Search - Vagn Holmboe, Owain Arwel Hughes, Århus Symphony Orchestra :: Vagn Holmboe: Symphony Nos. 2; Sinfonia "In Memoriam"

Vagn Holmboe (b. 1909) is a Dutch composer who belongs to the generation that followed Carl Nielsen. His music, like Nielsen's, partakes of the broadest colors of 20th-century romanticism and never ventures too far afield from tonal constructions. And while Nielsen was a major influence in Holmboe's life, his music has a nationalistic character of its own. His Symphoy 2 has an arched construction where, as in any good symphony, the ideas stated in the first movement are deftly concluded in the third. Sinfonia in Memoriam (1954) comes right after his Symphony 8. It's a more troubled work--dark and athletic. Highly recommended. --Paul Cook