‘Nordic Sound – Tribute to Axel Borup-Jørgensen’ was conceived as a musical memorial to the late Danish modern master, Axel Borup-Jørgensen.
Five leading Danish and Faroese composers – Bent Sørensen, Sunleif Rasmussen, Thomas Clausen, Mogens Christensen and Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen – were commissioned by Edition Borup-Jørgensen and the composer’s daughter, Elisabet Selin to write a recorder concerto for Michala Petri and string orchestra. The choice of the recorder was both an outgrowth of Borup-Jørgensen’s decade’s long engagement with the instrument and as Petri’s personal tribute, who became a ‘second daughter’ to the composer.
Rather than writing music in ‘Axel’s style’, each of the composers was encouraged to reflect upon their own feelings and responses to the man and his music, from Christensen’s shimmering modernism, and Clausen’s congenial, neobaroque stylings, to the daunting and sometimes dark atmospheres of Sørensen, Rasmussen and Gudmundsen-Holmgreen.
