Ricercare by Ssens Trio

Various composers

Ssens Trio

Ricercare

Format: CD
Label: Lawo Classics
UPC: 7090020182605
Catnr: LWC 1238
Release date: 10 June 2022
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Label
Lawo Classics

UPC
7090020182605

Catalogue number
LWC 1238

Release date
10 June 2022

"Perhaps the most important conclusion is that I really cannot think of a better ensemble for the performance of this music, because it excels in highly individual expression that is accompanied by perfect precision, balance, interplay and timbre development. While an (even) more beautiful recording in my ears is unthinkable."

Opus Klassiek, 01-7-2022

Album

Artist(s)

Composer(s)

Press

About the album

Ssens Trio is out with its third CD release on the LAWO Classics label. While the debut album (LWC1122) featured trios of Beethoven and its successor (LWC1170) was devoted to Mozart, this release spotlights Norwegian music. With this deep dive into the Norwegian repertoire, Ssens Trio wishes to call attention to four works for string trio deserving of inclusion in the international string trio repertoire. The album is called “Ricercare”, the title of the last work on the CD, composed by Bertil Palmar Johansen, but it could have been used for the other three works as well.

“Ricercare” means to search out or explore, the very elements we find in Johan Kvandal’s String Trio, op. 12. The work stands out in Kvandal’s long list of piano pieces and songs from this period. It is his search to find his own musical expression in a new European music.

Finn Mortensen’s Trio, op. 3 was the first of his works ever performed in a public concert. The three instruments follow distinct lines in their dynamic interplay, each retaining its individual tone. We find many of the compositional means from this debut work further developed in Mortensen’s later works.

In Edvard Fliflet Bræin’s “Trio”, op. 15, variations are created by twisting and turning the musical motifs and themes. The entire work is composed in one movement, with a fresh rhythmic playfulness between the instruments, and with metric shifts and changes in sound and register.

Bertil Palmar Johansen’s string trio begins with an old-fashioned “Ricercare”, set up as an expansive instrumental narrative in which the texture alternates between free and strict linearity. Inherent in the work is a search for new paths in an effort to weed out our tonal expectations.

Ssens Trio (pronounced “Essence”) was established in 2014 by three musicians with a wealth of experience in the international music scene. Members of the trio are violinist Sølve Sigerland, violist Henninge Landaas and cellist Ellen Margrete Flesjø. Their previous release, “Mozart: Divertimento, Preludes and Fugues” (LWC1170) received glowing reviews and to date has been streamed over 3 million times on Spotify.

Artist(s)

Ssens Trio

SSENS TRIO Sølve Sigerland, violin Henninge Landaas, viola Ellen Margrete Flesjø, cello Ssens Trio (pronounced ‘Essence’) was established in 2014 by three musicians with a wealth of experience in the international music scene. The trio has appeared in concert with Geir Inge Lotsberg, Eivind Ringstad, Håvard Gimse and Leif Ove Andsnes, among others. Their first CD, Beethoven: String Trios Op. 3 & 8 (LAWO Classics), received Pizzicato Magazine’s “Supersonic Award” and a prestigious ICMA Awards nomination in 2018. Fanfare Magazine wrote: “With absolutely no hesitation I will say that it goes right to the top of my Beethoven String Trios list.” (Jerry Dubins). And the following from a review in Pizzicato Magazine under the heading ‘Beethoven With A Communicative Joy of Music Making’:...

SSENS TRIO Sølve Sigerland, violin Henninge Landaas, viola Ellen Margrete Flesjø, cello Ssens Trio (pronounced ‘Essence’) was established in 2014 by three musicians with a wealth of experience in the international music scene.
The trio has appeared in concert with Geir Inge Lotsberg, Eivind Ringstad, Håvard Gimse and Leif Ove Andsnes, among others.
Their first CD, Beethoven: String Trios Op. 3 & 8 (LAWO Classics), received Pizzicato Magazine’s “Supersonic Award” and a prestigious ICMA Awards nomination in 2018.
Fanfare Magazine wrote: “With absolutely no hesitation I will say that it goes right to the top of my Beethoven String Trios list.” (Jerry Dubins). And the following from a review in Pizzicato Magazine under the heading ‘Beethoven With A Communicative Joy of Music Making’: “Their performance is brimming with the joy of playing together. An outstanding ‘trialogue’, with each performer fully sensing the other. Through this interactive music making, which in the Adagio and Minuet movements invokes a remarkably intimate mood, Beethoven’s works gain in depth and sensuousness. And when one combines the sensitive playing with a wonderfully eloquent virtuosity, the way is clear for pure listening pleasure.” (Alain Steffen).
In 2019 Ssens Trio released a CD on the LAWO Classics label with music of W. A. Mozart.
This recording received glowing reviews in Classica (France), Fanfare Magazine and Pizzicato Magazine, among others, and it was nominated for the Opus Klassik Award in Germany and the ICMA (International Classical Music Awards) in 2020.

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Henninge Landaas (viola)

Henninge Landaas is violist in Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra. She was a member of the internationally renowned Vertavo String Quartet, with which she performed in concert halls the world over. The ensemble’s critically acclaimed recordings include works by Carl Nielsen, Brahms, Bartok, Grieg and Debussy, among others. With the quartet she shared the Norwegian Music Critics’ Prize, Spellemannprisen (Norwegian Grammy), and the prestigious French award, Diapason d’Or. Henninge Landaas has released a number of CDs on the LAWO Classics label, among them, “Johannes Brahms: Sonatas for Viola & Piano, Op. 120” (LWC1027) and “The Golden Hindemith” (LWC1005). Landaas is currently a member of the string trio Ssens Trio. She plays a G. B. Guadagnini viola on loan from Dextra Musica.

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Sølve Sigerland (violin)

Ellen Margrete Flesjø (cello)

Composer(s)

Johan Kvandal

Bertil Palmar Johansen

Finn Mortensen

Edvard Fliflet Bræin

Press

Perhaps the most important conclusion is that I really cannot think of a better ensemble for the performance of this music, because it excels in highly individual expression that is accompanied by perfect precision, balance, interplay and timbre development. While an (even) more beautiful recording in my ears is unthinkable.
Opus Klassiek, 01-7-2022