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Soloists of the Spannungen Festival 2016, Wind Quintets
Carl Nielsen - Sergei Prokofiev

Soloists of the Spannungen Festival 2016, Wind Quintets

Various

Label: CAvi
Format: CD
Barcode: 4260085533855
barcode
Catalog number: AVI 8553385
Releasedate: 07-07-17

- Live recordings from the SPANNUNGEN Chamber Music Festival 2016 – a highly regarded Chamber music Festival

- Highly rated young artists interpreting chamber music which can only be heard on rare occasions

- The two quintets are written almost at the same time but in different geographical regions and for different purposes – and are still similar in structure and formats. 

„Nielsen’s music sets itself apart from the prevailing bathos of Late Romanticism thanks to its linear melodies and overall transparency. In his compositional style he displayed skillful mastery of counterpoint and modern rhythm while incorporating elements of Gregorian chant and of folk music.

Accused at times of detached coolness, the composer once justified his approach with the following words: “Why do we have to go on proving ad nauseam that a beautifully sounding third is to be regarded as a gift of God, a fourth as a true experience, and a fifth as the utmost joy?”

Written in 1921/22, Nielsen’s Wind Quintet Op. 43 helps us partake in that very experience. Thinned down to the pure essentials, the scoring highlights the five instruments’ individual timbres. “At times they speak of one accord, then they irrupt into apparent disorder, then each one speaks for itself”, Nielsen explained. Certain instrumental combinations already sound almost exotic in the first movement.”

We likewise enter the circus ring with Sergey Prokofiev’s Quintet Op. 39 for the unusual combination of oboe, clarinet, violin, viola, and double bass. Prokofiev wrote this work in 1924 under the title “Trapeze” as a ballet for choreographer Boris Romanov and his itinerant dance troupe: music depicting “scenes from the circus life”. With its scoring reduced to the bare essentials, the work was designed to be readily performable in all sorts of circumstances and locations. Prokofiev, nevertheless, ended up composing a technically ambitious work, sporting a quirky character and “several rhythmic difficulties”, as he readily admitted himself.”( Excerpt from the liner notes by Matthias Corvin)