Fanfare 5

*****

A “forgotten legacy” by a Danish composer well worth remembering


OLE SCHMIDT 1,5Concerto for Guitar and Chamber Orchestra. 2,3,5Echoes. 2Toccata No. 1. 2,4,5Double Concerto for Violin and Accordion  Jesper Sivebaek1 (gtr), Bjarke Mogensen2, Rasmus Kjøller3 (acc), Christina Åstrand4 (vn), Royal Danish Academy of Music Ch O5; Max Artved, cond5  OUR RECORDINGS 9.70858 (40:56) Reviewed from a WAV download: https://we.tl/t-oZwHjziMbC

This album’s title is Ole Schmidt: The Forgotten Legacy, and for once a self-consciously “poetic” name for a release is absolutely true. Ole Schmidt (1928-2010) was a Danish composer who, like many others active in the latter half of the 20th century, was influenced by the popular music of his time, specifically rock and jazz. The notes for this album, by OUR Recordings co-founder Lars Hannibal, claim Schmidt had “a rare ability to combine classical formal sensibility with the rhythmic and harmonic freedom of jazz.” (Actually it wasn’t that rare: George Gershwin, Maurice Ravel, Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, Gunther Schuller, George Russell, and many others also freely mixed classical and jazz forms and sensibilities.)
“It is notable,” Hannibal writes, “that he composed concertos for relatively unusual solo instruments such as accordion, guitar, tuba, and horn, but only one symphony and a few sonatas.” The works here include a three-movement guitar concerto, which Schmidt premiered in 1976 with himself conducting and Ingolf Olsen as soloist, and three pieces for accordion. One, Echoes, is for two accordions plus strings and percussion; one, Toccata No. 1, is for solo accordion; and the last work on the release is a three-movement double concerto for accordion and solo violin.
Schmidt’s guitar concerto is unusual in that for the first two movements the soloist is supposed to play an acoustic guitar from a seated position, the way classical guitarists usually play. Then for the third movement he’s supposed to change to an electric guitar, and play standing up the way most rock guitarists do so he can use foot pedals to distort the sound. That got me to thinking about why there are so few concertos for electric guitar and orchestra. After all, using an electric guitar would solve the problem most composers who write guitar concertos face: allowing the guitar to be heard above the orchestra.
But I’ve been able to find only three online listings for electric guitar concertos (as opposed to works for rock band and symphony orchestra that are more like concerti grossi), and I was able to hear only one. That was a 1998 piece called Concerto Suite for Electric Guitar and Orchestra in E Minor, written and performed by Swedish-American heavy metal guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen. Oddly Malmsteen’s work (a 12-movement suite based on Baroque dance structures rather than a normal concerto) is stronger in its quieter, more lyrical sections, in which he’s playing either an acoustic guitar or a discreetly amplified electric one. In the sections when Malmsteen plays all-out electric guitar, it sounds like you’re living in an apartment building with really thin walls and trying to listen to a classical symphony while your neighbor is blasting heavy metal.
Jesper Siveboek, who plays the solo guitar part here, talked with Ole Schmidt about reviving the concerto, but Schmidt passed away before that could happen. According to Siveboek, Schmidt “was fully aware that his limited knowledge of the instrument meant that certain passages would need to be rewritten or reworked.” After Schmidt’s death, Siveboek discussed it with Ingolf Olsen, the original soloist, who remembered little about the work or its performance but did say Schmidt was into the idea of “shaking things up a bit with the [foot-pedal] effects.” Siveboek also said that some passages that intimidated him at first became playable once he practiced them enough.
Oddly, Schmidt’s guitar concerto, at least as presented here, is quite conservative in its use of electronics. There are a few little blips and drone effects in the third movement, but for the most part if you were listening casually you might not notice when Siveboek lays down his acoustic guitar and picks up an electric one. While I still think there’d be room in the classical field for a concerto for electric guitar and orchestra that exploited the 1960s and 1970s innovations of Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, and Jimmy Page, Schmidt’s work is first-rate and ably performed here by Siveboek, conductor Max Artved, and the Royal Danish Academy of Music Chamber Orchestra.
The other three works on this release all feature accordion virtuoso Bjarke Mogensen. He’s alone on the solo work Toccata No. 1, plays with his usual performing partner Rasmus Kjøller and strings and percussion on Echoes, and joins violinist Christina Åstrand and the full ensemble for the fascinating three-movement double concerto that ends the album. Even more than the guitar concerto, the accordion works here emphasize Schmidt’s whimsical side and his skill at coming up with surprising instrumental combinations.
All in all, Ole Schmidt: The Forgotten Legacy is well worth your time and attention. While 41 minutes seems like short measure for a modern release (though that was about the length of a standard LP “in the day”) and one wishes OUR Recordings could have come up with more of Schmidt’s music to fill it out to standard CD duration, what we get here is first-rate music from a composer with an unusual sensibility. It’s also impeccably played and vividly recorded, as is OUR Recordings’ wont. Mark Gabrish Conlan