Tundra by Knut Erik Sundquist

Various composers

Knut Erik Sundquist

Tundra

Price: € 19.95
Format: CD
Label: Lawo Classics
UPC: 7090020181042
Catnr: LWC 1092
Release date: 13 November 2015
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Label
Lawo Classics

UPC
7090020181042

Catalogue number
LWC 1092

Release date
13 November 2015

Album

Artist(s)

Composer(s)

About the album

Tundra is a project featuring exclusively Russian music and is Knut Erik Sundquist and Nils Mortensen’s second duo CD release.
Although average listeners may not be so familiar with names such as Serge Koussevitzky, Reinhold Glière and Anatoly Alexandrov, they will be surprised at how romantic, virtuoso and soulful the music really is.
As a preliminary phase of this recording project, we embarked on a concert tour to some very remote places, taking along a Steinway grand piano plus one of the world’s best piano technicians, Daniel Brech from Germany, and photographer Trym Ivar Bergsmo. We held concerts in the engine room of Slettnes lighthouse on the northernmost point of the Norwegian mainland, in Nesseby Church, and in Sevettijärvi Bar deep in the Finnish woods. Some of the photographic results can be seen on the CD cover and in the booklet.
The recording was made in Sofienberg Church in August 2014, and we used LAWO Classics’ ‘new’ Steinway dating from 1892. The sound of the instrument is perfectly suited to this music.

Although average listeners may not be so familiar with names such as Serge Koussevitzky, Reinhold Glière and Anatoly Alexandrov, they will be surprised at how romantic, virtuoso and soulful the music really is.

Artist(s)

Nils Anders Mortensen (piano)

Nils Anders Mortensen was born in Flekkefjord in 1971. He began playing piano at age three, and in 1986 he won the Norwegian Young Pianist Competition. He studied at the Norwegian Academy of Music, École Normale in Paris, and Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hannover with Einar Steen-Nøkleberg. Other important teachers have been Tatjana Nikolajeva and Hans Leygraf.
Mortensen was the recipient of the prestigious Concerts Norway ‘Debutant of the Year’ award in 1996. He has won international prizes and grants. In 1998 he won the Mozarteum Prize in Salzburg. In 2004 Mortensen received the Robert Levin Memorial Prize.
Mortensen has appeared as soloist with Norway’s leading orchestras. He recorded piano concertos of Geirr Tveitt with Stavanger Symphony Orchestra. His first solo album Im Freien (LWC1032), featuring music of Debussy, Grieg, and Bartók, was released in 2012 to glowing reviews.
Mortensen has also released 12 recordings with mezzo-soprano Marianne Beate Kielland on the LAWO Classics label: Früh (LWC1033), Sæle jolekveld (LWC1040), Grieg (LWC1059), Young Elling (LWC1072), The New Song (LWC1097), Whispering Mozart (LWC1111), Songs: Kielland/Dørumsgaard (LWC1145), Einsamkeit – Songs by Mahler (LWC1157), Eivind Groven Songs (LWC1178), Schumann Lieder (LWC1197) with baritone Johannes Weisser, and Så kort ein sommar menneska har – Songs by Gisle Kverndokk (LWC1220), and Sigurd Lie Songs, Vol. 1 (LWC1256.
In 2015 he released the solo recording In finstrer Mitternacht (LWC1084), featuring music of Brahms, and Tundra (LWC1092), a recording of solely Russian music, with double-bassist Knut Erik Sundquist. In 2016 he released Schumann: Violin Sonatas Op. 105 & Op. 121 (LWC1110) with violinist Arvid Engegård. In 2019 he released his third solo recording on the LAWO Classics label, Bach: Ouvertüre nach Französischer Art, BWV 831 / Sarabande con Partite, BWV 990 / Englische Suite Nr. 6 d-Moll, BWV 811 (LWC1174), and in 2020 he released Schumann: Piano Quintet, Op. 44 / Piano Quartet, Op. 47 (LWC1189) with the Engegård Quartet. His fourth solo recording, J.S. Bach: Partitas Nos. 1, 5 & 6 (LWC1249), was released in 2023.

