Helle Nacht – Per Nørgård
And now for something completely different. I was listening to CD Review on Radio 3 yesterday morning and in the course of a fascinating section about new modern classical works, I heard some wonderful music by a Danish composer called Per Nørgård, whose name (pronounced in Danish something like nur-gaw) was quite new to me until then. I’ve spent most of this morning downloading various collections of his music and am now in danger of becoming a Nørgård bore.
Much of Nørgård’s music is based on ideas inspired by fractal geometry and exploits the so-called infinity series, representing a kind of extension of the serial techniques pioneered by such composers as Arnold Schoenberg. One of the great things about Nørgård, however, is that you really don’t need to know about that, or indeed that the following piece was inspired by the Aurora Borealis, in order to enjoy it. This is Nørgård’s Violin Concerto No. 1 Helle Nacht.
In the Dark 
March 11, 2012 at 1:53 pm
Thanks for sharing but I think I will stick with the “3 Bs”. Perhaps I am just not in the right mood right now?
March 11, 2012 at 9:56 pm
That’s a piece of music I’d never heard before. In fact, I can’t remember hearing any of Nørgård’s music before, even on the radio. That movement from that violin concerto seems to be more distinctive than many other pieces of contemporary classical music, which is a good quality.
All the same, it doesn’t persuade me to abandon excellent Carl Nielsen as my favourite Danish composer.
March 11, 2012 at 10:18 pm
I’d never heard of him until yesterday, but he’s written a lot of absolutely fascinating music which I’m now trying hard to catch up on. Very grateful to Radio 3 for including modern works in CD review. I only wish they did it more often.
March 11, 2012 at 11:13 pm
Yes, it is good to have variety on CD Review. However, there is a lot of resistance to contemporary classical music and many people do not like to listen to it.
I missed that part of yesterday’s programme because I went through to another room, and later retuned to Radio 4 for the Week in Westminster (which tend to do most Saturdays). So I hadn’t heard anything by Nørgård before listening to the clip, though I had heard of him.
March 11, 2012 at 11:32 pm
Well it won’t be long before we’ll have wall to wall Schubert for 8 days. Not much variety there. Not that I mind Schubert, of course, but still…
March 11, 2012 at 11:41 pm
Oh, yes. of course. I’d forgotten that the Schubert week was coming up later this month. It should be interesting. I found the Tchaikovsky/Stravinsky week a bit trying though.
(Of course I loved the Beethoven week. It cost me nearly £600 for new hi-fi equipment and I found myself losing sleep when I tried leaving the radio on overnight.)