Search - Vagn Holmboe, Owain Arwel Hughes, Ålborg Symphony Orchestra :: Vagn Holmboe: Concertos for Recorder & Flute

Intelligent, Fresh & Charming

03/07/1999

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The Concerto for Recorder, Strings, Celesta & Vibraphone, Op. 122 is particularly noteworthy. I am struck by its inventive and concise loveliness. Despite the vintage of composition (1974), the music is immediately accessible and seductive. Dan Laurin (recorder soloist) manages the challenge of briefly singing into his instrument while he plays it, with savvy. The Aalborg S.O. under Hughes has earned this listener's respect. I am very pleased with Hughes' balanced interpretation."

The Play of the Spirit

Thomas F. Bertonneau | Oswego, NY United States | 10/27/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"In addition to the complete cycle of symphonies, BIS has been adding other portions of Vagn Holmboe's (1909-1996) oeuvre to their CD survey. The three beguiling concertos on this disc - one for Recorder (1974), and two for Flute (1976; 1982) - all belong to the composer's late style but show him in a more ethereal mood than that made manifest in the late symphonies (Nos. 1-13); but this is not say that the concertos aren't devilishly clever works in their own right. The Recorder Concerto uses an orchestra of strings with prominent celesta and vibraphone, and these forces evoke just the sense of dream-landscape or fairy-tale world in which the archaic pipings of the recorder will be at home. So ubiquitous are the glassy tones of celesta and vibraphone, indeed, that one might well consider this a triple-concerto. The First Movement is full of oneiric fantasy; the slow Second Movement explores the shadowy corners of dreamland. In the Finale, the soloist exchanges the soprano recorder for its sopranino little brother. The two Flute Concertos essay a slightly larger scale than the Recorder Concerto. The accompanying ensemble grows larger although without violating the norms of a chamber orchestra. Both works give evidence of the extraordinary fluidity of expression that Holmboe possessed; both exemplify the composer's late manner. They partake of the playfulness of spirit that Nietzsche (Holmboe read and loved Nietzsche) spoke of in his "Zarathustra." The recordings are crystal-clear."