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Composer(s)

Serge Koussevitzky

The Russian double bass player, conductor and composer Serge Koussevitzky was born in a family of musicians. He excelled at the bass, joining the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra at age twenty and succeeding his teacher as the principal bassist at twenty-seven. As a soloist, he made his Moscow debut in 1901, and won critical accolades for his first Berlin recital in 1903.
In 1908, Koussevitzky made his professional debut as a conductor, hiring and leading a concert with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. The next year he founded his own orchestra in Moscow and branched out into the publishing business, forming his own firm and buying the catalogues of many of the greatest composers of the age, including Stravinsky, Scriabin, Prokofiev and Rachmaninov. During the period 1909 to 1920 he established himself as a brilliant conductor in Europe. After the Russian Revolution, he returned to his homeland for a brief time to conduct the State Symphony Orchestra in Petrograd; in 1920, he made his way to Paris, where he organized the Concerts Koussevitzky, presenting new works by Prokofiev, Stravinsky and Ravel.
In 1924 he accepted the directorship of the Boston Symphony Orchestra beginning a golden era for that ensemble that would continue until 1949. In Boston, Koussevitzky championed new music,commissioning important works from Copland, Harris, Piston, Samuel Barber, Hanson, Schuman, Leonard Bernstein, and his old friends, Stravinsky and Ravel.
In 1942 the Koussevitzky Foundation was established to commission and provide performances of new works.

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Reinhold Glière

The Russian composer Reinhold Glière was born in Kiev in 1875, but was of German-Polish heritage. He graduated in 1900, having received a gold medal in composition and composed a one-act opera Earth and Heaven, and went on to teach at the Gnesin School of Music, the Kiev Conservatory and the Moscow Conservatory. Many of his students, amongst whom are Nikolai Myaskovsky and Sergei Prokofiev, have become famous composers. Glière was melodically oriented on folkloristic examples and his harmonies were presented as ‘Russian’. His works found favour with the Soviet authorities owing to their blend of nationalism and conservatism. Today, he is generally best known for his sumptuous orchestral and ballet scores. The music for the ballet Krasny tsvetok (The Red Poppy)...

The Russian composer Reinhold Glière was born in Kiev in 1875, but was of German-Polish heritage. He graduated in 1900, having received a gold medal in composition and composed a one-act opera Earth and Heaven, and went on to teach at the Gnesin School of Music, the Kiev Conservatory and the Moscow Conservatory. Many of his students, amongst whom are Nikolai Myaskovsky and Sergei Prokofiev, have become famous composers.
Glière was melodically oriented on folkloristic examples and his harmonies were presented as ‘Russian’. His works found favour with the Soviet authorities owing to their blend of nationalism and conservatism. Today, he is generally best known for his sumptuous orchestral and ballet scores. The music for the ballet Krasny tsvetok (The Red Poppy) was praised "as the first Soviet ballet on a revolutionary subject". It is perhaps his most famous work in Russia as well as abroad.

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Anatoly Alexandrov

Sergei Rachmaninoff

Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninov was a Russian pianist, composer, and conductor of the late-Romantic period, some of whose works are among the most popular in the classical repertoire.
Born into a musical family, Rachmaninov took up the piano at age four. He graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in 1892 and had composed several piano and orchestral pieces by this time. In 1897, following the critical reaction to his Symphony No. 1, Rachmaninoff entered a four-year depression and composed little until successful therapy allowed him to complete his enthusiastically received Piano Concerto No. 2 in 1901. After the Russian Revolution, Rachmaninov and his family left Russia and resided in the United States, first in New York City. Demanding piano concert tour schedules caused his output as composer to slow tremendously; between 1918 and 1943, he completed just six compositions, including Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Symphony No. 3, and Symphonic Dances. In 1942, Rachmaninov moved to Beverly Hills, California. One month before his death from advanced melanoma, Rachmaninov acquired American citizenship.
Early influences of Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Balakirev, Mussorgsky, and other Russian composers gave way to a personal style notable for its song-like melodicism, expressiveness and his use of rich orchestral colors.[3] The piano is featured prominently in Rachmaninov's compositional output, and through his own skills as a performer he explored the expressive possibilities of the instrument.

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