The Leading Classical Music Label Direct To You

Read reviews, listen to the music, and purchase the COMPACT DISC Scandinavian String Music

Customer Service Toll Free 866.489.4152

Flash 9 required. Click to download.

Narrow your search
with our Music Browser

Classical Music

        Ballet
        Chamber Music
        Choral
        Concertos
        Film Music
        Folk Legends
        Instrumental
        Musicals
        Opera / Operetta
        Orchestral
        Vocal

Jazz

Jazz Contemporary
Jazz Icons

New Age

Wind Band

World

        Ballad
        Bhuddist
        Chinese Music
        Classical (World)
        Early Music (World)
        Folk
        Gamelan
        Gypsy
        Hindustani
        Jazz (World)
        Klezmer
        Sufi
        Vocal (World)
        World

Special Offers:

Free MP3 Downloads

A Special Offer for Valentines

Catalogs

Internship Opportunities

Celebrating Black History

Masters of American Music

53rd Annual Grammy� Award Winners

Clearance

Penguin Guide

200 Essential Recordings

Recently Released

Upcoming Releases

SACD

DVD

        Ballet DVD
        Classical Concert
        Classical Documentary
        Dance Documentary
        Opera DVD

Audio Books

        Anthologies / Collections
        Arts
        Biographies
        Children's Classics
        Classic Fiction
        Great Epics and Tales
        History
        Junior Classic Fiction
        Junior History
        Literature
        Music Biographies
        Music Education
        Non-Fiction
        Philosophy
        Plays - Others
        Plays - Shakespeare
        Poetry
        Religion
        Samplers
        Sports
        Wine Guide

NaxosDirect Podcasts

Video Librarian Reviews

Labels

Naxos Label

        Naxos American Classics
        Naxos Best Of...
        Naxos Box Sets
        Naxos Cinema Classics
        Naxos Classics
        Naxos DVD
        Naxos DVD-Audio
        Naxos International
        Naxos Jazz
        Naxos Limited Edition
        Naxos Milken Archives
        Naxos Night Music
        Naxos Opera
        Naxos Orchestral
        Naxos Special Release
        Naxos Wind Band Classics
        Naxos World

Composers

Conductors

Ensembles

Orchestras

Choirs

Artists

Instruments

Producers

Scandinavian String Music

Home

Classical Music

Orchestral

View large image

$9.99 (COMPACT DISC)

In Stock - Usually ships within 24 hours.

Link to this COMPACT DISC Link to this page

Scandinavian String Music WIRÉN: Serenade in G Major, Op. 11 (1937) SVENDSEN: Two Icelandic Melodies (1877) GRIEG: Holberg Suite, Op. 40 ("From...

Read more about this recording

Scandinavian String Music

WIRÉN: Serenade in G Major, Op. 11 (1937)
SVENDSEN: Two Icelandic Melodies (1877)
GRIEG: Holberg Suite, Op. 40
("From Holberg's Time: Suite in the Olden Style": 1884)
SVENDSEN: Norwegian Folksong (1874)
SVENDSEN: Two Swedish Folksongs, Op. 27 (1876)
NIELSEN: Little Suite in A Minor, FS6 / Op. 1 (1888 rev 1889)

For the Norse peoples, like their Celtic and British cousins, string sound has always been a natural part of the musical psyche. In Norway, land of the famous seventeenth century hardanger fiddle, it was common from Napoleonic times for dance tunes to be busked on the violin. No wandering Danish minstrel of the twelfth century would have been happy without fiddle and pipe. The ancient Kalevala refers to the plucked-string kantele of the dance-songs of Finland, "land of a thousand lakes" - a harp-like instrument made from "birch wood strung with a maiden's hair", and extemporising, orallising village fiddlers used to be central to rural Swedish life: as Hugo Alfvén reminds us so picturesquely in describing his Midsummer Vigi l- where he also likens the "musical laughing", "rippling and foaming" sound of the sea to "the chords of a harp". The harp (literature, wood carvings and artifacts show) was familiar in sixth century pagan Scandinavia, where in an oblong form it was associated with magic and myth, its (instrumental) repertory apparently quite distinct from song or chant. As this album illustrates, the romantic and post-romantic composers of Scandinavia drew on such antique legacy with singular resource, conveying and stylising private ideas and public images of northern sound and saga through a European common market of low, middle and high orchestral strings, bowed and plucked. The odd solo, the repeated drone, gently remind of folk memories still fresh.

