Nystedt Organ Music – Gunnar Petersen-Øverleir

Knut Nystedt´s works for organ

Knut Nystedt can look back over a long life as a performing and composing musician. For more than 60 years his name has been seen on the billboards of Norwegian concert halls. As choir conductor Nystedt made a revolution in the 1950s in Norwegian choral music. His nearly 150 works cover all music genres: it is all there from simple songs and hymns to works for piano, music for various chamber music orchestras, symphonic works and oratorios, in addition to organ works which one can hear on this album.

Recorded at the organ in Vålerenga church in Oslo, organist Gunnar Petersen-Øverleir presents several of Nystedt´s organ works, from the romantic “Introduzione e Passacaglia per Organo” and the baroque and neoclassical “Toccata” to the cascades of cluster sounds in “Fantasia Trionfale”, the colourful harmonies of the “Resurrexit”, the monumental blocks of sound in “La Verbe Éternel” and pearl in Nystedt´s work for organ: the expressive “Pietà”. With these and several other works, Petersen-Øverleir gives us a deep impression of the span of Nystedt´s development as composer while at the same accentuating his unique musical expression.