Soar (Svev) – Chamber Works by Knut Vaage

The three works on these recordings seem to traverse, in sequence, three of the primary realms of human experience: Body, Spirit, and Mind. However, as Carl Nielsen pointed out in relation to his second symphony, “The Four Temperaments”, the principal characters of each movement are, at times, interspersed with hints of the other temperaments.

The same is the case with Boomerang, Uproar, and Soar (“Bumerang”, “Rabalder” and “Svev”), the three remarkable compositions by Knut Vaage on this album. There are elements of the intellectual in the very physical “Bumerang”. “Rabalder” gives the impression of being the most physical of the three, until we realize it is set out as a spiritual journey from noise to silence and their attending emotional states. The physical and the spiritual visit themselves upon the predominantly cerebral “Svev”.