The Lindeman family has for generations had a great impact on the musical life of Norway, both as church musicians, collectors of folk music and music educators. 2012 marks the bicentennial of Ludvig Mathias Lindeman’s birth, and Simax Classics joins the celebration by issuing this 3CD box with music by no less than five composers from this Norwegian ‘dynasty in music’.
Ludvig Mathias Lindeman (1812-1887) choir, organ and piano music
L. M. Lindeman is the most important member of the Lindeman family of musicians, based primarily in Trondheim and Christiania. He is considered to be the foremost Norwegian church musician of the 19th century and was accomplished in several fields. Besides being an outstanding organ player and improviser, he exerted great influence as an organ adviser and music teacher. Together with his son Peter he founded in 1883 an organist school, the later Music Conservatory in Oslo and the forerunner of the Norwegian Academy of Music. Among his students were Johan Svendsen, Johannes Haarklou and Hjalmar Borgstrøm.
He was widely known as an improviser, and organists were sent from other places, such as Copenhagen, to study with him. In 1871 he was among the composers invited to the inauguration of the organ in Royal Albert Hall in London, where he gave no less than eight successful concerts of his own improvisations over, among others, hymn melodies and Norwegian folk tunes. A whole CD on the present release contain some of his organ works.
L.M. was also a considerable collector of folk music and undertook field trips in Valdres and Telemark among other districts. He published various editions of folk tune adaptations for mixed choir, three equal voices and men’s choir, some of which have been selected for this recording. Among them are excerpts from Draumkvedet, The Dream Ballad, a visionary poem on a tune from Telemark.
The less well known
This release also contain string quartets by Anna Severine and Just Riddervold, as well as keyboard pieces by Ole Andreas and Peter Brynie. Most of this music is performed from manuscripts, but some of the pieces were also published at the time. This the extensive liner notes for this release have contributions from outstanding Norwegian music scholars, and is supported by The Lindeman Foundation.
