Leifs: Dettifoss, Organ Concerto, etc / Shao, Iceland SO

On this CD:

1. Concerto for organ & orchestra, Op. 7
Composed by Jon Leifs
Performed by Iceland Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by En Shao

2. Variations on a Theme by Ludwig van Beethoven, Op. 8
Composed by Jon Leifs
Performed by Iceland Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by En Shao

3. Fine II, Op 56
Composed by Jon Leifs
Performed by Iceland Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by En Shao

4. Dettifoss, for orchestra, mixed choir and baritone, Op. 57
Composed by Jon Leifs
Performed by Iceland Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by En Shao

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Dettifoss is the largest waterfall in Iceland--indeed, in Europe. Leifs's tone poem, which features a chorus and baritone soloist in addition to a colorfully large orchestra, is the third in a trilogy of works that celebrate Iceland's natural wonders (the other two are Hekla and Geysir). The music is simply thrilling, proceeding from a misty beginning to a progressively raging torrent as the vocal soloists hail the power and majesty of the waterfall. The Organ Concerto is a single movement, 20 minutes in length, that moves from an anguished opening (chord clusters, pounding drums, and a sledgehammer for good measure) to a triumphant conclusion.

Leifs's music tends to deal in extremes, and if the first two works reveal him as one of the loudest composers in history, then Fine II does just the opposite. Scored for strings and vibraphone, this exquisite miniature offers six and a half minutes of quietly elegiac meditation. The Pastoral Variations, by contrast, take a tune from Beethoven's popular Septet and somehow turn it into Icelandic folk music. It's a charming work with more than a little humor built in. Performances are uniformly marvelous (the chorus is especially brave--the vocal line is murderous), and the sound is demonstration-quality. If you want to test your hi-fi system, crank up the volume and let rip with the Organ Concerto or Dettifoss. But warn the neighbors first! --David Hurwitz

Leifs: Dettifoss, Organ Concerto, etc / Shao, Iceland SO, Music, Jon Leifs, En Shao, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Music & Recitals, Classical, Classical Composers, Classical Music, Concerto, Miscellaneous, Miscellaneous Music, Orchestral, Orchestral Music, Vocal, Vocal Music

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The Saga World of Jon Leifs

Leifs: Dettifoss, Organ Concerto, etc / Shao, Iceland SO

Manufacturer: Bis
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Concertos | Forms & Genres | Classical | Styles | Music
Chamber Music | Forms & Genres | Classical (c.1770-1830) | Historical Periods | Classical | Styles | Music
General | Classical | Styles | Music
General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music
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Jon Leifs:Helka and other orchestral works

ASIN: B00000J2RS
Release Date: 1999-05-01

Tracks:

I. Introduction. Allegro Moderato - Bjorn Steinar Solbergsson
II. Passacaglia. Tempo Moderato - Bjorn Steinar Solbergsson
III. Finale - Bjorn Steinar Solbergsson
Thema. Adagio E Molto Cantabile
Variation I. L'istesso Tempo
Variation II. L'istesso Tempo, Quasi Grave, Ossia Pochettino Meno Mosso
Variation III. Allegro
Variation III. Allegro Scherzando
Variation V. Moderato
Variation VI. Moderato Alla Marcia
Variation VII. Allegro Molto Ma Energico
Variation VIII. Allegro Vivace E Brillante
Variation IX. Quasi Grave
Variation X. Finale. Adagio Cantabile Ma Animato
Andante - Reynir Sigurdsson
Dettifoss - Loftur Erlingsson

Amazon.com

Dettifoss is the largest waterfall in Iceland--indeed, in Europe. Leifs's tone poem, which features a chorus and baritone soloist in addition to a colorfully large orchestra, is the third in a trilogy of works that celebrate Iceland's natural wonders (the other two are Hekla and Geysir). The music is simply thrilling, proceeding from a misty beginning to a progressively raging torrent as the vocal soloists hail the power and majesty of the waterfall. The Organ Concerto is a single movement, 20 minutes in length, that moves from an anguished opening (chord clusters, pounding drums, and a sledgehammer for good measure) to a triumphant conclusion.

Leifs's music tends to deal in extremes, and if the first two works reveal him as one of the loudest composers in history, then Fine II does just the opposite. Scored for strings and vibraphone, this exquisite miniature offers six and a half minutes of quietly elegiac meditation. The Pastoral Variations, by contrast, take a tune from Beethoven's popular Septet and somehow turn it into Icelandic folk music. It's a charming work with more than a little humor built in. Performances are uniformly marvelous (the chorus is especially brave--the vocal line is murderous), and the sound is demonstration-quality. If you want to test your hi-fi system, crank up the volume and let rip with the Organ Concerto or Dettifoss. But warn the neighbors first! --David Hurwitz

Customer Reviews:

The Saga World of Jon Leifs.......2000-11-01

Jón Leifs (1899-1968) more closely resembles Charles Ives than any other of Ives' fellow composers, the American ones included. An Icelander, Leifs studied in Germany but rejected Austro-German traditions in favor of cultivating the native forms of his Norse-speaking island-nation. What results sometimes little sounds like Western music, for gone are the ideas of development and fled are all the standard patterns; in their place stand the gawky, repeated rhythms of the rímur, the uncanny organum of tvísöngur, and the gigantic natural sounds of the Icelandic environment - the detonations of volcano and geyser, the rumble of cataracts, the crash of seawaves on the rocky shore. Like Ives, Leifs never thought twice about requiring enormous orchestras for his scores. The word "impractical" apparently did not exist in his lexicon. In the title-work of the present CD, "Dettifoss" (1964), Leifs calls on a large orchestra with a tremendous percussion section, plus a chorus, to recreate (that would be the accurate term) the experience of a visitor braving the elements to draw nigh Iceland's great waterfall, whereupon the subject dissolves in the crash and thunderation of it, and the voice of the waterfall itself speaks by means of the chorus. The "form" is drawing-nigh and then turning back again, but the colossal apparatus makes it quite impressive. Mind, there are no tunes, and the words sung by the vocal contingent are indiscernible in the circumambient roar, but the end justifies the means aesthetically speaking. The Organ Concerto, first heard in Nazi-dominated Wiesbaden in 1935, is equally unorthodox, despite conforming (well, more or less) to a passacaglia in its middle movement. The German audience hated it (it ain't exactly Handel), but anyone whose intellect was blissfully warped, in adolescence, by exposure to Ives will probably figure out how to come to terms with it. "Fine II" (there is naturally a "Fine I") is for string orchestra and vibraphone, and comes from late in Leif's career. He knew tragedy: First, while long-resident in Germany, he married a woman of Jewish extraction, and both his wife and their daughters lived under a death-threat in Berlin right through the end of the war. Later, one of the daughters drowned while swimming. "Fine II" is a low-key farewell to life; Leif was ill when he wrote it and must have sensed that his own death was near. The "Variations" don't measure up to the other works, but Leifs, like Ives, created unevenly. BIS also puts out Leifs' "Saga Symphony," and discs with his "Hekla" and "Geysir," companion pieces to "Dettifoss." My son, age five-and-a-half, really digs this music. "Play `Dettifoss' again, Dad." Let that tell you what it will.

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