Northern Timbre

Tor Espen Aspaas & Ragnhild Hemsing

Released on 30/04/2017 by 2L
Main artists: Tor Espen Aspaas Ragnhild Hemsing
Genre: Klassiek

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The graphics for this 2L release from Norway promise an ambitious program including probing the way Grieg, Sibelius, and Nielsen "were inspired by each other" and thus created the titular "northern timbre." That's a tall order inasmuch as when Grieg wrote his Violin Sonata No. 3 in C minor, Op. 45, Sibelius and Nielsen were just beginning their careers and were hardly in a position to inspire Grieg. And the Sibelius Danses champêtre, Op. 106, is a late, almost neoclassical work, and hardly the one you'd pick to demonstrate Sibelius' contribution to a pan-Nordic musical language. Instead what you get are clear performances of three rather underexposed Nordic violin works. Carl Nielsen's Violin Sonata No. 1 in A major, Op. 9, was indeed influenced by Grieg, both positively and in the sense of providing a model that the younger composer felt he had to destroy, and violinist Ragnhild Hemsing and pianist Tor Esepan Aspaas nicely catch the alternations between the two (sample the first movement). The Sibelius pieces, light works that the composer wrote with financial considerations in mind as he labored on works left uncompleted, here form a kind of entr'acte between the Nielsen and the Grieg, whose limpid slow movement is especially arresting here. Many people buy 2L recordings just for the sound, but this outing, with its inappropriate church acoustic, isn't one of the engineering team's stronger efforts. Recommended for those interested in the Scandinavian golden age.

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Northern Timbre

Tor Espen Aspaas

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Edvard Grieg SONATA no. 3 in C minor op. 45: I. Allegro molto ed apassionato

Ragnhild Hemsing

00:08:41

Edvard Grieg, Composer - Lindberg Lyd AS, Producer - Morten Lindberg, Producer - Tor Espen Aspaas, MainArtist - Ragnhild Hemsing, MainArtist - Lindberg Lyd, MusicPublisher

Edvard Grieg SONATA no. 3 in C minor op. 45: II. Allegretto espressivo alla Romanza

Ragnhild Hemsing

00:06:14

Edvard Grieg, Composer - Lindberg Lyd AS, Producer - Morten Lindberg, Producer - Tor Espen Aspaas, MainArtist - Ragnhild Hemsing, MainArtist - Lindberg Lyd, MusicPublisher

Edvard Grieg SONATA no. 3 in C minor op. 45: III. Allegro animato

Ragnhild Hemsing

00:07:19

Edvard Grieg, Composer - Lindberg Lyd AS, Producer - Morten Lindberg, Producer - Tor Espen Aspaas, MainArtist - Ragnhild Hemsing, MainArtist - Lindberg Lyd, MusicPublisher

Jean Sibelius DANSES CHAMPÊTRES op. 106: I. Largamente assai – Vivace

Ragnhild Hemsing

00:04:23