Symphony in D minor / Passacaglia / etc

"Ludvig Irgens-Jensen's Passacaglia of 1928, music of unaffected grandeur and nobility, is one of the monuments of the Scandinavian orchestral repertoire. It receives a powerful performance from Bjarte Engeset and the Bournemouth Symphony, particularly when the brass weigh in with the concluding chorale. The performance is as fine as we have any right to expect, and the sonics are both rich and vivid." (10/10 ClassicsToday.com)

The two main works on this recording are among the peaks of twentieth-century Norwegian orchestral music. Irgens-Jensen's Passacaglia won second prize in the Nordic section of the 1928 Schubert centenary composing competition, behind only the eventual winner, and its admirers included Stravinsky and Toscanini. His only purely orchestral Symphony, recorded here for the first time in the three movement form that Irgens-Jensen originally conceived, expresses the depth of his feelings about the human and natural world during the dark days of World War Two. The disc is completed by his brief, touching orchestral Air.