The Swedish composer and critic Dag Wirén (1905-86) was a student of Sabaneyev's in Paris, where he came under the influence of Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Honegger. Ranging from the neoclassically attractive to the frankly commercial (a 1965 Eurovision Song Contest entry), extreme clarity and formal craftsmanship within tonal boundaries was the distinguishing feature of his output. He used to be fond of saying his first desire was to entertain and please, to create listener-friendly "modern" music. That, however, he could on occasion be serious and weighty is suggested by the profundity and climax of the slow movement of the G major Serenade (1937). A rhythmically joyous work otherwise celebrated for its tricky scherzo and "signature tune" finale. He wrote it for the Stockholm Chamber Orchestra.

The Norwegian violinist and composer Johan Svendsen (1840 -1911) was a contemporary of Grieg and Tchaikovsky, outliving them both. A staunch classicist with German Romantic leanings, he was considered the greatest Scandinavian conductor of his time: it was he who gave the first Norwegian performances of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in 1881-82 (having already played in it under Wagner in Bayreuth a decade earlier). Of him as composer and symphonist his friend Grieg believed that he had "precisely all that which I don't have". Inventively textured (with plenty of divisi writing), his variation-based folk-song arrangements for strings belong to the 1870s. The two (unspecified) Icelandic ones (1877) are a mixture of modal and diatonic A minor, with the theme of the second expressively decorated by pizzicato quavers to create a suggestive aura of string and quasi-harp sound. In I Fjol gjaett'e Gjeitinn, the Norwegian setting (1874), Svendsen's skill as polyphonist and colourist gives rise to some strikingly intensifying moments - nowhere more expressively so than in the whispered E major drones and pedal-notes of the final page. Always a patriot (witness the four Norwegian Rhapsodies for orchestra published in 1877), he cherished the songs of his people. The second of the two Swedish transcriptions (1876). Du gamla, du friska, du fiellhöga Nord (Thou ancient, unconquered, rock-towered north), is based on a traditional C major tune to words by Richard Dybeck (1844), adopted as the Swedish national anthem in 1880-90.

After Voltaire "the first writer in Europe [of] his generation", the "Molière of the North", Ludwig Holberg (1684-1754) was born in Norway but spent most of his life in Denmark. Apostle of the Scandinavian Enlightenment, his French-influenced comedies and satires are considered especially significant. Originally written for piano during the summer of 1884. Grieg's From Holberg's Time: Suite in the Olden Style was commissioned to mark the bicentenary of his birth. An early example of pastiche, of romantic neo-classicism, its five movements, tonally all in G, consciously parody the clavéciniste style and Bachian dance - suite forms of Holberg's century. Its composer's personality, nevertheless, remains immutable. As his biographer David Monrad - Johansen says (1934), assuming "the garments of the rococo period", he "simply placed himself in the same milieu in which the great satirist lived and worked. He looks at the present through the spectacles of the past". The string arrangement - a repertory standard, idiomatic, richly focused and as brilliant for its massed glories as its testing solos (the closing Rigaudon, for instance, so-called "graveyard of orchestral leaders") - was made by Grieg in 1885.

"If music were to assume human form and explain its essence." Carl Nielsen imagined in his pamphlet Living Music (1925), "it might say something like this: 'I am everywhere and nowhere; I skim the wave and the tops of forests; I sit in the throat of the savage and the foot of the negro and sleep in the stone and the sounding metal. None can grasp me, all can apprehend me; I live tenfold more intensely than any living thing, and die a thousandfold deeper. I love the vast surface of silence; and it is my chief delight to break it. I know no sorrow or joy, no pleasure or pain; but I can rejoice, weep, laugh, and lament all at once and everlastingly"'. Nielsen (1865 - 1931) was Danish. In his youth he was a second violinist in the Copenhagen Royal Chapel Orchestra under Svendsen. Grieg (1843 -1907) was his great mentor and father-figure. The Little Suite, Op. 1 dates from 1888/89. "A remarkably accomplished piece of work" Robert Simpson calls it and rightly so. Its unexpectedly twisting, gracefully waltz-like Intermezzo (shades of Lumbye?) is a refreshing delight, its (sonata) Finale a portent already of a toughness to come in the symphonies. And how hauntingly across time the broken, valedictory tread of its Präludium seems to foreshadow the andante of the Wirén Serenade.

