Mixed Media

CD of the Month

Daníel Bjarnason

In Germany, most people know Daniel Bjarnason as a conductor. That the Icelander is also a skilled composer, hasn't yet become widely known. Yet his piano concerto with the seemingly innocuous title Feast seems tailor-made for a dance-like interpretation: Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's story The Masque of the Red Death, the seven movements suggest a concrete plot rather than interpreting it step by step. Bjarnason creates the ghostly atmosphere of the story through the unpredictable sound—and just as enticingly as Frank Dupree sets his notes at the piano, so too could the plague, cholera, or Covid enter a seemingly isolated existence.

Bjarnason has titled his CD The Grotesque & The Sublime, and this dualism is noticeable in the other two pieces. One is called Fragile Hope which, through its sonic beauty, always lets something menacingly dark shimmer; the other is Inferno, with which Bjarnason alludes to Dante's Divine Comedy: a dance of death in which percussionist Vivi Vassileva, on marimba and txalaparta, allows one to still feel the earthly realm and at the same time sense the otherworldly. A worthwhile experience to hear, one that could also be brought to life on stage.

Hartmut Regitz

Daníel Bjarnason: The Grotesque & The Sublime, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, conductor: Daniel Bjarnason; www.sonoluminus.com