This is music of real character. Harald Saeverud, the doyen of Norwegian composers, was 90 last June. His representation in the UK catalogue is pretty meagre though the Sixth and Seventh Symphonies, two of the concertos—the Oboe Concerto and the Piano Concerto—have been recorded in Norway. It was the incidental music to Peer Gynt, written immediately at the end of the war, that brought him recognition beyond Norway. Robert Simpson caught the exact character of Saeverud's art more than a quarter of a century ago in words that I can't improve on: ''His music seems to express the spirit of his country's past, strange, mysterious, vigorous, the harshness and drama of its scenery... roughness is frequent and a tough core of obstinacy can be felt... yet he is a sensitive, civilized composer with a rich and salty sense of humour that often warms his asperities'' (Rollo Myers's Symposium, Twentieth Century Music; Calder: 1960, page 172).
Whether you warm to him or not, Saeverud's musical language is completely distinctive and his dry, laconic, yet kindly wit have gone to produce a figure unique in Norway: in terms of sheer personality he outstrips almost all his contemporaries. This issue features his Ninth Symphony, which comes from the mid 1960s, coupled with three better-known pieces. Kjempeviseslatten (''The Ballad of Revolt'') was originally the last of a set of piano pieces, Op. 22, which he extended and scored. (Slatter, incidentally, is a general term for instrumental folk-music in Norway, though Saeverud is adamant that these are not folk melodies but total products of his imagination.) It was prompted, he once told me, by his fury at the sight of Nazi barracks near Bergen, and pays tribute to the heroes of the Norwegian resistance. This music is dark, combative and inspiriting in character, and carries all before it with its insistent, unrelenting rhythm. Galdreslatten is also a wartime work, lighter in colouring but equally vital and full of humour and resource. This is, unless I am mistaken, its first recording since Malko's marvellous 78rpm account with the Danish Radio Orchestra (HMV DB10505—never generally available in the UK).
The Rondo amoroso is a simple piano piece that enjoys great popularity in Norway and ought to do so elsewhere, for it has a naive, artless charm. But, of course, the symphony is the most important work on the record. It is rugged, craggy, full of imagination and has greater symphonic coherence than either of the wartime symphonies I know (Nos. 6 and 7), even though Saeverud is often not a long-breathed composer. The passacaglia is more resourceful, the mood of the Andante more powerfully distilled and the waltz movement is splendidly tangy and characterful. There is, as always with Saeverud, a strong sense of the Norwegian landscape.
Per Dreier gets alert and responsive playing from the RPO and the recording is in the first flight (the engineer is Bob Auger). There is admirable clarity, a realistic perspective, and plenty of air round the instruments. Detail, I would add, is vividly defined.'