Stig Nilsson is, among other things, the long time concertmaster of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra. Here he presents us with a recital of mostly solo violin pieces of contemporary provenance by his fellow Norwegians. Such solo albums are not often successful for the mere fact that one sonority maintained for (in this case) a full 71 minutes is difficult to listen to without fatigue setting in. This one, I am afraid, also suffers from this malady, and a mixed ensemble recording would have been far preferable.
However, with the addition of his son Anders (also a noted virtuoso) we do get some relief in two of the pieces (each superb), and I do not want to short change the quality of the compositions on this disc. These are all tonal works, and not boring examples of my favorite genre, but excellently crafted pieces that have a lot to say. Whether listening to the neoclassical Sonata Saxifraga that opens the disc or the Fantasia Religioso, you can be assured that the music here is all first-rate and skillfully selected, idiomatic to the various problems of violin technique.
2L is a company that takes their Super Audio seriously, and this disc exploits that to the fullest. The DXD recording process that John Sunier mentioned before is an enhanced 32 bit floating point process that clocks in at a whopping 352.8 kHz. They keep around four times the data of a standard DSD to give them room to manipulate the recording in terms of balance and other niceties until shrinking it down to DSD size. You can certainly hear it here—the clarity of the line and wide-spaced distribution of the channels, especially for only one instrument, is amazing. It is also, however, louder, and I am not as convinced that that serves the tonal quality of the music as well. Turn it down if you purchase. Nevertheless, a stunning bit of playing, in music of attractive worth in super sonics—your call.
— Steven Ritter
