Review

Vagn Holmboe: Chamber Concertos Vol. 4

This final volume in dacapo's four-disc survey of the complete Holmboe chamber concertos completes a musical odyssey of the highest value, not just for the 13 first rate works that it has made available on disc for the first time as a set, but also for its contribution to our enjoyment of the most important Danish composer after Carl Nielsen. This last installment contains four pieces: an eight-section "concerto for orchestra"-style work for "wood-brass-gut"; what is arguably the finest trumpet concerto since Haydn's; a marvelous essay for trombone and full orchestra that ought to become a repertory staple for the solo instrument; and last of all, a delicious work for oboe, viola, and small ensemble that features almost continual interplay between the two featured soloists. The music is characteristically mature Holmboe: energetic, tuneful, neo-classical in cast, and shot through with his characteristically spicy harmonic idiom in which Nordic, Eastern European, and modal elements all blend to form a flexible, expressive, sophisticated musical language as attractive as it is inspired. The performances are uniformly superb, as has been the case with this entire series. If you haven't sampled thus far, you've missed something wonderful.