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Tuesday, July 16, 2019

Jón Leifs - Elegies (Bernharður Wilkinson)


Information

Composer: Jón Leifs
  • (01) Scherzo concreto, Op. 58
  • (02) Quintet, Op. 50
  • (05) Variazioni pastorale, Op. 8
  • (16) Erfiljóð (Elegies), Op. 35

Þórunn Guðmundsdóttir, mezzo-soprano
Rut Ingólfsdóttir, violin

Male-Voice Choir
Reykjavík Chamber Orchestra
Bernharður Wilkinson, conductor

Date: 2014 (reissued and remastered from 2009 Smekkleysa recordings)
Label: BIS (originally recorded by Smekkleysa)
http://bis.se/label/bis/jon-leifs-elegies

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Review

Jón Leifs’ music is a world unto itself, and the four works on this disc offer good sense of its expressive range. Scherzo concreto is a brief piece scored for the nutty combination of piccolo, flute, oboe, English horn, clarinet, bassoon, trombone, tuba, viola and cello. It begins like one of those atonal “squeak bloop” things that you might find parodied at a Hoffnung Festival concert, but it soon settles down to Leifs’ typically folk-inspired brand of musical garrulity. The Quintet, for piccolo and flute, clarinet, bassoon, viola and cello dwells in the same general region, only two further, lengthier movements precede its concluding scherzo.

Variazioni pastorale is an early work originally composed for orchestra, but here arranged for string quartet by the composer–and very effectively too. The variations are unfailingly inventive, and it’s really fun to hear them evolve from the style of Beethoven’s original string trio to that of Leifs (and sort of back again). Elegies incorporates in its first movement music from the brief Requiem, and like that earlier work the entire suite of three movements memorializes the composer’s daughter, who drowned while swimming of the coast of Sweden in 1944. The work’s three movements–Grief, Dance of Sorrow, Sea Poem–are scored for male chorus, with mezzo soprano soloist and violin in the finale movement. You’ll be amazed at the richness of the texture the Leifs conjures with these limited forces, particularly in the last piece.

Of course we have the performances to thank for the positive impression this distinctive, often strange music makes. The members of the Reykjavík Chamber Orchestra and its associated choir obviously understand the idiom (if they don’t, who does?), and conductor Bernhardur Wilkinson leads them with absolute conviction. Mezzo soprano Thorunn Gudmundsdóttir also sings quite affectingly in the finale of Elegies. Previously released in Iceland on the mysterious Smekkleysa label (and also reviewed at that time), now licensed by BIS, this remains a beautiful, and beautifully engineered disc.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday

More reviews:
https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/leifs-elegies-quintet
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2015/Mar/Leifs_Erfiljod_BIS2070.htm
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2009/Aug09/Leifs_SMK46.htm

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Jón Leifs (1 May 1899 – 30 July 1968), was an Icelandic composer, pianist, and conductor. Born in Iceland, he left for Germany in 1916 to study at the Leipzig Conservatory and graduated in 1921. During this period he also studied composition with Ferruccio Busoni. Beginning with piano arrangements of Icelandic folk songs, Leifs started an active career as a composer in the 1920s. In 1945 he moved back to Iceland, and became a fierce proponent of music education and of artists' rights. Most of his works is inspired by Icelandic natural phenomena and classic Icelandic sagas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B3n_Leifs

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Bernharður Wilkinson entered the Royal Northern College of Music in 1969 where his principle study was the flute. His main teacher was Trevor Wye. He has attended master classes with Marcel Moyse, William Bennett and James Galway, and was appointed to the Iceland Symphony Orchestra in 1975. Wilkinson served as assistant conductor of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra between 1999 and 2002 and still appears with that orchestra on a regular basis. Wilkinson is a founder member of the Reykjavik Wind Quintet which has performed throughout the world and has recorded both for Chandos and BIS.
http://www.wilkinson.fo/

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