Ketil Bjørnstad
Vinding's Music - Songs From The Alder Thicket

 
CD 1

So Far, So Hidden
If Only
Outside Skoog
The Stones, The River
Promise
She Didn't Say
Evening Voices
Remembrance I
New Morning
Ketil Bjørnstad piano

CD 2

W.A. Mozart
Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major, KV 488: Adagio
Christian Eggen piano
Norwegian Radio Orchestra
Christian Eggen
conductor

Claude Debussy
Suite bergamasque: Clair de lune
Gunilla Süssmann
piano

Sergey Rachmaninov
Piano Concerto No. 2 in c minor, op. 18: Adagio sostenuto
Gunilla Süssmann
piano
Norwegian Radio Orchestra
Christian Eggen
conductor

Frédéric Chopin
Ballade No. 1 in g minor, op. 23
Jie Zhang
piano

Maurice Ravel
Piano Concerto in G major: Adagio assai
Jie Zhang
piano
Norwegian Radio Orchestra
Christian Eggen
conductor

Ludwig van Beethoven
Sonata No. 30 in E major, op. 109: Gesangvoll, mit innigster Empfindung. Andante molto cantabile ed espressivo
Gunilla Süssmann
piano

Samuel Barber
Adagio for strings
Norwegian Radio Orchestra
Christian Eggen
conductor

Recorded March and December 2009
ECM 2170_71
 
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Order 2-CD Set

A double album as literary soundtrack, its release coinciding with Norwegian publication of the one-volume edition of Ketil Bjørnstad’s highly-acclaimed fictional trilogy “To Music”/”The River”/”The Lady In The Valley”, and with the author’s 60th birthday on April 25. After keeping his musical and writing activities separate for decades, Ketil dissolved the boundaries with his “Vinding” books: “When I had the idea of writing a trilogy about the young piano student Aksel Vinding, I realised that I would have to grant music access to my world of writing. This felt surprisingly liberating, almost like a confession. Music is a powerful source of inspiration for many writers, and so it was for me when I relived, through the novels, my experiences as a young piano student in Oslo in the late 1960s and early 1970s.” When the trilogy was completed, a concert of music referenced in Bjørnstad’s narrative was mounted in Oslo. Pianists Jie Zhang and Gunilla Süssman, with the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, performed compositions by Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy, Ravel, Rachmaninoff, and Barber, with conductor Christian Eggen also heard as piano soloist in the second movement of Mozart’s A major piano concerto. A recording from the concert comprises volume two of the present set. Disc one features Bjørnstad as improvising solo pianist, meditating upon themes related to his protagonist.