Boumemouth Sinfonietta
Since its foundation in 1968, the Bournemouth Sinfonietta has established itself as one of the most versatile chamber orchestras working in Europe today. With a busy touring schedule of concerts across the South and West of England, elsewhere in the United Kingdom and abroad, a pioneering education and community programme and a commitment to music by living composers, the range of the orchestra's work is unparalleled. Since 1989, the Principal Conductor has been the distinguished Hungarian-born pianist and conductor Tamas Vasary, who assumed the additional position of Artistic Director in 1992.

Richard Studt
Richard Studt, Director and Associate Conductor of the Bournemouth Sinfonietta, a pupil of Manoug Parikian and winner of various prizes as a student at the London Royal Academy of Music, was for some ten years a violinist and soloist with the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. He was subsequently concert-master of the London Symphony Orchestra and directed the London Virtuosi, the Concertante of London and his own Tate Music Group, recording with the last of these five Vivaldi concerti, two of which were newly discovered. As a conductor he studied with Maurice Handford and received significant encouragement from Simon Rattle and from courses under Sergiu Celibidache. At the same time he continues his career as a violinist in classic repertoire on his Stradivarius instrument, the 'Dolphus', made in 1727.

Disc 1

Serenade, Op. 11

(more info)

Performed by: CBC Vancouver Orchestra Bournemouth Sinfonietta Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra
Composed by: Dag Wiren
Conducted by: Mario Bernardi Okko Kamu Richard Studt

I. Preludium: Allegro molto - 3:13
II. Andante espressivo - 4:04
III. Scherzo: Allegro vivace - Trio: Poco meno molto - 2:49
IV. Marcia: Tempo di marcia, molto ritmico - 4:48

2 Icelandic Melodies, Op. 30

(more info)

Performed by: Bournemouth Sinfonietta Iceland Symphony Orchestra
Composed by: Johan Svendsen
Conducted by: Petri Sakari Richard Studt

No. 1: Maestoso - 3:27
No. 2: Moderato - 2:57

From Holberg's Time, Op. 40 (version for orchestra)

(more info)

Performed by: Seattle Symphony Orchestra Bournemouth Sinfonietta Camerata Cassovia Moscow Chamber Orchestra Capella Istropolitana Oslo Camerata Orchestra of the Mill Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Orchestra
Composed by: Neville Marriner Edvard Grieg
Conducted by: Alfred Walter Stephan Barratt-Due Andrew Penny Richard Studt Gerard Schwarz Oyvind Gimse Constantine Orbelian
Bela Banfalvi, violin
Geir Inge Lotsberg, violin

I. Prelude: Allegro vivace - 2:49
II. Sarabande: Andante - 3:49
III. Gavotte: Allegretto - Musette: Poco piu mosso - 3:29
IV. Air: Andante religioso - 5:41
V. Rigaudon: Allegro con brio - Poco meno mosso - 3:23

Variations on a Norwegian Folktune, Op. 31

(more info)

Performed by: Latvian National Symphony Orchestra Bournemouth Sinfonietta
Composed by: Johan Svendsen
Conducted by: Richard Studt Terje Mikkelsen

I Fjol gjaett'e Gjeitinn: Andantino - 4:29

2 Swedish Folk-Melodies, Op. 27

(more info)

Performed by: Bournemouth Sinfonietta Orchestra of the Mill
Composed by: Johan Svendsen
Conducted by: Andrew Penny Richard Studt
Recording date: 2-3 November 1992

No. 1 Allt under himmelens faste: Adagio - 3:11
No. 2 Du gamla, du friska, du fjellhoga Nord: Moderato - 2:53

Suite for Strings in A minor, Op. 1, FS 6

(more info)

Performed by: Bournemouth Sinfonietta Orchestra of the Mill
Composed by: Carl Nielsen
Conducted by: Andrew Penny Richard Studt
Recording date: 2-3 November 1992

I. Preludium: Andante con moto - 3:35
II. Intermezzo: Allegro moderato - 5:20
III. Finale: Andante con moto - Allegro con brio - Piu mosso - 7:00

Reviews

Be the first to review this title

FREE SHIPPING on orders
of 5 items or more!

Earn Naxos Rewards Points by opening an account and buying your favorite music today! Create your account here.

See all of our great site features here.

Flash 9 required. Click to download.

Composer(s):
Grieg, Edvard; Nielsen, Carl; Svendsen, Johan; Wiren, Dag

Conductor(s):
Studt, Richard

Orchestra(s):
Bournemouth Sinfonietta

Label: Naxos Classics
UPC: 730099410625
Item Number: 8553106
Release Date: Feb 8, 1995