Piano Solo-Animals In Concert - Three pieces for Piano solo by Per Nørgård.Programme Note 1. A Tortoise´s Tango (1984) - dur.: 4´  2. Light of a Night - Paul meets bird (1989) - dur.: 6´  3. Hermit Crab Tango - Esperanza (1997) - dur.: 5´  The pieces can be performed together or one by one. In the1980s quite a few 'finds' turned up in Per Nørgård's music. The material could be say a number of song birds' equilibrist melodic lines the overtones of the ocean surf or waltzing themes by theschizophrenic artist Adolf Wölfli (1864-1930). Or again as heard here it can be the rhythms and motifs of the tango and a Beatles song (with bird) explored in three independent piano pieces that form the Animals in Concert suite about which the composer writes:  'A Tortoise´s Tango': The tortoise as tango dancer must presumably possess certain rhythmic peculiarities which I have chosen to express by letting the tune of the tortoise shuffle broadly tripartite through the strict four partite time of tango.  Tortoise Tango was the original title of this piece 'written for Achilles' (the pianist Yvar Mikhashoff) for his so called tango project' including new tangos for piano by composers from all over the world.  'Light of a Night (Paul meets bird)' was commissioned by pianist Aki Takahashi. It is a 'reworked' arrangement for piano of the Beatles song 'Blackbird'. As some of us will recall the Beatles on 'The White Album' let the beautiful song to the blackbird be accompanied by an (apparently) live blackbird song. It is this authentic bird-motif world that in 'Light of a Night' weaves itself into the Beatles melody and in turn is gradually infected by it so that a completely new third entity ensues: a kind of Bird-rock ballad (or maybe it is a Beatle-bird?).

Poul Ruders' Handel Variations for Orchestra (2009) -Ninety Symphonic Reflections on Eight Bars by Georg Friedrich Handel.Commissioned by and dedicated to the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra in celebration of their 75th anniversary 2010. Premiered by The Aarhus Symphony Orchestra conducted by Giancarlo Andretta at the Aarhus Concert Hall 14 January 2010. Programme noteThe short feisty Bourrée from Handel´s famous Water Music (First Suite in F major) has for some years been hovering at the back of my mind as possessing the perfectpotential for a series of variations. Not unlike the short 'morsel' by Henry Purcell (the witches Ho-ho-ho-chorus from the opera Dido and Aeneas) which kicks off the ten variations of my orchestral work Concerto in Pieces the music per se is not particularly interesting but it nevertheless grows on you and is difficult to get rid of. It is merely a handful of sequences (a technique much used in the Baroque era - a method in which the same motif is being shifted up and down in a specified order). Actually it is only the first eight bars of the Bourrée which I haul through the wringer.It would be obvious to assume that Handel Variations make up a sequel to Concerto in Pieces but in spite of the similarity in character between the two chosen themes the Handel Variations are far more symphonically coherent. There are no less than ninety (!) variations and each variation (they are relatively short ranging from four up to forty-something bars) runs seamlessly into the next creating a huge symphonic body of constantly changing colours. I set out with the original theme without interfering but the 'erosion' begins to gnaw away at the theme already from the first variation. Imagine a vast gallery of Handel portraits in which Georg Friedrich appears at first fully recognizable but then the 'disfiguration' sets in and