Name: Moonbow
SKU: DSL92246
Availability: InStock

Tracklist

Please note that the below previews are loaded as 44.1 kHz / 16 bit.

Sisyfos

18:06

Patterns II - Version for Violin, Bass Clarinet and Percussion

11:39

Moonbow

15:32

Passacaglia - Version for Marimba, Harp and Bass Clarinet

06:41

Roots: I.

04:09

Roots: II.

03:32

Roots: III.

02:48

Total time: 01:02:27

Press reviews

Gramophone

The earliest composition in Gunnar Andreas Kristinsson’s catalogue (at least on his website) is a song for mixed choir from 1999 but most of his subsequent output has been instrumental. Kristinsson (b1976) is well schooled, his teachers including Kjartan Ólafsson and the late Atli Heimir Sveinsson in Reykjavik, and Krzysztof Meyer in Cologne; he also studied in the Netherlands.

Kristinsson styles Sisyfos a ‘chamber concerto for clarinet and 13 musicians’. Composed in 2013 and featured at the International Rostrum of Composers in Helsinki the following year, it is in a single, concentrated movement, progressing in three main paragraphs from initial stasis to agitation (exasperation on the part of its titular subject?), punctuated by two brief pauses, as if gathering breath. It is played with exemplary, at times fierce virtuosity – as are all the works here – by Ingólfur Vilhjálmsson and the wonderful Caput Ensemble. Vilhjálmsson, this time on the bass instrument, also features in the curiously titled PASsaCAgLia B, originally penned in 2011 for the harp and marimba of Duo Harpverk, present in this recording of the 2016 alternative version for trio.

Kristinsson’s style blends elements of tonality, atonality, New Simplicity (especially in its obsessive repeated patterns) and postmodernist techniques. Patterns IIb (2016) is a fine example of that, with its louring atmosphere despite its use of an Icelandic folk song and euphonious chiming percussion: it was based on a piece of 2004 scored for quartets of gamelan and Western instruments. Roots (2019), by contrast, takes the overtone series as its abstract inspiration. The evocative title-track, Moonbow (2017), played with relish here by the excellent Siggi Quartet, is more straightforwardly descriptive, reflecting in sound the lunar rainbow (or ‘moonbow’). As such, it is the most directly communicative, and put me in mind at some removes of Saariaho’s celebrated aurora borealis-inspired Lichtbogen (1986).

Sono Luminus provides sound to match Kristinsson’s often coruscating textures and the performers’ clean, luminous virtuosity. You will not regret investigating this music.

Guy Rickards - Source

Magic of the North

Moonbow features the music of Gunnar Andreas Kristinsson. The music, played by leading members of the Icelandic contemporary music scene, was recorded in the two concert halls Kaldalón and Norðurljós of the Harpa Reykjavik Concert Hall.

Moonbow is a selection of more mature works from a fertile period in the composer’s life after moving back to Iceland in 2009. The album contains a trio, a quartet, and a quintet, flanked by two larger ensemble pieces. The works are diverse, not only in terms of instrumentation, but also in terms of the musical theme and give a good insight into Gunnar’s unmistakable and personal world of sound.

With his sensitive intuition, Gunnar Andreas Kristinsson has developed a unique and personal style over the years. Typical of his music are unfolding processes, passages that flow from one texture to another and switch between contrasting moods. Another feature is strictly constructed, multi-layered, continuous movements in which musical elements are brought to the fore through instrumentation and articulation. Textures woven from rhythmic and melodic patterns like patchwork are another characteristic feature.

Gunnar has been described as “a strong Icelandic voice with a fresh and bold imagination”. His music was praised as lively and inventive, highly original, pleasantly coherent, purposefully constructed, full of mysticism and magical power.

- Source

Label	Sono Luminus
SKU	DSL92246
Qualities	DSD 512 fs, DSD 256 fs, DSD 128 fs, DSD 64 fs, DXD 24 Bit, FLAC 192 kHz, FLAC 96 kHz
Channels	2ch Stereo
Artists	Caput Ensemble, Duo Harpverk, Guoni Franzson, Ingolfus Vilhjalmsson, Siggi String Quartet
Composers	Kristinsson
Genres	Classical, Contemporary
Conductors	Guoni Franzson
Original Recording Format	DXD
Producer	Dan Merceruio
Recording Engineer	Daniel Shores
Recording Location	Harpa Concert Hall, Reykjavík, Iceland Kaldalón Recital Hall – Norðurljós Recital Hall on February 24-27, 2020
Recording Format	DXD
Analog to Digital Converters	Horus (Recording) & Hapi (Mastering), Merging Technologies
Mastering Engineer	Daniel Shores
Funding	STEF Recording Fund, Rannis Music Recording Fund
Loudspeakers	Legacy Audio
Recording Software	Pyramix, Merging Technologies
Recording Technician	Douglas Davis II
Piano Technician	Sigurður Kristinsson
Instruments	Clarinet, Bass clarinet, String quartet
Release Date	April 22, 2021

Moonbow

Caput Ensemble, Duo Harpverk, Guoni Franzson, Ingolfus Vilhjalmsson, Siggi String Quartet

Tracklist

Total time: 01:02:27

Additional information

Press reviews

Gramophone

Magic of the North

Reviews

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Moonbow

Caput Ensemble, Duo Harpverk, Guoni Franzson, Ingolfus Vilhjalmsson, Siggi String Quartet

Tracklist

Total time: 01:02:27

Additional information

Press reviews

Gramophone

Magic of the North

Reviews

More from this label

Seven Words from the Cross

Boulder Bach Festival

From Whence We Came

Imagine Christmas

Currency

Cart