Ib Norholm (1931-2019)

[Larry Kart]

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 Symphonies No. 4 & 5, Edward Serov, Odense Symphony (Kontrapunkt). 

No. 5 (The Elements) either is or  is close to a masterpiece. Four movements (Air, Earth, Water, Fire) each beautifully characterized, not a foot put wrong. In the notes to the earlier Jan Lanthham-Koenig recording of No. 5 (also on Konrtrapunkt, have it now but haven't yet heard it) Norholm says: "It is not so strange that the antique Greek conceptions of the four elements ... fire, water, air, and earth -- which were considered to comprise the entire material reality, could be used as images or as analogies for a music which could be respectively lively, fluent, airy, and heavy." 

About the masterpiece suggestion -- there is a certain game-like quality to the work, a lack of table-pounding or hand-wringing if you will, and some require those qualities if the term "masterpiece" is to be bandied about. I don't. 

No. 4, (Decreation) while quite impressive in purely sonic terms, otherwise remains more or less incomprehensible to me at this point  because it sets at length (44:15) an elaborate and seemingly rather abstract text by Danish poet Paul Borum, with added material drawn by Norholm from other sources, and this compound text, rendered by chorus and vocal soloists, is not translated in the accompanying booklet. Again, based on the intensity and quality of Norholm's music here, one feels fairly sure that the relationship between music and text is lucid and intense, but without a translation (or knowledge of Danish) one is left to guess as to what that relationship is. 

More when I've heard more Norholm. I already have heard and been impressed by Symphonies 7 and 9. Norholm's idiom, based on what I've heard so far is quite personal and rather hard to describe -- does a mix of Webern and Sibelius sound possible to you? Webern for Norholm's frequent penchant for delicate airy textures, use of space and slience and chromaticism (how literally dodecaphonic Norholm's music is at times I can't say for sure), Silbelius for his occasional dramatically sweeping brass and strings outbursts -- all of this not in a bits and pieces manner but quite integrated and, again, personaL  Seemingly peculiar to Norholm is his fairly frequent  and masterly writing for timpani; none of this in what one might call a "bombarding" manner but as though the tymps  were in Norholm's view a section of the orchestra, even a potentially lyrical one, that had not yet received its due. Tympanists must love his music. 

Norholm early on was a Holmboe student FWTW -- though aside from scrupulous craftsmanship, I don't see any link between latter-day Norholm and his teacher.