Today’s pop culture celebrates derivation over origination via remixes, mashes, and other deconstructed artifacts. So why not so-called “serious” composers doing the same thing? Lo and behold, here are 10 Danish composers who’ve reworked for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano 10 mostly familiar classical works. The disc opens with Bent Lorentzen’s generally respectful albeit harmonically updated take on Vittorio Monti’s Czardas. Niels Marthinsen evokes the sound world of old cartoon soundtracks as he subjects Strauss’ Perpetuum mobile to ragtime allusions, short-attention-span distractions, and shrieking, off-key clarinet licks. Jørgen Marthinsen serves up sparse, jagged, sometimes lyrical, dissonantly spiced fragments of Bach’s Siciliano from the Flute Sonata BWV 1031, with only a dash of the promised tango. Ole Buck expands, contracts, and displaces Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumble Bee as if observing the composition in a rotating kaleidoscope, while Sven Erik Werner prefaces his time-warped version of Lehar’s Vilja with languid, bluesy noodling.
Are you dying to hear Steve Reich’s pashing techniques applied to Liszt’s Liebestraum? Martin Lohse’s piece does just that, and quite well! Lars Hegaard’s Scarlatti in the Mist interweaves fragments of the F minor K. 481 sonata and chaste, rather academic sounding new-music counterpoint.
However, three works stand out that transcend this project’s ironic, clever air. Juliana Hodkinson’s Befall recasts Chopin’s E minor Prelude Op. 28 No. 4 by adding extra beats and gently shifting melody and accompaniment functions between instruments. After a minute and a half, the textures grow more unsettled, long glissandos sneak in like melting wax, and the increasingly nightmarish scenario culminates with several loud piano crashes. Andy Pape conjures a subtle array of instrumental colors and combinations in Bach’s E-flat minor Prelude (from The Well-Tempered Clavier Book 1). He affects shimmering zither-like sonorities by having the pianist silently press the keys and strum the corresponding strings inside the instrument. Lastly, Per Nørgård begins Schubert’s Nacht und Tråume like a plainchant, and characterizes the undulating accompaniment with whispering pizzicatos and nearly unnoticeable changes of register. The four members of Ensemble Nordlys deliver fiercely committed, intricately honed performances that will be hard for future contenders to surpass. [4/3/2007]
