Benjamin Britten:
Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, Op. 10

Lars Petter Hagen:
Strauss Fragments

Richard Strauss:
Metamorphosen

Ensemble Allegria presents here a combination of works as an invitation to enjoyment as well as reflection. We are offered variations, metamorphoses and fragments, three different artistic working concepts. Variation and metamorphosis are similar artistic tools inasmuch as the material to be used is workable and encourages modification. At the same time, the basic material is recognizable or, in any case, reconstructible. Music cannot be created out of nothing. Whether deliberate or not, we find metamorphosis and variation in all compositions of a certain scope. Of course in the works heard here the motif of transformation is intended. And whereas musical variations as with Benjamin Britten typically retain a theme’s form and length more or less unaltered, a metamorphosis as Richard Strauss calls his work can by contrast pertain to everything from the shortest motifs to entire movements. A fragment a form often associated with Romanticism is on the other hand an idea that has not reached a final form and remains an intimation of something more. Lars Petter Hagen’s Strauss Fragments were commissioned by Ensemble Allegria.

Metamorphosis is a Greek expression simply meaning transformation. We find the motif of transformation in other art forms of course. Especially well known is the Roman Ovid’s sweeping narrative poem Metamorphoses from the beginning of the Christian era, and Franz Kafka’s story “Die Verwandlung”, published in 1915, about Gregor Samsa, who one morning awakens in the body of a huge and hideous insect.

All three composers on this CD stand in debt to an older colleague. Britten had a close association with his teacher Frank Bridge and reveals this through his variations. Strauss explicitly cites Ludwig van Beethoven’s third symphony in his Metamorphoses, and Hagen’s composition is based on this latter work. Composing on the basis of music one does not hold in high regard often results in a caricature. This is by no means the case here.

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Recorded in Sofienberg Church, Oslo, 16, 17, 18 and 20 August 2020, and 29 May 2021.