WOLFGANG PLAGGE (b.1960): Trombone Concerto, Op. 138, EGIL HOVLAND (b.1924): Trombone Concerto, Op. 76, MAGNE AMDAHL (b.1942): Elegy, TORSTEIN AAGAARD-NILSEN (b.1964): Fanfares and Fairytales.

Description: These works are all readily approachable, as well as providing virtuosic showcases for the expressive capabilities of the trombone. Hovland's warmly neo-Romantic concerto is a work of great color and vitality, with the slow movement exuding an impressionistic glow, contrasting with the lively outer movements, with their jazzy syncopations and insistent melodic charm. Plagge's genial three-movement concerto frames a somber fugal slow movement with two lively outer movements; the idiom is more modern than Hovland's, but very tonal nonetheless. Amdahl's Elegy begins with a cry of protest and subsides into an intense but sombre lyricism. Aagard-Nilsen's Fanfares and Fairytales is his second trombone concerto, a fully-fledged virtuoso vehicle that also explores the quicksilver, irrational imagery of fairytales in music that is constantly in flux, with an abundance of orchestral color. The work is in two sections, divided by an extended accompanied cadenza with percussion; although a wide range of compositional techniques are employed for their coloristic and narrative possibilities, the underlying vocabulary is predominantly tonal and thoroughly listener-friendly. PK Svensen (trombone), Malmö Symphony Orchestra; Terje Boye Hansen, Christoph König. SACD hybrid.