Contemporary classical music and Geirr Tveitt

I went again to the music school at the University of Colorado (CU) for a concert Wednesday night. It was their Pendulum series, featuring contemporary music which included some student compositions and Stravinsky's "Les Noces". Some of was good, some not so good. CU's faculty and students are a great resource and most Tuesday nights find me there for recitals and performances. It's a wonderful thing to have access to such talent. To hear contemporary music "in the raw" is a great thing.

Since I can't hear my local FM station any more and since they discontinued playing any substantial contemporary music anyway, the Internet is my only source of exposure to new "contemporary classical" music other than local performances. I've been listening to contemporary music over the Internet though a site http://contemporary-classical.com/. This site is part of the Live365.com "network" which I started listening to when I had a wireless media center device. I got rid of that and now just listen to the "live365" network using one of my computers. Unfortunately, live365 got fancy and have their own "player", so I can't use my small handheld Nokia, my preferred device for listening at night,


Contemporary-classical.com introduced me to Geirr Tveitt, a Norwegian composer who lived until 1981. I've never heard of him until I came upon the end of one of his pieces being broadcast on Contemporary-classical.com. A day later I went to Amazon and ordered two of Tveitt's Cd's. As is often the case, you get additional music on the CD which you hadn't intended to buy but which came with the piece you did want. In this case, it was Tveitt's "Variations on a Folksong from Hardanger for two pianos and orchestra" from 1939. I ended up liking this much more than his Piano Concerto #4 "Aurora Borealis" which is what I ordered. I recommend the "Variations".

Tveitt's broadcasts on FM radio? Pretty skimpy. KVOD played the Piano Concerto #4 three times in the last 5 years and always late a night. KING and KUSC seem to like Tveitt much more, though, surprisingly, WQXR hasn't played him at all in the last 5 years. And my favorite "Variations"? It has not been broadcast at all by any of the stations I monitor. Too bad.