A Norwegian Pop Concert

An interesting find on the Mercury label, a concert of Norwegian "popular" pieces conducted by Odd Gruner-Hegge and Oivin Fjeldstad. This lp features a favorite march of mine, the Valdres March of  Johannes Hanssen, wonderfully idiomatic as you might expect.

Here's what Billboard said in 1954 about this issue:

This fine recording of light selections by some of Norway's top composers could interest those collectors who are perhaps a little tired of Strauss and Tchaikovsky. Some of the compositions are well known such as the "Entrance March of the Boyars" and "The Herd Girl's Sunday." But the rest by Hanssen, Halvorsen and Svendson, are not as familiar. All are played skillfully.

It's a delightful three quarters of an hour of your listening time.

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Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No 2 with Kjell Baekkelund and Oivin Fjeldstad

Here's the other National Record Academy Club  (NRS-1) posting from me: Kjell Baekkelund performing the fabled Rachmaninoff 2nd Piano Concerto with Maestro Fjeldstad and the Oslo Philharmonic.

I must confess to knowing next to nothing about this pianist. Here's what I got off of Wikipedia:

"Kjell Bækkelund (May 6, 1930 – May 13, 2004) was a Norwegian classical pianist, born in Oslo. He was known as a child prodigy. Bækkelund made his debut with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra at the age of eight. His final years of study took place at Stockholm, with Professor Boon, and at Vienna, with Professor Seidlhofer. In 1953 Bækkelund won first prize in the first Scandinavian Musicians' Festival held at Trondheim; and in London the same year, he was awarded the Harriet Cohen Medal as "the finest pianist of the year"."  Impressive!

I'm not quite sure if Baekkelund had an international career but what I can say is that this performance is no-nonsense with two musicians who had apparently worked quite a bit together and artistically were "in sync." I would call this a rather straightfaced, honest performance, and probably as good an introduction to this masterpiece as there is out there. At some point I should transfer my RCA record of Baekkelund performing the Grieg Concerto with Odd Gruner Hegge conducting. Side two on that LP features music from Peer Gynt. Surprisingly, I've not listened to that record...with an all Norwegian cast, its probably as definitive as it gets!

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Oivin Fjeldstad conducts Haydn and Mozart with the Oslo PO

Back in the early 60's, RCA sought to expand its budget Camden label from being primarily a reissue label to one that also included newly recorded performances, in good sound, available at a very low price. Nowadays, companies would look towards Central Europe and the former Soviet republics but in the early 60's, companies looked North, in RCA's case, Norway and Sweden.

This recording of  Haydn's "Surprise" Symphony and Mozart's Symphony No. 41 was issued on both the Camden label and the "National Academy Record Club" label, of which the latter is my transfer. Good stereo, with a no frills record jacket, NRS-7 sold for under 3 bucks and was available in bookstores, supermarkets, drugstores, in other words non-traditional record outlets. These recordings were obviously geared for the novice and, they sold well.

As for Oivin Fjeldstad , he was a fine conductor who was mostly known for his work with "northern composers." His complete Peer Gynt with the LSO was a big seller in its day and widely admired by critics and connoisseurs alike. However, I think that Fjeldstad had interpretative gifts far beyond Scandinavia and this unmannered, cleanly played Mozart and Haydn attests to that. The orchestra performs quite well, though at the time, the Oslo PO was not the world class orchestra that it is today. These are very enjoyable performances nonetheless.

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