DaCapo's Recycled is an ambitious and highly interesting project; 10 contemporary Danish composers were commissioned by the Danish Refugee Council to produce pieces based on familiar Western literature for the Ensemble Nordlys, an expert chamber group with an instrument identical to that used by Olivier Messiaen for his Quartet for the End of Time. The standout work is Niels Marthinsen's zany, oddball take on Johann Strauss II's Perpetuum mobile; it reminds one of a cross between Spike Jones' and Carl Stalling's rewrites on ...
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DaCapo's Recycled is an ambitious and highly interesting project; 10 contemporary Danish composers were commissioned by the Danish Refugee Council to produce pieces based on familiar Western literature for the Ensemble Nordlys, an expert chamber group with an instrument identical to that used by Olivier Messiaen for his Quartet for the End of Time. The standout work is Niels Marthinsen's zany, oddball take on Johann Strauss II's Perpetuum mobile; it reminds one of a cross between Spike Jones' and Carl Stalling's rewrites on standard classical themes. It is highly entertaining and features some hair-raising clarinet playing by Jolson Oshiro of the Ensemble Nordlys. Some of the others are notable, too, such as Ole Buck 's asymmetrical recasting of Nikolai-Rimsky Korsakov's Flight of the Bumble-Bee; the heritage of tango music is also referred to in Bent Lorentzen's Czardas (after Monti) and Sven Erik Werner's Vilja-Parafrase, which takes its example from a tune in Franz Lehár's operetta The Merry Widow....
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