Kevin Duggan / Hymne til Ærø
Danish Music from Dunblane
Ærø’s low hills, whitewashed churches and the Baltic Sea, combined with Dunblane’s poetic Flentrop organ, have inspired this musical evocation of Denmark. Two sublime works frame the album: the Prelude and Fugue in E minor by Nicolaus Bruhns and Carl Nielsen’s tour de force, Commotio. These works are well known outside Scandinavia, whereas the elegantly crafted music of composers such as Jesper Madsen and Leif Thybo may be less familiar but are deserving of a wider audience. As Duggan puts it in the album booklet, these shorter pieces “create a mood like sunlight shining through a window, whilst also evoking brooding skies and bucolic folk songs. There is often a connection to the Baroque era filtered through the prism of the Lutheran church.”
