Journey
Contemporary Danish Works
The works on this CD are all world premiere recordings, and have been composed especially for Kim Sjøgren and Lars Hannibal. The music represents different aspects of contemporary Danish music, and also reflects the variety of musical genres that Duo Concertante - worked with over the past fifteen years.
The contemporary repertoire for the combination of violin and guitar was very limited at the time, and Duo Concertante was very happy that these four outstanding Danish composers accepted the invitation of the Duo. For both Herman D. Koppel and Jørgen Jersild, it was the first time to write for the guitar, and being part of the process was an invaluable part of the duo's musical experience. Vagn Holmboe already knew the guitar very well as he previously composed many guitar works, including a solo sonata for Andrés Segovia.
Lars Hannibal writes: "Kim Sjogren and I first met in 1971 when we both studied at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Arhus. We played together from time to time - many different kinds of music, including folk, rock and jazz. In 1980. we started performing under the name Duo Concertante and continued until 1994. During that time we played more thanb a thousand concerts, recorded 10 CDs and appeared on many telelvision and radio programs.
Our performances were primarily limited to Denmakr, but we toured extensively in Spain, Germany and France. Our 10-year anniversary concert was held in Wignore Hall in London, with a program including Everything Matters - the first time electric amplified instruments were used in this wonderful historic concert hall! Our repertoire often reflected our interest in different kinds of music such as jazz and folk, though the essence of the programming was the classical compositions of Paganini, Giuliani, Sarasate, Ibert, Villa-Lobos, Grieg, Nielsen as well as the contemporary music written especially for us."