Concertos (Incl Piano Concerto No 1)

"A well-packed disc with a nice balance struck between the concertos and a rarely encountered choral-orchestral work."
- MusicWeb Feb 2005

"Strongly recommended."
(Gramophone)

The prolific Danish composer Vagn Holmboe (1909-1996) has been a major concern of BIS' for quite some time now. In all BIS have released 12 CDs dedicated to him and in particular to his orchestral works, including the complete cycle of 13 symphonies (re-released in a 6-CD box, BIS-CD-843/46). Besides the symphonic genre, Holmboe also favoured the concerto form. In his catalogue there are 21 works for solo instrument(s) and orchestra, and with this disc we have recorded a total of 11 of these works. The three concertos on the present CD are all part of the series that Holmboe initially called 'chamber concertos', reverting to the more conventional title 'concertos' mid-way. But still, the format is smaller than a full-blown, romantic concerto - both in terms of scoring (the Piano Concerto is scored for piano, strings and timpani only) and in duration. Written over a period of six years (1939-1945) the concertos for piano, clarinet and oboe show the various influences (Bartòk, neo-classicism etc) that the composer integrated in his own music - music that The New Grove Dictionary of Music describes as being of 'a rare continuity and quality of thought.' In order to guarantee the continuity of the BIS Holmboe series, the task of recording these works has been entrusted to conductor Owain Arwel Hughes and the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra; the same team that has been so highly praised for earlier instalments. (About BIS-CD-917, International Record Review wrote: 'As his BIS cycle of the symphonies has shown, Owain Arwel Hughes and his fine Aalborg musicians are completely attuned to Holmboe's world... Recommended with all possible enthusiasm.') The soloists Noriko Ogawa, Martin Fröst and Gordon Hunt will be known for their many and varied BIS recordings. And to round off the disc is a rarity: a setting of Psalm 32, Beatus Parvo, for choir and orchestra, composed in 1972 and an example of the composer's important choral output. (According to the Grove article quoted above, Holmboe is 'one of the few post-World War II Scandinavian composers to possess a natural feeling for vocal line and for polyphony.')