Røta
Ragnhild Hemsing (violin/hardanger fiddle)
Mario Häring (piano)
Benedict Kloeckner (cello)
rec. August 2020, WDR Funkhaus, Cologne
BERLIN CLASSICS 0301692BC [63:30]
Røta means ‘roots’ in English but has a double meaning for Ragnhild Hemsing for whom classical and folk music are both part of her identity. So the rationale for her programme, as she makes clear in her booklet notes, lies where composers have sought inspiration in Norwegian folk music, landscape and nature tales. These arrangements are likely to be ones you’ve seldom, if ever, encountered before and she further deepens the rootedness of her conception through the alternation of the use of both an ordinary violin and a Hardanger fiddle. It’s hardly the first time that the Hardanger has been used in this way in an album but it’s when she chooses to use it – playing Grieg, for example – that adds an extra quotient of piquancy and sonority to the music-making.
She has selected music by four composers: Ole Bull, Halvorsen, Svendsen and Grieg. Halvorsen’s Passacaglia sounds altogether different in this arrangement for Hardanger fiddle and cello, which is played by the fine Benedict Kloeckner. It’s taken quite straight though it accelerates as it develops, graced with some decorations from the fiddler. It’s a more collegiate reading than some of the more gunslinging playing one is inclined to hear from violin-viola duos. They actually end the disc with Halvorsen’s Sarabande con variazioni, a neat piece of balancing that others shy away from, and here Hemsing plays the violin. The other Halvorsen pieces are always worth airing. His Norwegian Dance No.2 scores high on charm and arranging The Song of Veslemøy for Hardanger fiddle vests it with a more sonorous depth than in its original guise. The Entry March of the Boyars is played on the Hardanger fiddle. The melancholy side of Halvorsen’s musical palette is audible in his bittersweet Elegie.
Grieg’s At the Marching Game is resilient and rhythmically vital, whilst arranging three movements of his Lyric Suite, Op.54 for violin and piano gives more opportunities to explore the music’s lyricism as well as its folkloric inspiration. Ole Bull is represented by a characterful morceaux diptych; the sad Le Melancolie and the Nocturne, a concert charmer that comes with an inbuilt virtuoso flourish. Svendsen fares less well in terms of the reportorial slice but he’s represented by one of his Op,27 Swedish Folk Melodies, a sombre, slow opus. There are a few traditional melodies to contextualize the folkloric impetus of the programme.
Ragnhild Hemsing proves an adept performer on both instruments and though the burdens don’t fall quite so heavily on pianist Mario Häring he proves an admirable colleague. The booklet notes are nice, the acoustic well judged but occasionally just a touch swimmy.
Jonathan Woolf
Contents
Johan HALVORSEN (1864-1935)
Passacaglia for Violin and Cello [7:54]
Sarabande with Variations for violin and cello [9:58]
Norwegian Dance No.2 [2:32]
The Song of Veslemøy [2:15]
Elegie [2:12]
Entry March of the Boyars [4:33]
Edvard GRIEG (1843-1907)
At the Marching Game [3:26]
Lyric Suite, Op.54; No.II Norwegian March [2:53]: No.III March of the Trolls [2:53]: No. IV Nocturne [3:24]
Lyric Pieces, Op.12 No.6 Norwegian [1:30]
TRADITIONAL
The Wedding March of Myllarguten [3:23]
Bjøllelåtten [2:19]
Kjeringe i Snødrevet [1:48]
Gamal Bonde [2:16]
Ole BULL (1810-1880)
Le Melancolie [1:53]
Nocturne [3:48]
Johan SVENDSEN (1840-1911)
Swedish Folk Melodies, Op.27 No.1 Allt under himmelens fäste [3:12]
