Leif Kayser: Concertos

Leif Kayser
A recording of music played by the composer himself always commands special interest.
Here Leif Kayser performs music for solo piano composed between 1949 and 1980. Each of the Three Nordic Piano Pieces is based on a Nordic melody. Apart from this no special “Nordic” tone has been aimed for.
Icelandic Song (1968) elaborated on a well-known “tve-sang” (music for two voices, characterised by parallel fifths from the Middle Ages). A repeated, arpeggiated chord indicates the strongly Lydian tonality and forms the background against which the melody unfolds. The soft reverberations during the melody’s first statement are the result of sympathetic vibrations which the loud, low notes awake in the other, non-damped strings. A similar device is employed in the beginning of “Danish Dream”.
Danish Dream (1979-80) plays with the oldest known Danish song-fragment found as an addition to Codex Runicus, a Runic manuscript of Scandian law and since 1931 used as the interval signal on Danish Radio. The fragment of text which is preserved reads: “I dreamt a dream last night of silk and fine cloths”. The piece is formed as a series of free variations, in which each one either expands upon or breaks with the character of the previous one.
Sandø-Dance (1979) [Sand Island, one of the Faroes] grows out of a Faroese melody, an epic ballad which would normally be sung to a chain dance, as has been customary since the Middle Ages. The monotony and ponderous rhythm of the melody are persistently maintained in the music’s sonorous texture, through which the refrain forces its dramatic entry.
Bagattelle were composed shortly before Christmas 1957 as a gift for two musical little girls Helle and Sido. The piece is based on motifs beginning with the tones H-E (H = English B natural) and H-C (= Italian: si-do). The Bagattelle gives the pianist a chance to play around with rhythms, chords and scales; that is, if he does not prefer to hum along quietly, perhaps even ingratiatingly. A reflective sarabande, a quiet waltz and a bouncy polka is also to be heard in this highly original work for piano.