two areas which, however, remain what they are: tendencies pushing in opposite directions.The work is divided into five movements according to considerations of timbre. Some kind of order, or limitation if you like, had to be imposed on the almost chaotic events and ideas which lie behind at least some parts of REJANG. Ole Buck

Banner Head - Fantasia : Western Guitar

Per Nørgård: Gennem Torne (Through Thorns)

For Harp Solo with Flute, Clarinet, and String Quartet.Premiered by Tine Rehling, Harp, and the Esbjerg Ensemble, conducted by Kaisa Roose at the Concert Hall of the Western Jutland Academy of Music, Esbjerg, 28th January 2004.Full Score.Duration - 21 min

Kaija Saariaho: Petals

This composition was written quickly in a matter of days, however the composer describes the longer process of writing the piece as unconscious preparation. There are opposite elements on display within the piece, fragile coloristic passages give birth to energetic events with clear rhythmic and melodic charachter.More sharpely focused figures pass through different transformations then finally merge back to less dynamic but no less intensive filigration. In bringing these compositional elements together and by forcing opposite modes of expression, the composer has aimed to force the listener to stretch their own sensibility. Work for Cello and Electronics which was premiered by Anssi Karttunen at the Musica Nova Festival, Bremen in May 1988.

Per Nørgård: Poeme

Per Nørgård?s fantastic 1987 work, Poeme for Marimba and other accompanying Percussion instruments. Norgard is one of the most influential contemporary Danish composers and this piece features elements of improvisation and the driven tones and abruptly changing textures which characterise the majority of his work from 1980.

Bent Sørensen: Deserted Churchyards (Score)

The title The Deserted Churchyards refers to several churchyards along the western coast of Northern Jutland, which long ago were safely inland, but which now are being eaten up by the threatening sea. Though The Deserted Churchyards is an independent work, it can also be played as a Prelude to Funeral Procession. The Deserted Churchyards was commissioned by Lerchenborg Music Days and is dedicated to Louise Lerche-Lerchenborg.

Karl Aage Rasmussen: My Spring Diary - Piano Pieces Vol. 2

My Spring Diary (Min Forårsdagbog) - Piano Pieces Vol. 2 by Karl Aage Rasmussen . Programme note In this, the second volume of My Spring Diary, which depicts the progress of the day from afternoon to night, the technical difficulties are generally greater than in vol. 1, and all the pieces are for piano solo. Freer use is made of the various types of notation which were introduced in the first volume. The 8 th piece (“Day’s End”) uses towards the end the type of notation called “open form”. The piece is a kind of musical resumé of the whole collection – elements of the earlier pieces reappear and at the end of the piece the performer can exercise control over the way in which these elements are combined. The sequence of the individual groups is free, and it is not obligatory to play all of them. The only limitation is that the arrows within the individual groups must be followed and that the piece should end with the short passage marked “conclusion”.  

Per Nørgård: Playground (Spillerum)

Preface / Programme NoteThe title is meant to suggest something playful, even childlike, but also something challenging and competitive. All these elements are part of sports, games and playing ? and playing music.Even if the mostly straightforward melodic patterns resemble the melos? of children?s jingles and chants, substantial technical and musical demands will be made on the violin player during the six to seven minutes of musical play.PLAYGROUND was commissioned by The 8th Carl Nielsen International Violin Competition, taking place in Odense, May/June 2008.Per Nørgård

Kaija Saariaho: Verblendungen (Score)

The Full Score of Saariaho's Verblendungen for Orchestra and Tape. The piece is dedicated to Esa-Pekka Salonen, who conducted the premiere performance in Helsinki, Finland with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra in April 1984. With both orchestra and tape working in opposite directions of the tonal spectrum, this is a fantastic and expressive work that balances the contrast the two elements. Despite these tonal differences, the tape and orchestra join together in an inseparable sound world and form a breath-taking orchestral piece that moves through jagged, grainy sounds to smoother, more reflective moods.

