Review

Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen: Plateaux

Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen may emphatically not be a symphonist but Plateaux (2005) is a large-scale piano concerto which in its own enthusiastically unconventional way reveals what an original structural thinker in sound he is. The nine plateaux occupy one apiece of the work's nine sections with cross-currents aplenty, converging inexorably into No 8, Composition, after which the concluding En majeur's playful reworkings of Mozart closes the work on a high level of achievement.

The coupling, For Piano (1992), at first seems as prosaic as its title, but is just as characteristic and playful. Juho Pohjonen has the measure of both scores and Ed Spanjaard draws vivid performances from the Danish National SO in Plateaux. Cracking sound, too.