There are three main differences between this new recording of Norgard’s kaleidoscopic Third Symphony (1972-5) and that issued by Da Capo with the same orchestra. First, age: last year as opposed to 1982. Second, Da Capo’s is a live account, the newcomer a studio version put together over three days; third – and most importantly – recording quality. Chandos have provided typically opulent sound for what is a rich, variegated score, and in the depth and presence of their recording one finds a wealth of detail that its rival could not catch so well. That said, in the first movement at least the harsher Da Capo sound does project some sonorities more prominently, but in the half-hour-long second movement the Chandos disc comes into its own, both sonically and as a performance. Segerstam’s experience as a Mahler conductor enables him to weld the disparate elements more convincingly than Veto could on the day, though one feels bound to say that the music is never really symphonic.
Norgard’s Piano Concerto is more recent, having been completed early last year. Readers who know his viola and cello concertos Between and Remembering Child (Da Capo, 11/92) will find that this concerto approaches the genre from a quite different tack. Gone is the traditionally confrontational nature of the form: here the keyboard is first amongst equals, an ally of the orchestra whose concern it is to fuse and reconcile the opposing tempos. In fact, two entirely new ones emerge, but along the way Norgard traverses some extraordinary terrain, as for instance in the weird cadenza in the piano’s lowest register just over half-way through. Per Salo is undaunted by the technical difficulties, as he was in the excellent Kontrapunkt recital of solo piano works (8/93). A fascinating disc.'