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Inside the Music

Program Notes: Nordic Tales and Folklore

Thomas Søndergård conducting the Minnesota Orchestra onstage at Orchestra Hall.
Thomas Søndergård conducting the Minnesota Orchestra onstage at Orchestra Hall.

On January 16, 17 and 18, 2025, the Minnesota Orchestra concludes its two-week Nordic Soundscapes festival with Nordic Tales and Folklore, as Music Director Thomas Søndergård conducts music by Ørjan Matre, Carl Nielsen, Hugo Alfvén and Edvard Grieg, with violinist Johan Dalene featured as soloist in Nielsen’s Violin Concerto.

The performances take place at Orchestra Hall on Thursday, January 16; Friday, January 17; and Saturday, January 18, 2025. The January 17 performance will be broadcast live on Twin Cities PBS (TPT 2), with Ariana Kim serving as broadcast host, and will be available for online streaming on the Orchestra’s website and social media channels, including YouTube. It will also be broadcast live on stations of YourClassical Minnesota Public Radio, including KSJN 99.5 FM in the Twin Cities.

Program Notes

Ørjan Matre
Born: December 6, 1979, Bergen, Norway

Lyric Pieces for Orchestra
Premiered: November 14, 2019

Ørjan Matre’s Lyric Pieces for Orchestra, commissioned and premiered by the Bergen Philharmonic in 2019, is a modern “remix” of six miniatures by Edvard Grieg originally written for solo piano. In his modern reimagining, Matre takes Grieg’s material, adds full orchestra and presents it all through a modern kaleidoscope of minimalist techniques. Matre augments this combination further with the use of a loudspeaker positioned near the solo piano.

THE COMPOSER’S DESCRIPTION

Matre provides the following description of his work:

ARIETTA | BOOK I, OP. 12, NO. 1. After a complete version of Grieg’s piano piece, a slow-motion version with composed delay effects appears in the orchestra.

SPRING DANCE | BOOK II, OP. 38, NO. 5. Although Spring Dance is the traditional translation of the Norwegian Springdans, the word refers to its sense in English of “leap” or “jump” rather than to the season “spring.” The folk dance setting is transformed into a minimalistic play on some of the motifs from Grieg’s original.

SOLITARY TRAVELER | BOOK III, OP. 43, NO. 2. Grieg’s melancholic melody is combined with motifs and instrumentation techniques from [my] orchestral piece Different Stories.

BUTTERFLY | BOOK III, OP. 43, NO. 1. The extreme rubato of Grieg’s own playing (as heard in the 1903 recordings) is amplified and transformed into orchestral swarms of butterflies.

BELL RINGING | BOOK V, OP. 64, NO. 6. Grieg’s original instrumentation of Bell Ringing is combined with instrumentations of spectral analyses of different bell sounds.

REMEMBRANCES | BOOK X, OP. 71, NO. 7. A recording of Grieg playing Remembrances is played back through loudspeakers, accompanied by the orchestra.

ABOUT THE COMPOSER

Ørjan Matre is a leading voice in Norwegian music, with commissions and performances of his music by ensembles across the world. He studied composition at the Norwegian Academy of Music and served as the featured composer with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra in the 2012-13 season. 

Program note by Michael Divino, with musical description by Ørjan Matre.

Carl Nielsen
Born: June 9, 1865, Nørre Lyndelse, Denmark
Died: October 3, 1931, Copenhagen, Denmark

Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Opus 33
Premiered: February 28, 1912

Carl Nielsen was only 6 years old when he began to experiment with the violin, and eventually he became good enough that, at age 24, he joined the Royal Danish Orchestra in Copenhagen. But he did not compose for his own instrument until his mid-40s, when Nina Grieg, widow of the composer Edvard, invited Nielsen to spend the summer at the Grieg family home near Bergen in Norway. There Nielsen finally began his Violin Concerto. He completed the score in Copenhagen that December, and Peder Møller was soloist in the first performance on February 28, 1912. Nielsen conducted the concert, which also included the premiere of his Third Symphony.

As might be expected of a work composed in 1911, the concerto shows features of both the 19th and 20th centuries. It looks backward in the sense that it is a big concerto, full of good themes and dramatic gestures, and beautifully written for the instrument. But it looks toward the 20th century in its unusual structure and harmonic language. The structure is unique—two huge movements with the same pattern: an introductory section at a slow tempo leads to a fast section. Nielsen abandons the long-held belief that a work should begin and end in the same key; this concerto begins in G minor (sort of) and ends faraway in D major.

THE MUSIC: FROM HIGH DRAMA TO UNDERSTATEMENT

The concerto gets off to a dramatic beginning—one great chord from the orchestra, and the soloist launches into a lengthy cadenza. The key signature may say G minor, but already Nielsen stretches that key in this high-voltage opening. Matters relax, molto tranquillo, as the music settles into G major and the orchestra sings the main theme of this Praeludium, a noble and gently rocking melody that turns quite brilliant before subsiding to a serene close. Proceeding into the main body of the movement—its opening section marked Allegro cavalleresco—the orchestra stamps out the “chivalrous” theme, and the soloist quickly picks it up. This movement is in traditional sonata form, with a lyric second subject and a huge cadenza. Nielsen recapitulates both main themes and drives the movement to a thunderous conclusion.

