My choice is: ...

Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson chose April, but what will this year's artists choose when asked to select their favorite composers and works?

Date
Time
–
Venue
Risør kirke
Buy tickets
Publikummer nyter musikk i Risør kirke
Foto: Liv Øvland

About the concert

When the artists themselves were invited to choose works for this concert, these were some of the pieces they chose: Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, Vaughan Williams's Songs of Travel, and Bartók's duets for two violas.

What lies closest to the heart does not always find room in a busy performing career. This concert is special because here the musicians get to perform the pieces they themselves value most highly.

Additional Content

Concert Program

Ralph Vaughan Williams: Songs of Travel

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958): From Songs of Travel (1901–04)

Text by Robert Louis Stevenson

  • The Vagabond
  • The Roadside Fire
  • Whither Must I Wander
  • Youth and Love
  • I Have Trod the Upward and Downward Slope

Vaughan Williams's first song cycle, composed in 1901-1904 to poems by Robert Louis Stevenson. Roderick and Isata have chosen five songs that give an insight into a musical language with a clear imprint of English folk music.

Performers:

  • Roderick Williams, baritone
  • Isata Kanneh-Mason, piano
Roderick Williams: Knepp Piano Trio

Roderick Williams (1965*): Knepp Piano Trio (2019)

Performers:

  • Trio Leikínn
Lili Boulanger: Trois morceaux pour piano

Lili Boulanger (1893–1918): Trois morceaux pour piano (1914)

  • D'un Vieux Jardin
  • D'un Jardin Clair
  • Cortège

Performers:

  • Alexandra Dariescu, piano
Amanda Maier-Röntgen: From 6 Pieces for Violin and Piano

Amanda Maier-Röntgen (1853–1894): From 6 Pieces for Violin and Piano (c. 1879)

  • Allegro molto. Leidenschaftlich
  • Lento
  • Allegro, ma non troppo. Frisch, schwedisch

Performers:

  • Johan Dalene, violin
  • Gunnar Flagstad, piano
George Gershwin: From Porgy and Bess

George Gershwin (1898–1937): From Porgy and Bess (arr. Heifetz)

  • Summertime
  • A Woman Is a Sometime Thing
  • Bess, You Is My Woman Now
  • It Ain't Necessarily So

This is the best-known contribution to the operatic canon from the American continent. The premiere took place in New York on October 10, 1935, and Gershwin himself referred to the work as America's folk opera. With impulses from African American folk music, gospel, jazz, and blues, the entire opera and individual pieces such as Summertime have lived a long life on and off opera stages.

It is also worth noting the arranger of this little suite. It is none other than one of the world's greatest violin virtuosos, Jascha Heifetz. In other words, many musical icons have a hand in this concert.

Performers:

  • Arabella Steinbacher, violin
  • Isata Kanneh-Mason, piano

Artists