MORTEN GAATHAUG: String Quartet No. 2 Op. 31 (1986); Six Songs to Poems by Jens Bjørneboe Op. 56 (2002); Quintet for Piano and Strings Op. 59 (2003-04) – Quartet: Ensemble Bjørvika: Kjell Tomter (vl), Dominic Griffiths (vl), Witold Serafin (vla) and Jan Koop (vlc); Songs: Per Andreas Tønder (baritone) and Ellen Ugelvik (piano); Quintet: Ensemble Bjørvika and Tore Dingstad (piano) – Recorded at Sofienberg church, Norway, April 2007 – 2L Multichannel SACD 44, 72:10 **** [www.2L.no]:
Morten Gaataug (born 1955) draws inspiration from many sources. Norwegian folk music, neo-classical composers in particular Prokofiev, and elements in nature, especially birds, colour his compositions. He writes in a tonal language, mixing nods to the past with a more avant-garde approach; his works are written to be accessible, leaving atonal and aleatoric writing to others.
The Second String Quartet is in four movements, the middle two being conflated into one otherwise strict use of traditional form is used. The first movement sets the scene with a quiet landscape, quickening to an allegro, the second movement is a delightful theme and variations, leading to third marked presto, the scherzo. Some themes are reused; for example, the first movement’s second subject reappears as the trio in the scherzo. The last movement has some well-written fugal passages.
This well thought out program continues with six songs written to words by the poet Jens Bjørneboe sung by Per Andreas, who has a pleasing light baritone voice. The poems are dark and sometimes acid and angry, and Tønder brings out the atmosphere of these songs with success. Bjørneboe, something of an anarchist, led a turbulent life, his writings attack Western civilisation; he drank heavily, suffered from depression and committed suicide in 1976 at age 56. Tønder is admirably accompanied by Ellen Ugelvik on a superb Steinway.
The Piano Quintet is the most recent work on this disc and is dedicated to the pianist here, Tore Dingstad. It is constructed in four movements, three of which are very high-spirited with spiky good humour, the slow movement being calm and contemplative; an element of more single-minded strength of character is also apparent particularly in the last movement.
Presentation is in digipak form, with full texts and translations of the poems. This original, accessible composer’s works have been recorded with superb fidelity and clarity by Lindberg Lyd; the sound on the SACD layer is of demonstration quality.
— Peter Joelson
