Alfven: Symphony No. 5 in A Minor, Op. 54 / Uppenbarelsekantat (Revelation Cantata)
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HUGO ALFVEN
Alfven: Symphony No. 5 in A Minor, Op. 54 / Uppenbarelsekantat (Revelation Cantata)
Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, Niklas Willen
[ Naxos / CD ]
Release Date: Monday 29 January 2007
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A gifted musician, writer and watercolourist, Hugo Alfvén is regarded in his native Sweden as the most significant composer after Berwald. The Fifth Symphony occupied Alfvén throughout the 1940s and 1950s, and draws on themes from his ambitious 1923 ballet The Mountain King. The first movement has sometimes been performed on its own, but the symphony is relatively rarely heard as a whole. The Andante religioso is Alfvén's arrangement for harp, celesta and strings of an intermezzo from his Revelation Cantata, Op. 31. This disc completes the Naxos cycle of the complete Alfvén Symphonies.
"High drama sweeps through the ranks of full orchestra right from the start of hugo Alfven's fifth, last, symphony. It is an epic work, and no mistake, challenging the most extrovert music of Strauss and Tchaikovsky. …the beautiful little instrumental Andante religioso…represents a sustained feat of imagination on the part of Sweden's leading romanticist, a one-time violinist who also found time to paint and write. Willén and the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra turn in a marvellous performance. I suspect they thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and if your taste runs to full-bore romantic escapism, I suspect you will thoroughly enjoy it too." Limelight
Tracks:
Symphony No. 5 in A Minor, Op. 54
Uppenbarelsekantat (Revelation Cantata), Op. 31: Andante religioso