Bent Lorentzen: Quadrtata (1963)

Quadrtata (1963) has been expertly composed by Bent Lorentzen, for String Quartet.Bent Lorentzen studied at Aarhus University and at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen with Finn Høffding and Vagn Holmboe, exponents of the post-Nielsen Danish tradition of the 1950s. In contrast to his Danish colleagues who became involved in the New Simplicity movement of the 1960s, Lorentzen embraced the complexity of the avant-garde, using serialism and formal systems to expressive effect, and adding live performance elements to combat the dryness of purely electronic music.

Jouni Kaipainen: Oboe Concerto (Score)

After the success of Carpe Diem!, a Clarinet Concerto written in 1990, Kaipainen went on to write his Oboe Concerto in 1994. Carpe diem! exemplifies the increasingly Classical ideals espoused by Kaipainen over the years. He develops this strand even further in his 'Oboe Concerto', which is a much more restrained and balanced work in darker tones.The piece contains three movements, the first of which combines elements of a traditional opening movement and scherzo. The slow movement is an affecting elegy. The finale consists mostly of quietly played perpetuum mobile figures, interspersed with sudden dramatic passages.

Jean Sibelius: Humoresque IV Op.89b (Score)

Among the best of Jean Sibelius? oeuvre are his 1917 compositions The Humoresques. This fabulous and charming concerto was divided into two groups for publication, Opus 87 and Opus 89, and demonstrates his sublime skill with the Violin. He uses a considerably smaller Orchestra accompaniment to the Violin in the second group but maintains the subtlety of depth and texture. Though there are traditional elements to all parts of this opus, Humoresque No. 4 harks back to the past the most, reminiscent of the delicacy of mid-nineteenth century musical miniatures. Virtuosic and challenging, the soloist has the opportunity to indulge in a more traditionally exhibitionistic display.Score for String Orchestra and Violin Solo.

Niels Marhtinsen: Frøen / The Frog (Score)

The Frog (Frøen) for Narrator and Orchestra (2009). Text by Carl Quist Møller. Commissioned by Aarlborg Symphony Orchestra. A crazy liar story about the first love, frogs turning into royal Africans and a lobster which is really a submarine. The Frog is written for children’s concerts for children between five and ten years old. The narrator reads the story while the orchestra plays in the background. Occasionally the orchestra plays longer section without narrator; these sections are commenting on the story.The sections without narrator can be performed as a 10 minutes long orchestral work. The music is a wild, visually evocative, all fun-mixture of modern pop- and dance-music, African folk music and Western European avant-garde music.  

Jean Sibelius: Humoresque IV Op.89 No.2 (Violin/Piano)

Among the best of Jean Sibelius? oeuvre are his 1917 compositions, the Humoresques. This fabulous and charming concerto was divided into two groups for publication, Opus 87 and Opus 89, and demonstrates his sublime skill with the Violin. He used a considerably smaller Orchestra accompaniment to the Violin in the second group but maintained the subtlety of depth and texture. Though there are traditional elements to all parts of this opus, Humoresque No. 4 harks back to the past the most, reminiscent of the delicacy of mid-nineteenth century musical miniatures. Virtuosic and challenging, the soloist has the opportunity to indulge in a more traditionally exhibitionistic display. This work features a seperate Violin part with a Piano reduction of the String Orchestra by Karl Ekman.

