Sunday 13 November 2016

Trombone Sonata, twice over

My original cataloguing becomes increasingly inaccurate. Having said there was just one recording of the Trombone Sonata, op.172a, I found out about two more in a single night.

Carsten Svanberg and Bernadette Binder perform the sonata on an album of Classical Sonatas for Trombone and Piano published back in 1998 (Amos CD 5872). Other composers represented on the album are Hindemith, Frank Martin, Bentzon, Schmidt, Larsen and Sulek. These days, it appears the album is most readily accessed from the record company's own website (www.blasmusik.ch).




The other performance is by Roger Verdi and Martha Locker, on album called Almost Home - Works for Trombone (Greenmill Records). Other composers are Guilmant, Barat, Bassett, de Frumiere and Sulek. Known sources for the album are Amazon and CDBaby.



Saturday 24 September 2016

Another rediscovery

When I first wrote about the album Chamber Works for Flute (Rondo Grammofon RCD 8362) in this entry, I reported that I could find no evidence of it in any form other than CD.



Well, as of May this year it was added to some streaming services and digital stores. It does not appear to be on iTunes, but so far I have found it on Amazon US and UK, Deezer, Napster and Klicktrack.


The CD is still available, but somewhat scarce, so this development increases the accessibility of the music on the album. In particular, it has the only recording of the Sonatina Capricciosa for flute and piano, op.27b. Which I've just listened to the first time!

It is great to see many of these older recordings being given new life. While personally I still prefer physical media, this kind of access is far better than having nothing available.

Friday 19 August 2016

A lot of new (old) discoveries

It's amazing what turns up on iTunes these days...A new search for Holmboe revealed a surprising number of new entries, though most of these are old recordings, emerging as more of the history of music BiT (Before iTunes) is acknowledged. It's not just iTunes where they have appeared, services like Spotify and Google Play have them as well. And many of them are freely available on the performers' Youtube channels also.

First, an album called Lige før forår (Just Before Spring) (Point PCD 5144 from the mid-to-late 1990s). The conductor is Flemming Windekilde and the choir is the Unge Akademikeres Kor (Young Academics' Choir).

The Holmboe content of the album is 2 songs from Sange mod Vårdybet (Songs Towards the Deep of Spring), op.85 (M.223). Specifically the 2nd song "Øens kirkegård" (The Island Cemetery) and the 3rd song "Sol og sne" (Sun and Snow).

A considerable number of other composers are also represented, not that iTunes will tell you this. Lack of proper metadata, such as the composer, is a significant fault on several of these re-releases.




The next thing to mention is not a new album, but being available in digital form makes it far more accessible and that's worth mentioning in this case. Spejlinger – nyere dansk kormusik (Reflections - contemporary Danish choral music) (Point PCD 5127) from the Jysk Akademisk Kor is notable for having the only confirmed complete recording of the Three Jæger Songs, op.98 (M.232). It also has two works from the Liber Canticorum collection, Domine, non superbit op.61c and Laudate Dominum op.158b.


 The third song from op.98, "Tidligt Forår" (Early Spring) also turns up on Sommer på dansk (Danish Summer) (Point PCD 5164) performed by Det Fynske Kammerkor conducted by Alice Granum.




Another choral album is Lux aeterna : International church music from the 20th century (Point PCD 5152), performed by the chamber choir Trinitatis Kantori with Per Enevold conducting. This is a late 1990s release. It includes a performance of "Laudate Dominum", op.158b (M.319) from Liber Canticorum.



In 1995, the Norwegian Student Choral Union (Den Norske Studentersangforening) released an album called DnS i 150! (catchy title). It includes Song No.1 "Hemlängtan" (Homesickness) from the five Lagerkvist Songs, op.34 (M.144).


Next, an album called Cascade from the Royal Danish Brass Ensemble (originally Rondo RCD 8352 and released around 1996) includes recordings of Brass Quintet No.1, op.79 (M.212) and Notater (Notations), op.140 (M.298). Given how many of the recordings of Holmboe's brass music involve this ensemble, I can't tell for certain whether these are different recordings to ones already mentioned in the blog, but the couplings are different. It's possible to listen on the ensemble's Youtube channel. For traditionalists, used CD copies appear to be available.


And finally, a genuinely new release. The album Danske Sange med fjernøstlig inspiration (Danish Songs with Far Eastern inspiration) (CD Klassisk) is performed by Signe Asmussen and Erik Kaltoft. The Holmboe component is the song cycle Moya (7 Japanese Songs), op.57 (M.176), which has been recorded several times before - not that I am complaining!


All of these recordings should in theory be added to the existing blog entries for choral, brass and vocal works. I'm not sure when, or if, I will attempt that, as it's increasingly clear that the blog format is not very helpful for this discography. I knew this when I started the project, but did not have an obvious alternative solution.



Saturday 11 June 2016

A quartet reissue

A big thank you to Camphy for alerting me to a reissue of a recording of Holmboe's 2nd string quartet, performed by the Musica-Vitalis Quartet.


The reissue is on the Forgotten Records label (fr 1035), which specialises in reviving older recordings. This one stems from 1954, which is just 5 years after the composition of the piece.

