Ole Bull / Vasks / Atterberg / Eliasson / Sibelius - Northern Lights - SUPER-AUDIO CD [Super Audio CD (SACD)]

Northern Lights is a program of Finnish piano works from the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. Gail Olszewski has played and loved these pieces for many years. She has been heard in solo and chamber recitals on piano, fortepiano, harpsichord, organ, harmonium, celesta and synthesizer in the United States, Canada, Europe, Central America and Australia. She lives in the Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota area where she has a varied free-lance career as a collaborative keyboardist, concertizing with members of the Minnesota Orchestra and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra among others. The works are played on an 1877 Bluthner grand piano that is an ideal instrument for these works.

Active as interpreters in the European musical world, Scandinavian composers in the 19th century were interested in shaping their own style and incorporating it into European music. They were greatly influenced by folk music of different regions in Sweden, Norway and Finland. The Swedish violinist and violin pedagogue, Tor Aulin (1866-1914), was committed to the great romantic music tradition. In 1899, Aulin composed his InchFour WatercolorsInch for violin (or cello) and piano. Also on the disc is the Sonata for violin and piano No. 1 in F Major by Edvard Grieg and following are four miniatures by the composer Jean Sibelius. On the voyage of discovery of traditional sounds of Nordic music, one arrives almost inevitably to Nordic folk music, which inspired the classical composers. Folk melodies are usually interpreted by a group of string instruments, or accompanied by guitar, flute and accordion, and are available today in collections according to the traditional mostly oral transmission. Fritz Froschhammer arranged these versions for violin and piano on this album in cooperation with the Duo Froschhammer in 2017. The Duo Froschhammer features siblings Felix Froschhammer (First Violinist of the casalQuartett and Concertmaster of both the Ensemble Symphonique Neuchâtel and Sinfonietta de Lausanne, Switzerland), violin, and Julia Froschhammer, piano. Founded in 1998, the Duo has since performed in Switzerland, Germany, Italy, France, Malta and at the famous Atheneum in Bucharest. Together they are prize winners of the International Wolfgang Jacobi Competition for 20th century chamber music and have been recipients of scholarships from the Bavarian Music Fund.

Testifying to the multi-facetted talent of Martin Fröst as well as to the different responses that the clarinet has awakened in composers over the years, the present compilation brings together four concertante works in recordings that have all been previously released on separate discs. The opening work, Fröst's fellow-Swede Anders Hillborg's 'Peacock Tales', is the longest of the four, as well as being something of a calling card for Fröst. It was composed for him in 1998, and on his initiative it incorporates choreographical elements and lighting effects when performed in concert. Hillborg has since made several versions of the work, and Martin Fröst has performed it numerous times worldwide in it's different incarnations. The disc Dances to a Black Pipe (BIS-1863) includes a shorter chamber version for clarinet, piano and strings, but the present recording is of the original version, with large symphony orchestra. If Peacock Tales focuses on the soloist, the opposite might be said of the Danish composer Vagn Holmboe's Concerto No.3 from 1942. The work is one in a series of 13 concertos for one or more solo instruments and small orchestra, and it would seem that the composer, by not mentioning the solo instrument in the titles of these works, wished to signal a particular concern in regards to the relationship between soloist and orchestra. Writing about her on a Distant Shore, subtitled 'poem for clarinet and chamber orchestra', the Swedish composer Karin Rehnqvist discusses the same problem more directly 'How does one arrive at a relationship between soloist and orchestra which is interesting and musically rewarding for everyone soloist, orchestra and audience?' Such concerns were probably of less concern to Finnish-Swedish composer and clarinet virtuoso Bernhard Crusell. Active during the beginning of the 19th century, Crusell is today mainly known for his cla