Wedding Suite & Troll Tunes

When BIS issued the first two Hardanger Suites by the Norwegian composer Geirr Tveitt (1908-81) some five years ago, the musical press was universally enthusiastic. The American Record Guide complimented us on the "extremely good sound" as well as claiming the performances as "lively, polished readings", while Gramophone enthused "roll on Suites Nos. 3 and 4". For various reasons - explained in the booklet - there is no third suite but we are now pleased to release the fourth and fifth suites. (In the meantime we have released two CDs of other works by Geirr Tveitt which have earned all sorts of accolades in a succession of different countries.)

Geirr Tveitt was only sixteen when he began to notate folk melodies as they were sung by elderly people in the neighbourhood in Hardanger. He became a very ardent collector of folk melodies and spent a couple of winters in his parents' cabin in Nordheimsund in Hardanger making arrangements of folk melodies. His ancestors on both sides, going back for generations, came from this part of the country. There was a musical heritage in his family, several members of which had been very competent fiddlers. The walls of his home were decorated with hardanger fiddles, Norwegian lutes and instruments made from goats' horns. Tveitt's Opus 151 - the Hundred Folk-tunes from Hardanger - is deeply concerned with such matters as the closeness of the Hardanger people to their landscape, their intimate collaboration with nature - so essential to their very survival. The countryside of Hardanger, the character of the people and the customs and traditions of the district all flowed in Geirr Tveitt's veins. This was his own world. There was no distance between him and his material. While Grieg and other composers were content to use second-hand sources and even other composers' arrangements of folk melodies, Tveitt collected the melodies himself, notating them in an environment that he had known from childhood. This contributed to the sense of authenticity that is characteristic of his music. The richness of the work is splendidly apparent in this recording featuring the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ole Kristian Ruud. Very much listener-friendly music but with the unique voice of a composer who was described by the International Record Review as "one of the twentieth century's great originals".