28/04/2025
Positive Feedback Magazine: «Norwegian multi-discipline musician, professor, and composer, Henning Sommerro (b. 1952) has composed music of astonishing variety. For more than fifty years, he has worked with worlds of theatre, opera, music festivals, soloists, small ensembles and orchestras. His inspiration comes from every corner of the world: from the musical traditions of all the countries around the North Sea, but also from Persian and Jewish cultural traditions, and from the east, and from Latin rhythms. But all of his compositions are built on the bedrock of Norwegian folk music.
In this album, the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra presents three works by Sommerro, each in three movements, each with three different solo instrumentalists: harmonica, pan flute, and violin. The music is unlike anything else in my experience. Each tells a tale, sets a different situation, a different dilemma. Sommorro makes full use of the full orchestra, from brass to percussion to strings to chimes, from deep bass to extended highs, from quiet delicate moments to thunderous forte. And it all shifts and moves of a moment. For Sommerro, Trondheim Symfoniorkester has very special qualities: their flexibility and enthusiasm together create a style–almost a plasticity–which is wonderful to work with. Indeed, he sees this as fitting in with the temperament of people from mid-Norway. To them, smiles and laughter come easily, but not at the expense of integrity or precision. It is a temperament well suited to the music of this composer.
The three soloists are outstandingly good and their separate performances truly make their respective works come alive. Harmonica player Sigmund Groven has been a master for decades and has been a principal force in establishing the harmonica as a fully respected instrument in the world of classical music. His performance in the first work, Solkverv (Soltice) (2005), a work he commissioned, is just phenomenal. Pan flutist Roar Engelberg commissioned the next piece, Vårfest (Ostara), to be premiered with the Helgeland Sinfonietta in 2012. The final work, Grenser (Borders), was commissioned by the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra and the Georgian violinist Aleksandre Khatiskatsi in 2016. Here, it is played by the great Norwegian violinist Marianne Thorsen. These are performances of music not to be missed!
The recording will greatly please those who enjoy immersive recordings. Recording in Lademoen Church, Trondheim, Norway, Morten Lindberg pushes the boundaries for another of his amazing recordings "in the round." With microphones set in the center, and musicians seated 360-degrees around the microphones, this is a recording that should tickle the fancies of anyone set up to play multi-channel surround recordings. Morten says, "Recorded music is no longer a matter of a fixed one-dimensional setting, but rather of a three-dimensional enveloping situation. Stereo can be described as a flat canvas and Surround Sound as a field, but Immersive Audio is a sculpture that you can literally move around and relate to spatially. Surrounded by music, you are here able to move about in the aural space and choose angles, vantage points, and positions."
If you share his interest and enthusiasm in the immersive and surround experience, the recordings that 2L has been releasing over the past few years are a great source for exploration and audition.
I listened in stereo and, after looking at the recording session photo, was amazed that the stereo iteration actually had very nice soundstage reproduction that did not sound at all contrived or artificial. As with all of Morten's recordings, the sound quality is superb. Detailed, transparent, and spacious, with huge dynamic range, this was an immensely satisfying recording.» — Rush Paul, Music Reviewer, Positive Feedback
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