I will add this to the main string quartet entry. At some point this blog format will need to change, so that the blog contains new reports and other pages hold the actual discography, but I haven't quite figured out how to do that yet. And I still have to update the choir discography with the new Faroese material.

Monday 4 April 2016

Faroese amendments

I already made some slight changes to my previous post (to correct errors which shall never be revealed, HA!), but think a separate post is warranted now.

Having received a copy of the album Havnarkórið 45 ár as an extraordinarly generous gift, I can confirm it does indeed exist as a physical 2-CD set, published by Tutl in the Faroe Islands (www.tutl.com). However, I cannot actually find evidence of it on their website. Maybe my Google skills are deserting me.

The Holmboe works occupy all of the first disc, not almost all as I previously said. It turns out there is another Faroese folksong arrangement not mentioned in the catalogue I work from, called Rura, rura barnið.  Without knowing Faroese, but with some knowledge of related languages, my guess is that this is a lullaby.

That makes three folksong arrangements, together with Sigmunds kvæði (I am now changing how I write this to match the album) and Ólavur Riddararós.

The rest of what I said about the Holmboe compositions on the disc appears to have been accurate. The second disc contains works by a variety of composers, with the most contributions from Hans Jacob Højgaard and Knut Olsen.

Sunday 20 March 2016

New Faroese discoveries

Well, this evening has generated one large Holmboe surprise, and hunting for more information generated a second (smaller) surprise to go with it.

The first large surprise is an album called Havnarkórið 45 ár released around 2011, which rather literally refers to 45 years of the choir Havnarkórið in the Faroe Islands. This choir already makes an appearance in this discography.




That entry was for just one song, the arrangement of Sigmundskvæðið (Sigmund's Ballad), but as you can see Holmboe's name appears very prominently here and there is much more Holmboe this time around!  None of the listings I've found identify the composers, but from comparisons to various information and recordings, it appears likely that this album contains all of Holmboe's Faroese work except for one song:

  • the arrangement of Sigmundskvæðið (Sigmund's Ballad) (M.ySi)
  • the complete Hevjið í homrum (Raise in the Passes), op.81 (M.214)
  • 5 out of 6 songs from Sól og kavi, which is the Faroese version of Sange mod Vårdybet (Songs Towards the Deep of Spring), op.85 (M.223) - it appears the 3rd song, which is actually the one that gives the cycle its Faroese name, is absent
  • the complete Faroese (original) version of Eydna / Lykken (Good Fortune), op.119 (M.272) 
  • Ólavur Riddararós, the arrangement that doesn't appear in the known Holmboe catalogue, but now appears on two different albums
  • Brugvar (Bridges), op.151 (M.311)

Several of these are not otherwise available or difficult to find, which makes this a significant find for the discography! I've removed op.151 from the "never recorded" list.

It's described as a 2-CD set, with the Holmboe works occupying almost all of the first disc. While I've not yet found any evidence of the CD being available, the album appears to be quite widely available for download or streaming.

The second discovery was a group called Mpiri, and an album called Asbest. This is another Faroese choral ensemble, but based in Copenhagen. There are several different cover images for the album.

 
There is one Holmobe track. "Dimmið" (incorrectly written as "Dimid" or "Dimmio" in many sources) is the third song from Eydna/Lykken.

The album appears fairly widely available for download or streaming. There is also a CD version, and the entire album has been put on YouTube (legitimately I think).

I haven't yet revised the (already complex) discography entry for the relevant choral works, as this amount of new information will take some work to incorporate.

Saturday 16 January 2016

Sonata for solo double bass, op.82

Well, here's an interesting situation...

I have stumbled across the existence of a recording of the double bass sonata. The thing is, all the evidence so far suggests that the recording is only available on Youtube!

This is despite it reportedly being a recording by Frank Reinecke, a double bass player who has made a number of commercial recordings, including of solo repertoire.


As there is no evidence that this recording can be purchased, I've decided (at the moment, at least) not to add it to the main discography entries on chamber music. Nor will I take opus 82 off the list of "unrecorded music". It was never intended that the existence of a self-made recording in a location like Youtube would count for those sorts of purposes. Having said that, this recording - which has all the appearance of professional work - does make maintaining that boundary difficult, especially when it's of a work that does not appear to be otherwise available.


The 3 videos (for 3 movements) were uploaded in February 2015, which is relatively recent. So maybe there is a chance that this will be included in an album at some date in the near future.


Friday 1 January 2016

Update: an old LP cover found (not by me)

Hello there.

It's been a long time without any updates to the blog, but that's because there simply hasn't been any news. 2015 seems to have been a pretty barren year for Holmboe recordings. There were some rumours (not for the first time), that Da Capo might re-release their recordings of the numbered concertos in a box set but so far nothing has come of that.

2016 is getting off to a nice start for the blog at least, because I've now been able to update a couple of posts with this LP cover:



It's a small thing perhaps, but to me being able to have images of the recordings is significant. It helps people identify them and proves their existence - which in some cases might help advocate for their eventual re-release.

A huge thank you to Turner for providing this image.