Neeme Jarvi, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra - Johan Halvorsen: Orchestral Works, Vol. 4 (2012) Hi-Res

Volume 4 continues the pleasures to be found in Volume 3. The main work in 4 is again a suite of incidental music for a troll play, Peik and the Giant Troll , which Halvorsen arranged into the Norwegian Fairy Tale Pictures . These include a stirring introduction, a languid waltz, an elegantly gliding number that might elsewhere have served as carousel music except that it is scored with the skill of a Johann Strauss (delicate bells, solos for violin, clarinet, oboe, etc.), and troll music scary enough to make those creatures in Grieg’s Hall of the Mountain King sound almost benign (Halvorsen’s trolls inhabit a Blue Mountain). Conductors looking for an alternative to the ubiquitous Peer Gynt suites might well take a look at Halvorsen’s Fairy Tale Pictures . The composer considered this to be one of his finest compositions, and of those represented on these two programs, I concur.

Also in Volume 4 we have a seven-minute orchestral interlude brimming with dramatic intensity (part of the incidental music for Bjørnstherne Bjørnson’s play The King ); the orientally tinged dance from Queen Tamara (a play based on the same character as in Balakirev’s symphonic poem); the splendidly festive Norwegian Festival Overture ; the two Norwegian Rhapsodies featuring a very capable soloist, violinist Melina Mandozzi; and the stately Norwegian Bridal Procession . If the latter sounds very much like Grieg, it should—it is an orchestration of a piano piece from his op. 19, also used in Peer Gynt . The only piece on these two discs that most listeners are likely to know already is the Passacaglia for Violin and Viola, which has been recorded innumerable times over the years (by Heifetz and Primrose, among others).