Norrkoping Symphony Orchestra

The solo concertos for violin and viola are works that combine Holmboe’s own purist Nordic style with a huge declaration of love for the wild and dancing eastern European folk music.

Holmboe’s Concerto for Orchestra (composed in his youth in1929) has never been performed before and all three works are world premiere recordings.

Martyn Brabbins is at the forefront of contemporary music: well renowned and high profile, he conducted at the opening Night of the Proms 2012.

The three orchestral pieces presented here are a masterclass in orchestral colour and sound. Each piece was composed a decade apart and they give a good overall sense of Pickard’s development. Booklet notes are detailed and informative (by the composer).

Christian Lindberg and the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra here present Symphony No. 6 by Allan Pettersson.

This symphony has come to be overshadowed by the success of the Seventh which was premiered a year later.

It is nevertheless an imposing work: an almost hour-long single-movement symphony in which the composer established a specific, self-contained musical style which would serve as a basis for the three symphonies that followed.

Christian Lindberg – ‘whose affinity with Pettersson’s idiom is manifest’ (Gramophone) – has previously conducted the three Concertos for String Orchestra (BISCD1590), as well as the first ever performance and recording of the First Symphony (BISCD1860).

For the final instalment of his survey of Beethoven’s works for piano and orchestra, Ronald Brautigam has saved ‘the final crowning glory of his concerto output’, as Beethoven specialist Barry Cooper describes the Fifth Piano Concerto in his liner notes. It is coupled on this disc with the Choral Fantasia – an intriguing work scored for piano, orchestra and chorus with vocal soloists.

he individual discs in Ronald Brautigam’s series have received numerous distinctions, including a MIDEM Classical Award in 2010, and his performances have been weighed against classic recordings by legendary pianists. Ronald Brautigam, the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra and Andrew Parrott are in their usual top form, with the brief but crucial appearance of the eminent Eric Ericson Chamber Choir in the Choral Fantasia.

Born on 19th September 1911, Allan Pettersson was a singular voice in Swedish, and indeed European, 20th-century music.

It was towards the very end of the 1940s that he began to compose his Symphony No.1. He soon laid the work aside, but in subsequent years – and possibly as late as in the 1970s – he kept returning to the sketches. He certainly never abandoned the symphony, and in 1953 when he completed a second symphony, he insisted on calling that work his 'No.2'.

On two previous discs, Christian Lindberg has conducted Pettersson's Three Concertos for String Orchestra as well as the orchestral versions of the Barefoot Songs. These were released to great acclaim. Entrusted with the manuscript material – some 240 pages – of Symphony No.1, Lindberg was able to prepare a performable version and gave the work its world première in May 2010, conducting the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra.

His recording of the work – and of Symphony No.2 – is accompanied by a DVD with an hour-long film by David Lindberg about Allan Pettersson's First Symphony, documenting its genesis, the preparation of the performance edition and the path to the work's first performance and subsequent recording.

Includes a bonus DVD of an hour-long film by David Lindberg about Allan Pettersson’s First Symphony and the preparation of the score.