Nielsen's Inextinguishable

Carl Nielsen filled his music with the unstoppable energies of life itself, until the First World War began to tear Europe apart. In his Symphony No. 4 from 1916, which launches with an orchestral eruption akin to a violently bursting volcano, the composer’s characteristic musical energy comes close to being smothered. In the end, the life force that seems to propel so much of Nielsen’s music forward proves utterly ‘Inextinguishable’.

The talented young musicians of the Bergen Philharmonic Youth Orchestra set their skills towards this most bracing of Nordic symphonies, after the young Danish bassoonist Bjarke Scousboe plays the sprightly concerto Mozart wrote for the instrument when he was just 18 years old.

In 2011, a 32-year-old Ørjan Matre wrote a spectacular new work for the opening of the new concert hall in Kristiansand, Kilden. Resurgence is an immersive, surround-sound work in which every audience member hears the music differently - a spectacular opening for what promises to be an invigorating concert under Antony Hermus.

Image: Bjarke Schousboe, photo: Tarjei Hummelsund