ECM Records Ketil Bjornstad: Vinding's Music

Ketil Bjørnstad - pian
Gunilla Süssmann - pian
Jie Zhang - pian
Norwegian Radio Orchestra , dirijor Christian Eggen

A double album as literary soundtrack, its release coinciding with Norwegian publication of the one-volume edition of Ketil Bjørnstad’s highly-acclaimed fictional trilogy “To Music”/”The River”/”The Lady In The Valley”, and with the author’s 60th birthday on April 25. After keeping his musical and writing activities separate for decades, Ketil dissolved the boundaries with his “Vinding” books: “When I had the idea of writing a trilogy about the young piano student Aksel Vinding, I realised that I would have to grant music access to my world of writing. This felt surprisingly liberating, almost like a confession. Music is a powerful source of inspiration for many writers, and so it was for me when I relived, through the novels, my experiences as a young piano student in Oslo in the late 1960s and early 1970s.” When the trilogy was completed, a concert of music referenced in Bjørnstad’s narrative was mounted in Oslo. Pianists Jie Zhang and Gunilla Süssman, with the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, performed compositions by Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy, Ravel, Rachmaninoff, and Barber, with conductor Christian Eggen also heard as piano soloist in the second movement of Mozart’s A major piano concerto. A recording from the concert comprises volume two of the present set. Disc one features Bjørnstad as improvising solo pianist, meditating upon themes related to his protagonist.