The music of Per Nørgård sounds unlike that of quite any other composer. His aesthetics have developed and evolved over his long career, starting in the 1950s, but his uses of the vocabularies of contemporary composition have always borne the distinctive stamp of his fecund and innovative imagination. The three vocal works recorded here date from the mid-'70s, at a time when he used what he describes as an "infinity series," a formula for generating pitches related to fractal geometry, that, while fully chromatic, creates ...
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The music of Per Nørgård sounds unlike that of quite any other composer. His aesthetics have developed and evolved over his long career, starting in the 1950s, but his uses of the vocabularies of contemporary composition have always borne the distinctive stamp of his fecund and innovative imagination. The three vocal works recorded here date from the mid-'70s, at a time when he used what he describes as an "infinity series," a formula for generating pitches related to fractal geometry, that, while fully chromatic, creates an easily discernible, free-floating tonality and the possibility of long-breathed melodic lyricism. In Nova Genitura, for soprano, violin, cello, lute, recorders, harpsichord, and crotales; Seadrift, for soprano, violin, cello, Baroque guitar recorders, crumhorn, percussion, and harpsichord; and Fons Laetitiae for soprano and harp, Nørgård, in a musical language as individual, mystical and sensual as Messiaen's, weaves fabrics of exquisite delicacy and ethereality. The melodies are...
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