Review

Anders Brødsgaard: In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni

Anders Brødsgaard's in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni ("we enter the circle at night and are consumed by fire") is a cycle of seven solo piano pieces and a piano concerto written between 1990 and 1995. The pieces were composed using the composer's own personal "system" that derives rhythmic relationships from the frequency ratios of the harmonic series.

That's not as schematic as it might sound. Given that some of the frequency ratios at the lower end of the harmonic series are very simple (the perfect fifth is 3:2 for example) and easily translated into cross-pulses, the music itself is often effervescent and quite accessible. The more ratios used the denser and more complex the harmony.

Brødsgaard operates with a great deal of flexibility, layering intervals and their associated pulses according to immediate expressive needs. The first piece in the cycle, Joker (1990), is a rhythmically alive, harmonically static machine ride. Other pieces are more contemplative, like Requiem (1992) and Hymn (1994).The concluding Piano Concerto (1994-95) includes material from each of the preceding seven pieces of the cycle, and was written, in part, as an experiment to see if the procedures could work on a larger scale, which it does in this piece.

Rolf Hind gives passionate performances of all the pieces, and the Esbjerg Ensemble, led by Christopher Austin, provides skillful and sympathetic accompaniment. Dacapo's sound feels a little small, without the detail we've come to expect from digital recordings of piano music. But that shouldn't discourage anyone otherwise interested in this colorful music.