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Elling: Song cycles - Kielland, Mortensen

Elling: Song cycles - Kielland, Mortensen

Lawo Classics  LWC1072

Stereo Hybrid

Classical - Vocal


Catherinus Elling (1858-1942): Twelfth Night, Op. 42 after Shakespeare; 4 Romances, Op. 41; 5 Songs, Op. 40; New Poems by KR. Randers, Op.54; 8 Lieder from Des Knaben Wunderhorn

Marianne Beate Kielland, mezzo-soprano
Nils Anders Mortensen, piano


A number of recordings in recent years bear witness to a revival of interest in the music of Catharinus Elling, a composer who lived around the same time as Grieg. Now, critically acclaimed and Grammy®-nominated mezzo-soprano Marianne Beate Kielland and pianist Nils Anders Mortensen have added to the Elling discography with their recording of songs by the young Elling, written while he was still living in Germany.

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Review by John Miller - May 4, 2015

Catharinus Elling (1858-1942) decided to take up a musical career at the age of 18. He left Kristiania (later Oslo), which had no Music Conservatory at the time, for the Leipzig Musical Academy - following Grieg and a stream of other potential composers. He was given an endowment from Norway in 1883 for further study in Berlin, where he contacted and worked with Brahms and his circle. In 1885 he sent a bundle of his compositions to Grieg for assessment, and the already revered Grieg showed his appreciation by putting some of Elling's romances on the programme of a concert he gave in Bergen. Grieg also said that Elling was a "lyrical genius, with a distinctive character". Elling returned to Kristiania at the turn of the century as a teacher of composition and counterpoint in the new Conservatory of Music, where Fartein Valen, now regarded as one of Norway's most advanced composers, was one of his students.

As a composer, he wrote symphonies, many piano pieces, a violin concerto, chamber music, an opera, and more than 200 songs, most in the 1890-1905 period. Little of this is played now; his Romantic music fell into the shadows of Kjerulf and Grieg. However, there was another field of music in which Elling made a unique contribution: collecting folk music. From 1898-1911, in journeys to Western Norway, Telemark and Northern Norway, he wrote down the folk tunes he had heard, following L.M. Lindeman. In this venture he was apparently encouraged by Brahms, as Elling's daughter sang some Norwegian folk songs which delighted him. Elling's activity in collecting and publishing folk songs was a result of grants from Parliament. The first grant he received in 1898 was 400 million kroner, and his many books of folk music are still in use.

This disc contains sets of Elling's early songs, recorded for the first time. The first set, songs from Shakespeare's 'Twelfth Night', presumably arose from his studies of English as well as French and German at school. The others are romances with a distinct, attractive lyrical and dramatic treatment, texts being mainly from German poets of little renown now, but fashionable in the 1880s-1900s. The final set is a hybrid of folk music and art song with settings of 'Das Knaben Wunderhorn' (The boy's magic horn), a collection of German folk poems and songs edited by Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano and published in three editions. This collection provided material for several composers of the era, including Mahler. Elling's settings, however, are almost the opposite of Mahler's lush and complex Knaben Wunderhorn, having more of the simplicity and folksiness of the original material.

In the same way, Elling's Romances are delightful in their transparent lyricism and Brahmsian harmonic structures. The piano parts are also much simpler in structure and technical attributes than most of Schubert's, Brahms' and Schumann's Lieder, suggesting that Elling aimed them at an amateur market. Some of them, however, do have short but effective preludes and postludes. Over all, there is a good range of emotions, rhythms and harmonic devices in this collection, which makes a very satisfying programme and asserts Grieg's assessment of his junior's talent.

Mezzo-soprano Marianne Beate Kielland is one of Norway's foremost singers, with a busy international reputation and a fine recording history. She recently appeared in the new BIS Mozart's Requiem (Mozart: Requiem - Suzuki) and in Grieg songs with her accompanist (Grieg, Svendsen, Hartmann, Reineke: Wind Octets). Her response to Elling's elegant, fluent lyricism demonstrates her affection of his work, and Nils Anders Mortensen finds just the right tone and dynamics to accompany his soprano's readings. Should the listener be attracted to Elling's lieder on this disc, there are recordings of songs from Elling's later period, from Simax on RBCD, including his own version of the 'Haugtussa' song cycle (intriguingly different to Grieg's own famous 'Haugtussa'). This is the only other disc of Elling's songs at the time of writing.

Lawo's well-balanced stereo recording in Vågan Kirke in the Lofoten Islands is notably intimate, neatly matching Elling's style, although I felt that the church acoustic could have been more present, giving Kielland's louder lines some more space. Texts are present in Norwegian with English translations in italics and the digipak has a booklet in the front pocket, with useful information on Elling.

Delightful as this disk proves to be, it is only 43:11 long. Surely some other songs, or even piano pieces, could have filled the disc up at least to an hour, given over 200 songs available!. Nevertheless, if you are willing to follow a little-used pathway in Lieder, meeting Elling's voice and style is most entertaining. Recommended!

Copyright © 2015 John Miller and HRAudio.net

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