PER NØRGÅRD (b.1932): 2 Recitatives, Op. 16, Entwicklungen, Plutonian Ode, 3 chansons de 'L'amour la poésie", 3 Love Songs, Day and Night, Solen så jeg, 7 songs from Aftonland, Op. 17, Schlafen gehen, Schmerz und Not.

Description: These songs span some three decades of Nørgård's career, and exhibit a remarkable consistency of style, especially in regard to his challenging yet sympathetic vocal writing, while reflecting the changes in emphasis in his evolving compositional style. The earliest songs are the most conventional, with almost folk-like melodic lines, while those from the 1960s are more complex, as the composer's style developed with his invention of the 'infinity series', with its implications of unstable, intricate rhythms. The songs from the 1980s retain elements of this complexity, though a more declamatory, dramatic style also begins to exert itself, lending these works a feeling more akin to music theater than classical artsong. The striking setting of parts of Ginsberg's 'Plutonian Ode' is an especially effective example of this style. The choice of texts is remarkably broad - besides Ginsberg, Ted Hughes and Shakespeare (in English), there are Rilke, and (inevitably) Wölfli (in German), Rimbaud and Eluard (in French) as well as the Swedish poet Pär Lagerkvist, all set with meticulous attention to the sounds and cadences of language. The unusual chamber ensembles provide richly detailed illumination of the poems' atmosphere and expression. Danish, German, French-English texts. Helene Gjerris (mezzo), Ulla Miilmann (flute), Johannes Søe Hansen (violin), Lotte Wallevik (viola), Toke Møldrup (cello), Jesper Lützhøft (guitar), Tine Rehling (harp), Anne Marie Abildskov (piano), Gert Sørensen (percussion), Casper Schreiber (conductor).