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A NRK Tribute to Erling Blöndal Bengtsson

A NRK Tribute to Erling Blöndal Bengtsson

10,00 $ – 19,00 $

Erling Blöndal Bengtsson
Danacord has issued many recordings by Erling Blöndal Bengtsson, the eminent cellist born in Copenhagen on 8 March 1932 to musician parents; his Danish father was a violinist and his Icelandic mother a pianist.
This is the latest release that continues Danacord’s in memoriam tribute to him, for Erling Blöndal Bengtsson passed away on the morning of 6 June 2013. He was 81 and died in the arms of his wife, Merete. They had been married for 55 years. In the year that these discs are released, 2018 would have been their 60th anniversary and Merete is fully supportive of Danacord’s initiative, both artistically and financially “in memory of my 55 years with Erling”.
These preserved performances from Norway, where Bengtsson made regular and popular appearances in various cities, are taken from Norwegian Radio and, in fact, represent the whole of what is retained in its archives. All are live performances except the Shostakovich.The wide range of music that Bengtsson played included the great unaccompanied works by J. S. Bach (the Suites) and KodĂĄly (the Sonata), the notable duosonatas with piano (not least those by Beethoven and Brahms) and the illustrious concertos, such as those by Elgar (included here) and DvorĂĄk and also Haydn and Schumann.
Bengtsson’s playing was much admired for its stylishness, a distinctive timbre and many subtle colours and inflections, as well as his trademark impeccable intonation. Bengtsson was also noted for his infallible memory and his impressive technical facility.At the age of 16, Bengtsson was accepted as a pupil at the renowned Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. There he studied with the distinguished Russian cellist Gregor Piatigorsky (1903-76).
Bengtsson made quite an impression on Piatigorsky (who played with such legendary musicians as violinist Jascha Heifetz and pianist Arthur Rubinstein, known colloquially as the “million dollar trio”) – enough for the master to invite his pupil to be his assistant (Bengtsson also taught at Curtis, between 1950 and 1952) and for him to later cite Bengtsson as a role model for his subsequent students. It’s not every cellist who is afforded the tribute of a statue. Bengtsson is an exception though. Because this musician and pedagogue was held in such high esteem throughout Scandinavia, an imposing bronze statue of him (by Olöf Palsdottir) graces the entrance to Reykjavik’s main concert hall (HARPA) in Iceland’s capital city. Not that Bengtsson restricted himself to the areas of his Northern birth, for he performed and taught regularly in Europe, the Americas and in Russia, and collaborated with many leading orchestras and conductors across the globe. As well as the established repertoire for his instrument, Bengtsson essayed numerous rare and contemporary pieces (including several concertos written for him), not least the celebrated Cello Concerto by Witold Lutoslawski (1913-94), composed for Rostropovich, which Bengtsson played several times with the composer conducting, as he also did for William Walton’s Cello Concerto.

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Gramophone review

MusicWeb International review

Johannes Brahms
Trio in A minor, Op.114
1. Allegro
2. Adagio
3. Andantino grazioso
4. Allegro
Lars Anders Tomter, viola
HĂ„kon AustbĂž, piano

Dmitri Shostakovich
Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor
5. Andante
6. Allegro con brio
7. Largo
8. Allegretto
Arve Tellefsen, violin
Kjell BĂŠkkelund, piano

Klaus Egge
Cello Concerto Op. 29 (1966)
9. Preludio metamorfico
10. Allegro
11. Intermezzo
12. Finale: Allegro energico
Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra
Øivind Fjeldstad, conductor

CD 2
Edward Elgar
Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85
1. Adagio – Moderato
2. Lento – Allegro molto – Adagio
3. Allegro – Moderato – Allegro ma non troppo
Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra
Alexander Lazarev, conductor

Edvard Grieg
Sonata for cello and piano in A minor, Op. 36
4. Allegro agitato
5. Andante molto tranquillo
6. Allegro – Allegro molto e marcato
Kjell BĂŠkkelund, piano

Ketil Hvoslev
7. Cello Concerto No. 1 (1976)
Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra
Vladimir Fedoseyev, conductor

A NRK Tribute to Erling Blöndal Bengtsson ©
This current release embracing Norwegian Radio recordings includes a mix of core repertoire and a couple of pieces that are probably less familiar, namely the cello concertos by Klaus Egge and Ketil Hvoslev, both Norwegians. The example by Egge (1906-1979) is his half-hour, fourmovement Concerto commissioned by Norwegian Radio to mark the composer’s 60th birthday. It dates therefore from1966, when the Oslo Philharmonic was the Musikselskabet Harmoniens Orkester, here conducted by Øivind Fjeldstad (1903-83), the Orchestra’s chief during the 1960s. At Egge’s request Bengtsson gave the first performance and would play it at least twice more, and what we have preserved here is the original score rather than the composer’s revision. The first movement is lyrical and exploratory, with vivid dynamic contrasts and leads into a gawky Allegro, intriguingly coloured. The following Intermezzo is enigmatic and the work concludes with a Finale as playful as it is angular.
As for the Concerto by Ketil Hvoslev (born 1939), it should be known that Hvoslev is the son of the distinguished composer Harald Séverud, and that he changed his name to avoid comparison with his father. Hvoslev studied in his native Bergen and then in Stockholm with two eminent musicians, Karl-Birger Blomdahl and Ingvar Lidholm. Hvoslev’s Cello Concerto (1976), given its premiere by Bo Eriksson (a Bengtsson pupil and a principal orchestral cellist), is an incidentpacked piece that deserves greater exposure and receives a first-rate account from Bengtsson (typically receptive to the new), Vladimir Fedoseyev (born 1932,and principally associated with the Vienna Symphony and the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra of Moscow Radio) conducting the Bergen Philharmonic, although in 1981, the year of this concert, it was the Filharmonisk Selskaps Orkester.
By contrast to those works’ relative obscurity (at least outside of Norway), Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto is rarely off the menu, so it takes a special talent to make it fresh, which Bengtsson and his partners do in this performance, unfazed by a noisy audience, Bengtsson intense, stoical and noble, without indulgence or affectation, attentively accompanied by (now officially) the Oslo Philharmonic, Alexander Lazarev (born 1945 and StPetersburg- and Moscow-trained) a sympathetic Elgarian. In the chamber pieces, Bengtsson is heard caring and sharing Brahms’s opus 114 Trio (in the composer-approved version with viola instead of clarinet) and also digging deep into the varied emotions, and acerbity, of Shostakovich’s Piano Trio No.2. The pianist in that is Kjell Békkelund (1930- 2004), a long-time musical colleague of Bengtsson and a close family friend; together they show their rapport in a reading of Edvard Grieg’s only Cello Sonata (written as a return to composition following a spell of conducting) that is impassioned and poetic, with impressive and unified contributions from both men.

RELEASE DATE: FEBRUARY 2018

CATALOGUE NUMBER: DACOCD 780

EAN: 5709499780008

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