Bent Sørensen: Trotto (Score)

Work for Oboe, Bassoon, Horn, Violin and Cello. Parts available: KP00198 The composer writes: 'The Quintet TROTTO was composed in the spring 1983 to the Western Jutland Chamber Ensemble, who premiered the work in June the same year. A quiet and pastoral music with calling horns and folk musical fragments of melodies are through the three movements of the piece met by a manic and stressed music among others created by mecanical sound repetitions and breathless musical oscillations. The two characters overshadow eachother and incessantly the peace is infiltrated with mania so that the resting points of the music disappear. 'Trotto' is the name of an old Italian dance, which rhythm is apparent as an enervating violin rhythm in the middle of the first movement'

Per Nørgård: Lila (Score)

Norgard writes of his work: Lila is a Sanskrit word for playing with the elements, and I chose it as the title of the chamber work I composed in 1972 because its coolly systematic play (with overtones and undertones in the infinity sequences and a spectrum of Golden Sections in the rhythms) is characteristic of the period just before I wrote my Third Symphony (1973-75).The work was given its first performance in Venice, in the Teatro La Fenice on 9th September 1972, alongside Kagel?s Anagram, from which Lila borrowed its instrumentation, since it was commissioned for a first performance by the Prisma Ensemble along with Anagram, with Tamas Vetö, to whom it is dedicated, conducting. Ensemble: 4 percussionists (gong, 3 tam-tams, crotales, glockenspiel, tubular bells, celesta, vibraphone, xylophone), 2 pianos, 2 harps, flute (as well as flute in G and piccolo), B flat clarinet (and bass clarinet).

Poul Ruders: Wind-Drumming (Score)

Programme Note Poul Ruders WIND-DRUMMINGWIND-DRUMMING was written in 1979 on a commission from The Danish Percussion Ensemble.The piece is a clash of two kinds of sound-associations; the mystic, exotic impact of Latin-American drumming, and the more well dressed reputation of Western concert-instruments, in this case a wind-quintet (w. electric flute).The two instrumental camps either melt into one soft humming ritual or are split wide apart, the winds tearing their way through the undergrowth of rainforest-drumming. There is more than one way of getting on to WIND-DRUMMING: obviously it is about the confrontation of two incongruent ways of living, a lament on the damage done to the tropical rainforests of the world by modern civilisation. One can hear it plainly as a direct rhythm-show, a downright number or a joyous homage to the most exiting kind of folkloristic music at all: the carnal spell of the Brazilian Samba.Poul Ruders

Niels Rosing-Schow: Triptykon / Triptych (Organ Solo)

Triptykon / Triptych for Organ solo by Niels Rosing-Schow. Triptych is written for the celebration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in 2017, commissioned by The Danish Society of Organists and Cantors.   From the preface: The three movements of the work are musical images or situations, with the middle one, Toccata, as its axis. The latter is intended as an image of the dispute between Luther and the ecclesiastical authorities, which is the origin of the Reformation. Two of Luther's Reformation Hymns are more or less palpably present in the music. The other two movements can be regarded as 'before' and 'after'. The first, Exordíum, is a 'fluid' situation, but also a preparation, which gradually accumulates a suspense pointing towards the discharge of energy of the Toccata. The third movement, Hymn, represents a serene situation, where a wealth of hymnal fragments grows out of an underlying structure, repeated several times (technically speaking, a passacaglia). There are also elements, however, which are derived from the previous movements. Niels Rosing-Schow (2016)  

Kaija Saariaho: Lichtbogen (Score)

The Full Score of Kaija Saariaho's Lichtbogen For Nine Musicians and Live Electronics. The title for this work stems from the composer's experience of seeing the Northern lights whilst starting work on writing the piece, this experience also shaped the form and language of the piece. Lichtbogen was the first time Saariaho had worked with a computer in the context of purely instrumental music, this new compositional element led to harmonic material being created by analysing short transitions played with a violin and cello, starting with artificial harmonic sounds and ending up with complex multi-phonic sounds. The rhythmic elements of this piece were created using a network of computer programmes, allowing the composer to construct interpolations and transitions for different musical parameters, rhythmic interpolations created through sets of musical patterns that are repeated but each time slightly modified in character. Lichtbogen is the commission of the French ministry of culture and is dedicated to Paul Mefanc. A splendid work for Ensemble (Flute, Percussion, Harp, Piano, 2 Violins, Viola Cello, Double Bass) and Live Electronics by this inimitable Finnish composer.

