Alpha - Through the Looking Glass: Ruders, Nørgård, Abrahamsen, Sørensen (2013)

Posted By: Designol

Date: July 13, 2019

Denmark’s four leading composers – Poul Ruders, Per Nørgård, Bent Sørensen and Hans Abrahamsen - have allowed the experimental trio Alpha to take their music behind the looking glass and let their works re-emerge in the trio’s very own sound world. Played and recorded entirely by heart, Alpha’s close encounter with the musical essences of seven different works seems to reveal the form and richness of each composer’s imagination in a new magical reflection.

From one collection of new recorder music to another, the Alpha Trio’s “Through the Looking Glass” is a set of short works and excerpts arranged by the members of the trio for recorder, saxophone, and percussion.

These pieces are by four of the most prominent contemporary Danish composers and span nearly four decades. Both the oldest, Flowersongs (1973), and the most recent, an excerpt from Schnee (2008), belong to Hans Abrahamsen. Liveliness and energy have persisted through his career, along with a knack for keeping the listener interested by presenting something immediately likeable and slowly complicating and twisting the musical material to keep that listener guessing. His works are my favorites on the record, but everything here is engaging and exciting. Poul Ruders mostly follows a “post-minimalist” style, though his Carnival (1980) here begins with what sounds like beatboxing through a recorder and saxophone.

Just as important as the quality of the original works is the arrangements. The Alpha Trio has done an exemplary job in this music, transforming it and delivering it in their own voices while staying true to what made the originals great. This record makes a fine addition to any collection of new chamber music.

Review by George Adams, Gramophone

Review by Christopher Culver

Alpha is a Danish new-music ensemble consisting of Bolette Roed (recorder), Peter Navarro-Alonso (saxophone) and David Hildebrandt (percussion). THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS is their second release on the Dacapo label and sees them reworking existing compositions.

All of the pieces here have been around for some years, and most have been recorded as the composer wrote them. Alpha arranges them for their own instrumentation and, what's more, plays the resulting arrangements from memory. This is a fine recital of Danish music, and a reminder that even its modernists are writing music with a clear line that performers and listeners can follow.

Bent Sørensen's "Looking on Darkness" (2000) was originally written for solo accordion, and a moving performance of that can be heard on Froede Halti's ECM recital. Sørensen has developed a highly individual soundworld where the classical past is evoked but never fully realized. Microtonal inflections, rhythmic distortion and other unusual effects give the music a feeling of decay, like looking at an antique painting. The opening figure in this piece is gradually wiped out, still there in spirit but completely effaced, before appearing at the end in imperfect form. In Alpha's version, the percussionist soon moves to the marimba and makes this a very different work than the original.

Hans Abrahamsen's "Schnee" (2005) is a masterpiece of minimalism, stripping canons from J.S. Bach down to their bare, skeletal essence. (Hear the whole enchanting hour-long piece on a Winter & Winter disc). Alpha have extracted Canon 2a from "Schnee", and what distinguishes their performance is a remarkable amount of "swing", making the piece sound rather like the "Zen jazz" of Nik Bärtsch's Ronin. They also add a bit of whistling towards the end.

Abrahamsen's "Flowersongs" (1973) is also a minimalist work, but fast and frenetic, a motoric vortex like much of his music at the time. The original version for three flutes, which I haven't heard yet, has been recorded on another disc from this label.

Poul Ruders doesn't typically write in a minimalist vein, but his "Star Prelude" here is highly melodic and highly repetitive. "Love Fugue", however, is intricately contrapuntal as its name suggests, but no less charming. This 1990 work was originally for solo piano, and can be heard that way on another disc from this label. I've often found Ruders a mediocre composer, but these two short movements are very strong.

Per Nørgård contributes two very different pieces here. "Isternia" (1979), originally for cimbalom/marimba (hear it on another disc from this label) is a tranquil, timeless music. Alpha's arrangement brings klangfarbenmelodie to the original. But right after he wrote this piece, Nørgård's style drastically changed, and "Heyday's Night" (1981), originally for cello, alto recorder and harpsichord, has a yin-yang form where idyll in the first half of the piece changes to catastrophe in the second.

I usually don't care for arrangements, let alone quasi-improvised ones, and expected to be disappointed by this disc. To my surprise and joy, the music here fully preserves the spirit of the originals and takes them in worthy new directions.

Review by Christopher Culver, Amazon

Tracklist:

POUL RUDERS (b. 1949)
Star Prelude and Love Fugue (1990)
01. Star Prelude (03:22)
02. Love Fugue (02:35)

PER NØRGÅRD (b. 1932)
03. Heyday's Night (08:27)

HANS ABRAHAMSEN (b. 1952)
04. Flowersongs (09:59)
05. Schnee, Canon 2a (07:57)

BENT SØRENSEN (b. 1958)
06. BLooking on Darkness (09:15)

POUL RUDERS
07. Carnival (05:38)

PER NØRGÅRD
08. Isternia (09:23)

EAC log

Exact Audio Copy V1.1 from 23. June 2015

EAC extraction logfile from 25. October 2015, 14:06

Alpha / Through the Looking Glass

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DR log

foobar2000 1.2 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1
log date: 2016-08-13 14:32:30

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Analyzed: Alpha / Through the Looking Glass
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

DR Peak RMS Duration Track
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
DR9 -0.99 dB -14.92 dB 3:23 01-Poul Ruders: Star Prelude
DR10 -0.94 dB -15.39 dB 2:35 02-Poul Ruders: Love Fugue
DR12 0.00 dB -15.82 dB 8:28 03-Per Norgard: Heyday's Night
DR12 0.00 dB -16.67 dB 10:00 04-Hans Abrahamsen: Flowersongs
DR17 -5.37 dB -27.93 dB 7:57 05-Hans Abrahamsen: Schnee, Canon 2a
DR15 -0.21 dB -21.77 dB 9:15 06-Bent Sorensen: Looking on Darkness
DR15 -0.63 dB -20.98 dB 5:39 07-Poul Ruders: Carnival
DR15 -0.48 dB -22.03 dB 9:23 08-Per Norgard: Isternia
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Number of tracks: 8
Official DR value: DR13

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Bits per sample: 16
Bitrate: 562 kbps
Codec: FLAC
================================================================================

All thanks to original releaser - A-Z

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