As Eric Ericson points out in his introduction to this disc, ‘Nordic people love to sing – choral singing is deeply rooted in our folk music.’ Which begs the question, why a French choir to perform this selection of 20th-century Scandinavian a cappella music? (On a different note I am intrigued to know why the choir has elected to be photographed sitting in shopping trolleys like so much cheap wine from a Calais hypermarket?)
Be that as it may, Accentus are a highly polished, hugely capable group who, under Ericson’s easygoing and relaxed control, produce sumptuously warm and overtly expressive performances. The third of Stenhammar’s somewhat churchy Choral Songs shows them off at their best, with a lavish, superbly balanced choral blend and lovely depth of tone.
Forty-nine minutes allows little scope to explore the rich seam of Scandinavian choral music from the last century, but the programme is neatly divided into two groups: the backward-looking, overtly romantic music of Stenhammar, Wikander and Alfven, and the slightly more adventurous work of four living composers, Jorgen Jersild, Jan Sandstrom, Lars Johan Werle and Knut Nystedt. The latter group presents a somewhat predictable selection of a cappella devices – sliding tonal clusters, choral speaking and free vocalisations – none of which presents any obvious challenges to these 32 highly accomplished singers. Sandstrom’s ‘Two Japanese Landscapes’ (Poem No 2), a thickly textured, atmospheric mood-piece, is probably the most successful and imaginative thing on the disc.
While the texts of all these songs are given in three languages I am surprised that no authors are mentioned (other than Petrarch, whose name appears, by default as it were, in the title of Werle’s overlong Canzone 126 di Petrarca). Are we to believe that these seven Scandinavian composers were also highly accomplished poets?'