Nordic Rhapsody

Record and Artist Details

Genre:

Chamber

Label: BIS

Media Format: Super Audio CD

Media Runtime: 65

Mastering:

DDD

Catalogue Number: BIS2560

BIS2560. Nordic Rhapsody

Tracks:

Composition Artist Credit
Suite for Violin and Piano, 'im alten Stil' Christian (August) Sinding, Composer
Christian Ihle Hadland, Piano
Johan Dalene, Violin
(2) Sentimental Romances (Karl) Wilhelm (Eugen) Stenhammar, Composer
Christian Ihle Hadland, Piano
Johan Dalene, Violin
(6) Pieces, Movement: Souvenir Jean Sibelius, Composer
Christian Ihle Hadland, Piano
Johan Dalene, Violin
(6) Pieces, Movement: Danse idyll Jean Sibelius, Composer
Christian Ihle Hadland, Piano
Johan Dalene, Violin
(6) Pieces, Movement: Berceuse Jean Sibelius, Composer
Christian Ihle Hadland, Piano
Johan Dalene, Violin
Romance Carl Nielsen, Composer
Christian Ihle Hadland, Piano
Johan Dalene, Violin
Notturno e danza Einojuhani Rautavaara, Composer
Christian Ihle Hadland, Piano
Johan Dalene, Violin
Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 1 Edvard Grieg, Composer
Christian Ihle Hadland, Piano
Johan Dalene, Violin

Artistry of a high order from this gifted young Swedish virtuoso, and further proof that his dazzling debut album pairing the Barber and Tchaikovsky Concertos (2/20) was no flash in the pan. Indeed, Johan Dalene’s playing possesses such palpable maturity, intelligence and composure that even a (dare I say it) hoary staple of the violin repertoire such as Sinding’s Suite in A minor sounds positively newly minted, its Adagio centrepiece shaped with conspicuous eloquence. It’s a similar tale with Grieg’s adorable First Sonata, in which Dalene forges a nourishing rapport with Christian Ihle Hadland (whose contribution is intensely sympathetic and deftly poised throughout). Come the dashing Allegro molto vivace finale, these newcomers elect to ignore the repeat – but it matters little in the context of a reading so brimful of fresh-faced ardour and recreative flair.

Dalene also captivates in three from the set of Six Pieces, Op 79, that Sibelius wrote between 1915 and 1917 (listen out for echoes of the same composer’s Humoresques for violin and orchestra from the same period), and his judiciously pliable and songful handling of Stenhammar’s Two Sentimental Romances from 1910 makes me impatient to hear him in, say, the Fauré sonatas and Elgar Concerto. Haunting, too, is Notturno e danza by the Finn Einojuhani Rautavaara (1928-2016), composed in 1993 and used as a test piece for the 1995 Juvenalia Chamber Music Competition in Espoo; material from the magically serene first section was subsequently incorporated into the third movement of his Seventh Symphony (Angel of Light). Last but not least, there’s a youthful offering by Nielsen in the shape of a rather fetching Romance in D from around 1883 (the following year he began his studies at Copenhagen’s Royal Academy of Music).

A release to relish, this, boasting admirably realistic sound courtesy of Jens Braun, as well as expert notes by our own Andrew Mellor.

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