Ragnar Soderlind(1945-); Norwegian Symphonist

[Dundonnell]

(I have been meaning to write about Soderlind for weeks now )

I know that many members of this Forum sometimes despair at how little modern music written by living composers appeals to their taste

If this is the case can I commend with all possible enthusiasm the music of the Norwegian composer Ragnar Soderlind.

This article was written almost 10 years ago now but it is well worth reading-

http://www.listento.no/mic.nsf/doc/art2002100719421193269398

As you will see, Soderlind was a pupil of Kokkonen in Finland. If you have any interest/liking for the music of Finnish composers like Englund or Kokkonen himself you would be impressed by Soderlind.

I have just finishing listening again to Soderlind's Symphony No.5 "Kvistunn"(1995) which is available for download from this site. It is a 28 minute-long piece but if you were simply to try the last four minutes of the download you would get some notion of the gorgeous beauty that Soderlind can conjure up. Those last few minutes of the 5th Symphony are-in my judgment-massively impressive. This is "neo-romanticism" (if such, really exists ) at its most moving.

Sadly, as I have regretted before here and elsewhere, Norway does not export its music in the same successful way as Sweden, Finland or Denmark. So composers writing in an idiom with which I have real empathy-composers like Soderlind and Halvor Haug-are not as well known as should be the case.

I am only familiar with his-
Symphony No.2 "Sinfonia breve"
Symphony No.3 "Les illuminations symphonique" for soprano, baritone and orchestra
Symphony No.4 "Sedimenti Musicali"
Symphony No.5 "Kvistunn"
Violin Concerto
Cello Concerto
Symphonic Poem "Rokkomborre"
Symphonic Visions "Polaris"
Trauermusik

Most of the commercially recorded works on this list are on the Norwegian Aurora label(with the Symphony No.4 and Cello Concerto played by the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra of Moscow under Vladimir Fedoseyev

............but Soderlind has composed nine symphonies in total, including Symphony No.6 "Todesahnung"(1999), Symphony No.7 "La Campane dell'Atlantico"(2002), Symphony No.8 "Jean Sibelius in Memoriam"(2005), which I would love to hear.

Soderlind is one of the very few living composers and symphonists whose music really impresses me. It combines, to my ears, the symphonic tradition of the past with an acceptable modern dimension. It is "neo-romantic" in the best sense of that term It can be angry and despairing(Soderlind, like Haug, is an opponent of developments which he views as damaging to the Norwegian natural environment) but it is in the very top rank of that marvellous vein of rich, grand Scandinavian symphonism of the 20th century which(I freely concede) appeals enormously to my own musical taste.

[Dylan]

I'll second all that! Have loved Soderlind's music ever since hearing "Polaris" on a double LP (never reissued???) with the RPO/Per Drier (?) about 30 years ago...It deserves much wider currency.

[Dundonnell]

No..."Polaris" can be obtained on an Aurora cd. I have it

[Martin Anderson]

I second Dundonnell's enthusiasm for the music of Ragnar Söderlind and likewise regret that there is not more of it on CD. You can be assured that I shall be trying to remedy with shortfall through Toccata Classics. In the short term, your only option for getting to know more of Ragnar's music is to take the path I did -- to the Norwegian Music Information Centre in Oslo and spend a day or two with scores and (then) tapes, working your way through his substantial and consistently impressive output.
Martin Anderson

[Dundonnell]

If only those tapes with the music they contain( and also the unavailable promotional cd of Haug's 4th and 5th symphonies) could be released commercially