The atmosphere changes completely at the beginning of the second half of the concerto, which in fact was composed after Nielsen returned to Copenhagen. The Poco adagio begins with the spare sound of a woodwind chorale, soon joined by the quite different sound of the solo violin. The music has an improvisational feel until it reaches the Allegretto scherzando and leaps ahead jauntily. This section is also in a traditional form—a rondo—and its episodes are subtly derived from the main rondo theme. Here too is a great deal of harmonic freedom—the key signature may say D major, but Nielsen’s chromatic writing often obscures a true sense of a tonal home. He offers the soloist another huge cadenza near the close, and the music heads for the end that instead of being fiery and virtuosic, feels whimsical, and the concerto dances its way to an understated close.

This very original concerto stands between two centuries and shows features of each; it often goes its own way. And if it never does quite what we expect, that is part of its considerable charm.

Program note by Eric Bromberger.

Hugo Alfvén
Born: May 1, 1872, Stockholm, Sweden
Died: May 8, 1960, Falun, Sweden

Mountain King Suite, Opus 37a
Premiered: February 7, 1923

Hugo Alfvén’s Mountain King Suite is a suite of ballet music that, like much of the Swedish composer’s output, is based on traditional Swedish folklore and folk music. This incorporation of folk melodies—in works such as Alfvén’s popular Swedish Rhapsody No. 1—and use of folk tales as creative inspiration combined to make Alfvén one of his country’s most eminent and beloved figures in 20th-century classical music.

Alfvén was born in Stockholm to a musical father, and at age 15 he began training as a violinist at his home city’s Royal College of Music. Three years later he won a job as a second violinist in the Royal Opera House Orchestra, where he also began studies in composition and conducting. After two years in the orchestra, he spent a decade studying composition, conducting and violin in Brussels, Paris and Berlin.

In 1910 Alfvén became music director at Uppsala University, where he spent most of his career. In addition to his extensive activities in Sweden, Alfvén conducted at festivals throughout Europe.

DISTILLING THE BALLET
The Bergakungen (Mountain King) Suite is a 15-minute-long distillation of an evening-length ballet of the same name, based on the traditional Swedish ballad Den Bergtagna. In it, a shepherdess is cruelly abducted by a mountain king and eventually rescued by her beloved.

INVOCATION. Alfvén’s music is often compared to that of Richard Strauss for its lush, programmatic nature, and this opening movement—with its brooding opening and triumphant fanfares—perfectly captures the grandeur of the tale.

DANCE OF THE TROLL MAIDEN. An enchanting dance begins with an equally enchanting mystery.

SUMMER RAIN. Quiet atmosphere abounds as Alfvén delicately depicts a rainy scene, sparkling with woodwinds and shimmering strings.

HERDMAIDEN’S DANCE. A joyful exultation from the strings frames a contrasting, sentimental second theme.

Program note by Michael Divino.

Edvard Grieg
Born: June 15, 1843, Bergen, Norway
Died: September 4, 1907, Bergen, Norway

Suite No. 1 from Peer Gynt, Opus 46
Premiered: February 24, 1876 (complete incidental music)

In 1874 the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen asked Edvard Grieg to compose incidental music for a dramatic production of his mock-heroic poem Peer Gynt. Grieg was at first unenthusiastic about the project. A devout Norwegian nationalist, he was uncomfortable with Ibsen’s unflattering portrait of the Norwegian national character. But he took on the task and worked at it for two years, eventually writing 23 separate numbers. 

Norwegians might well have had reason to feel uncomfortable with Ibsen’s play. It tells of the adventures of the utterly irresponsible Peer Gynt, who travels through the world and seems to learn nothing from his fabulous experiences. Eventually shipwrecked, this aged and empty man returns home and is finally redeemed by the love of Solveig, who has remained faithful to him through his long absence.

A TREASURE OF MELODIES

From the brief movements that make up the incidental music, Grieg drew eight numbers and assembled them in two suites. These movements do not occur in the suites in the order in which they appear in the play, and Grieg is not trying to tell any sort of story; his aim here is to present some of his Peer Gynt music in concert version. This music has become popular for its memorable melodies and for some very exciting moments.

The Suite No. 1 opens with Morning Mood, a depiction of the sunrise in Morocco, as Peer Gynt stands before a statue of Memnon. The poignant Åse’s Death marks the passing of Peer Gynt’s mother. Anitra’s Dance shows us the dance of the sultry daughter of a Bedouin chief, which Peer Gynt watches while sipping coffee in her father’s tent. The suite concludes with In the Hall of the Mountain King, though this scene actually takes place early in the play. Peer is in the mountains, visiting the trolls and elves, and the troll king’s daughter falls in love with him; when he rejects her, the trolls erupt. This famous music, which simply repeats one elemental theme and lets it grow to a great climax, depicts their throwing Peer out.

Program note by Eric Bromberger.