Music about life and about being alive
The album Der Wind bläset wo er will combines two of the largest orchestral works from the 2010s by Thomas Agerfeldt Olsen. The works have been recorded by the world-famous cellist Johannes Moser and the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Otto Tausk. The album will be released on 4 December.
Der Wind bläset wo er will (The wind bloweth where it listeth, John Chap. III, v. 8) is the title of Thomas Agerfeldt Olesen’s new album as well as of the first work on the release – a 23-minute-long orchestral work from 2011, which plays with sounds and associations. The other work on the album is Olesen’s 25-minute-long Cello Concerto, in which the soloist, Johannes Moser, performs a tirade of scale-like movements at a playfully quick tempo.
Universal conditions and situations
Thomas Agerfeldt Olesen (b. 1969) creates music that can be viewed as narratives about situations and conditions of a universal nature – music about life and about being alive – and about death. The music invites the listener to take part in the outcome of the situations, among other things by exploring and including quotations from the history of music.
The new album has been recorded by the Danish National Symphony Orchestra under the Dutch conductor Otto Tausk – the cello concerto was recorded in 2017 in connection with the first performance of the work at an enthusiastically reviewed concert at DR Koncerthuset.
Virtuoso cellist
Hailed by Gramophone Magazine as “one of the finest among the astonishing gallery of young virtuoso cellists”, German-Canadian cellist Johannes Moser has performed with the world’s leading orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic and New York Philharmonic.
On the new release, Johannes Moser is soloist in Olesen’s cello concerto Til minde om min mor (In memory of my mother, 2014, rev. 2016) – a personal work, composed while the composer’s mother lay on her deathbed.