Munch Suite

FABIAN MÜLLER (b.1964): Munch's Traum(a), AARON JAY KERNIS (b.1960): A Dance of Life, PETER SEABOURNE (b.1960): Meeting, MARCUS PAUS (b.1979): The Ladies on the Bridge, STÅLE KLEIBERG (b.1958): Ashes, ONDREJ KUKAL (b.1964): Evening, NAJI HAKIM (b.1955): Fantasia on "Young People on the Beach", ALISSA FIRSOVA (b.1986): Moonlight over the Sea, ROLF MARTINSSON (b.1956): Landscape, GABRIEL KAHANE (b.1981): Étude: Cobalt Cure, ATHANASIA TZANOU (b.1971): Blick auf das Meer, DANIEL NELSON (b.1965): Man and Woman on the Beach, MARIA KOVAL (b. circa late 1960s): Two People. The Lonely, OLAV ANTON TOMMESSEN (b.1946): Kiss on the Beach in Moonlight, LAURENT PETITGIRARD (b.1950): Trees on the Beach.

Description: These 15 pieces for solo violin were commissioned by the Vestfold International Festival where paintings by Edvard Munch, inspired by the area's town Åsgårdstrand and its surroundings, were on exhibition. Each composer responds to a particular painting at lengths of from two to five minutes and provides his/her brief program note. These notes are on the back of 15 heavy-duty 4.67" x 7" cards on the front of which are color reproductions of Munch's paintings. All are presented in a black "cigar-box"-sized (8.4" x 6") receptacle with Munch's and the violinist's name embossed in silver stamping on the cover. Only one work is dodecaphonic; all are "modern" with the most instantly approachable being a three-work sequence by Kleiberg, Kukal and Hakim. Certainly the most unusual packaging we've ever offered and a bit expensive but rather unique! Henning Kraggerud (violin).