Niels Rosing-Schow: Ut-Sons (Sea Songs) (Player's Score)

Niels Rosing-Schow 's Ut-Sons (Sea Songs) for Guitar Duo (2016). Commissioned by 'OpenDays Festival' for the guitar duo Per Dybro Sørensen and Michael Norman. Programme note The work has been written for a first performance at the Utzon Center in Aalborg, Denmark. It is an important aspect of the work that it must communicate with the building's remarkable architecture. The title is a play on words on the name Utzon. Ut - Sons (French Ut = the note C) means 'C - sounds', and the note C is the centre of the opening music, which returns several times in the first half of the piece. C - sounds is deliberately miss-spelled as Sea Sounds in the subtitle of the work. This expresses the proximity of the sea, which is heard in the music as re-occurring broken chords similar to the sound of small, friendly waves on the beach sand. In between these easily recognizable musical elements are established 'musical rooms', which are different versions of a common harmonic musical material. The quasi-canonical passages played by the two guitarists are mirroring each other without ever being totally identical, thus reflecting thesubtle broken symmetries of the building. (Niels Rosing-Schow, 2016)

Tale Of Lead And Light : String Quartet Version - Parts)

The composer writes: "The backdrop for this commission was to complement music by the great Ludwig van Beethoven. Beethoven’s scores for string quartet are cornucopias of techniques and musicality. They were certainly not meant for pure entertainment. Ending up with Beethoven’s quartet Op. 59 No. 1 as a reference for this piece, I even used elements from this quartet in my own composition. Beethoven’s position as a free artist has been of great importance to all following composers. This is of equal inspiration as his music. As a free artist, one has to reflect upon our own time, and not be afraid of allowing reality affect our work. When I was in the middle of writingthis piece something horrible happened in my neighbourhood. A bomb exploded in Oslo and a killer shot teenagers on an island summer camp. My nation’s reputation as a peaceful country to live in was drastically and forever changed. It was hard to compose. Papers and online media were soon filled with horrible pictures from the events. The lead-coloured skies being a recurring sight. The ambiguity in the title reflects both hope and dread. Beethoven’s light shines through, strong and full of life! The piece was commissioned by the Engegård Quartet in 2011 and appears the recording String Quartets vol IV: Schubert-Ratkje-Britten-Haydn. A later piece was composed for string orchestra: 'Tale of Lead and Frozen Light' (2014)". The composer writes: "The backdrop for this commission was to complement music by the great Ludwig van Beethoven. Beethoven’s scores for string quartet are cornucopias of techniques and musicality. They were certainly not meant for pure entertainment. Ending up with Beethoven’s quartet Op. 59 No. 1 as a reference for this piece, I even used elements from this quartet in my own composition. Beethoven’s position as a free artist has been of great importance to all following composers. This is of equal inspiration as his music. As a free artist, one has to reflect upon our own time, and not be afraid of allowing reality affect our work. When I was in the middle of writingthis piece something horrible happened in my neighbourhood. A bomb exploded in Oslo and a killer shot teenagers on an island summer camp. My nation’s reputation as a peaceful country to live in was drastically and forever changed. It was hard to compose. Papers and online media were soon filled with horrible pictures from the events. The lead-coloured skies being a recurring sight. The ambiguity in the title reflects both hope and dread. Beethoven’s light shines through, strong and full of life! The piece was commissioned by the Engegård Quartet in 2011 and appears the recording String Quartets vol IV: Schubert-Ratkje-Britten-Haydn. A later piece was composed for string orchestra: 'Tale of Lead and Frozen Light' (2014)".

