<\/p>\n
Chopin’s later works with H\u00e5kon Austb\u00f8<\/p>\n
Let us agree: the poet Chopin was to a very small degree a dreamer. On the contrary, every day he went determinedly to his musical laboratory. H\u00e5kon Austb\u00f8 focuses on central works of Chopin’s late period on this release \u2013 in outstanding interpretations reflecting the composer\u2019s intolerance to anything superfluous. Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Chopin had a \u201cscientific\u201d way of grasping artistic subjects in his music. The works H\u00e5kon Austb\u00f8 has prepared for ‘Chopin Now’ are all great examples of Chopin’s extremely focused style. The composers he him self appreciated the most were of course Bach and Mozart, and a modern reading of Chopin underlines his polyphonic style of composition. <\/p>\n
H\u00e5kon Austb\u00f8 has been active as a pianist for over 50 years. His first performance with an orchestra in Bergen in 1963, and his first recital in Oslo in 1964, earned him much acclaim at an early age. After 40 years abroad he returned to Norway 10 years ago. Austb\u00f8 is highly regarded for his recordings of Messiaen, Skryabin, Brahms, Grieg and Debussy.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Let us agree: the poet Chopin was to a very small degree a dreamer. On the contrary, every day he went determinedly to his musical laboratory. H\u00e5kon Austb\u00f8 focuses on central works of Chopin’s late period on this release \u2013 in outstanding interpretations reflecting the composer\u2019s intolerance to anything superfluous.<\/p>\n
Chopin was an artist who remained to a large extent unaffected by external influences, working in solitude. According to Schumann, Chopin was the first to use the term ballade about a piece of music without a text. These pieces, which he worked on over a period of 11 years, also represent something completely new in his production, with regards to both form and technique. Grace notes and ornaments \u2013 which with Chopin has certainly always been on the boundary between passage work and melodic structure \u2013 are now as good as erased. The Barcarolle is another example of how Chopin could make use of an apparently inexhaustible compositional imagination within a strict framework.<\/p>\n
In his project, the exquisite pianist H\u00e5kon Austb\u00f8 works towards the core of Chopin’s late works, where the composer follows his desire to broaden and lengthen unstable sequences \u2013 on several levels. Likewise he creates expectations that are not fulfilled and cultivates the fragmentary \u2013 like in the Polonaise-Fantasy. Musicologist Olaf Eggestad makes a liner note point of how the late style of Chopin is particularly relevant in our own times \u2013 where empirical knowledge and poetry are not contradictions.<\/p>\n
H\u00e5kon Austb\u00f8 has been active as a pianist for over 50 years. His first performance with an orchestra in Bergen in 1963, and his first recital in Oslo in 1964, earned him much acclaim at an early age. After 40 years abroad he returned to Norway 10 years ago. The release of ‘Chopin Now’ coincides with the end of the big research project ‘The Reflective Musician’ which Austb\u00f8 has headed at the Norwegian Academy of Music. The project works at the unveiling of forces which lead to genuine and personal interpretations of classical and contemporary works. This implies looking with fresh eyes at well-known repertoire, free from the ballast of tradition.<\/p>\n
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