The Wind Blows: Music For Choir by Alfred Janson
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ALFRED JANSON
The Wind Blows: Music For Choir by Alfred Janson
Norwegian Soloists' Choir (Det Norske Solistkor) / Grete Pedersen, Alfred Janson (melodica), Members of the Oslo Sinfonietta
[ BIS / CD ]
Release Date: Friday 10 August 2018
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Works by Norwegian composer Alfred Janson spanning several genres and four decades.
Born in 1937, Alfred Janson was a key figure among the young Norwegian composers who emerged in the beginning of the 1960s. With a background in jazz and popular music he seemed to represent a new era, and this was confirmed by works such as Construction and Hymn and Nocturne. And ever since then Janson has continued to write his own music, seemingly independently of the current '-isms'.
One of the cornerstones of his production has been vocal music, and this disc from the Norwegian Soloists' Choir and Grete Pedersen presents an opportunity to listen to his choral works from five decades. These reveal to the listener his free melodic gift and original approach to harmony, but also his keen instinct for good texts - the programme includes settings of poems by Shakespeare (Sonnet No. 76), Nietszche and Emily Dickinson, but also a lyrical hymn to Mother Earth and politically charged texts by contemporaries of the composer.
The Norwegian Soloists' Choir and Janson have collaborated on numerous occasions, and two of the works recorded here were commissioned by the choir: the wind blows … from 2016 and Sonnet No. 76 (2000). Janson often allows for the possibility of including instruments in his works, and joining the choir are musicians from Oslo Sinfonietta, as well as Alfred Janson himself, playing his beloved plastic melodica.
"This is an ear-opening recital of wondrously-crafted choral music by a singular figure in post-war Norwegian music whose output seems to have been studiously ignored outside of Norway and Sweden, where his is a household name. I suspect British choirs would love to perform many of Janson's vibrant, provocative works. Of course, it's difficult to imagine any group surpassing the performances of Grete Pedersen's remarkable Norwegian Soloists Choir, however. They emerge with depth and clarity through two speakers, but to get the most from this disc I implore listeners to try the Surround option. If that nice Mr von Bahr is reading this, please could we have some of Alfred Janson's orchestral music, Nasjonalsang for example? In Surround, perhaps? In this fractured, weird world his time has surely come." MusicWeb Recording of the Month Nov 2018
Tracks:
Alfred Janson (b. 1937):
Tre Dikt av Ebba Lindqvist (1975-80)
the wind blows - where it wishes (2016)
Nå er det fint å leve (1983)
Lille mor klode (1983)
Sarabande (1995
Sonnet No. 76 (2000)
Construction, after Construction and Hymn (1963)
Ky og vakre Madame Ky (1967)
Viska du vind (1973)
Nocturne (1967)