Poul Ruders: Paganini Variations- Guitar Concerto No.2

Ruders writes: There's a solid tradition in the history of Western music of turning the theme of Nicolo Paganini's "24th Caprice" for soloviolin into a set of variations endemic to the time and style of each individual composer; Liszt, Brahms, Rachmaninov and Lutoslawsky being the most prominent names. When asked by David Starobin to write a concerto for him, I though "well, why not have a go at it?" - bearing in mind, that not only is Paganini the most celebrated violin-wizard of all times, but he was also a more than accomplished guitarist. There are 22 variations in all, numbers 1 to 16 all adhering strictly to the 16-bar pattern, laid down by Paganini himself. From variation 17 though, the writing becomes more symphonic and the rigid 16-bar regime is being lossendes up a bit. However, the last variation 'Finale Prestisimo' is a 6 x 16 bars "white-knuckle ride", in which the hitherto soloistic role of the guitar gives way to that of 'primus interpares', i.e. 'first among equals'. As with another set of variations of mine 'Concerto on Pieces' (based on a tune by Purcell), the nature and shape of the 'Pagannini-Variations' may be compared to a stroll through a hall of mirrors: the "portrait" - the theme is gradually being distorted out of all recognition - but it's still the same "original" walking by.

Bent Sørensen: Minnewater (Score)

Work for Chamber dating from 1988.The composer writes:MINNEWATER means ?love water?/?love lake?, but when I began to compose the work, this direct meaning of the title was not very important to me. Rather the word itself had a magical sound. Later on, however, it occurred to me that the piece was full of mumbling swells and swarming cascades, and the sensation of water is perhaps most perceptible towards the end where lots of falling water movements are felt behind the emphasized rhythmic surface. Falls that moreover, quite literally at the end, sinks into the water. MINNEWATER has a subtitle: THOUSANDS OF CANONS, which directly refers to a compostion technique where all layers and elements in the music constantly are imitated; possibly waves imitating each other? The mudded and impalpable beginning of the work takes its starting point in one of my earlier pieces, the sextett LES TUCHINS (in fact the first 5 or 6 pages of the two pieces are quite identical but in MINNEWATER it is all ?blown up? to a larger ensemble). Quite soon, however, the thread to LES TUCHINS is cut off and it goes its own way; From the mumbling in the start - through swarming trills and pointilistic staccato movements - to a long section where the trumpet appears as a soloist and in a way conducts the movements of the remaining ensemble right to the rhythmic final section of the piece. MINNEWATER was commissioned by the Danish Radio for the German Ensemble Modern

Norgard P Two Nocturner Satb

To Nocturner (2001) - for Chamber Choir (12 or 24 Voices). Texts by Ole Sarvig and Ib Michael. English version available: KP01444E Programme note: These two choral pieces for 12 voices consists of radical recompositions on of earlier themes: in Summer's Sleep we hear new combinations of two 'Sarvig melodies' from the 1970s (one of which is now in the Danish Hymnbook under the title "Året", The Year); Michael's Night is based on an earlier, simple choral song (Star Mirror,1987), now for 12 voices and composed such that an original idea of "simultaneously displaced, opposite motions" cf. the poem) comes out as desired. Of the Nocturnes Nørgård writes: "Summer's Sleep was composed to stanzas of Ole Sarvig's poem The Year (from the collection Forstadsdigte ('Suburban Poems')) and forms the picture of "the summer of life", which is asleep - while the "heaven seed" waits for the summer wind ("invisible to every mind"). The many layers of text are expressed musically in a multilayered choral texture with 'looks' up and down through the various tempo and time-worlds: summer sleep, summer dream. "The second nocturne, Michael's Night, takes its name from the author Ib Michael, whose poem Star Mirror (from the collection Himmelbegravelse ('Sky Funeral') (1986) I pushed/coaxed him to expand from one to nine stanzas. The four selected stanzas set in the nocturne focus on the pan-erotic elements of the moonlit, starlit night. With the titles I have chosen I have stressed the mythic layer of the text, the summer night not as a dream but as sensual reality. "The two nocturnes are dedicated to Ivan Hansen on the occasion of his fiftieth birthday on 25th February 2003, out of gratitude for over a quarter of a century of inspiring collaboration".