BENT LORENTZEN
Piano Works
Erik Kaltoft
Jens Schou, bass clarinet

Bent Lorentzen, composer

About
Today Bent Lorentzen is seen as the great ‘soundmaker’ of Danish music. The 67-year-old composer has always gone his own way, and if one has had the desire and opportunity to follow him, he has constantly revealed new experiences of sounds and timbres. This is equally true of Bent Lorentzen’s piano music, central works of which are played on this CD by the pianist Erik Kaltoft. Kaltoft has described the piano pieces as ‘études and improvisations at one and the same time’. They are both tightly constructed and borne up by the composer’s urge to be playful. Anything can happen.

The piano works cover three decades in Bent Lorentzen’s output. From 1971 comes Five Easy Piano Pieces, which was Bent Lorentzen’s first printed piano work. Whether they actually are easy, the pianist must judge, but one thing is certain: they demonstrate the composer’s fervent passion for bells – the timbres and sound-waves of bells. Colori from 1978 is a real paintbox of sounds. Each movement has its colour association: Rosso, Bianco, Oro, Azurro and Nero. From the flapping of the red First of May banners to the black colour Bent Lorentzen experienced on his journey in Brazil. Here all the parts of the grand piano are incorporated in the playing – there is no sound that is not explored. In Goldranken from 1987 Bent Lorentzen is influenced by Hermann Hesse’s novel Steppenwolf – an important source of inspiration – and the music suggests a wealth of associations. Bent Lorentzen’s playing with sounds has always had the quality of triggering off the imagination and the emotions. This is also demonstrated by Nachtigall from 1988 – here in a version from 2000 for piano and bass clarinet; actually a piano fantasia over the fantastic universe of the nightingale. The most recent work on the CD is from 1994 and bears the title Abgrund. The music works its way into the most value-laden chord in musical history – the Tristan chord – but otherwise it is the idea of Dante’s Inferno that has formed the music. The composer’s associations are many – and one can add one’s own.

Reviews
Erik Kaltoft verleiht den nicht selten unwirklich atmutenden Tongebildern Lorentzens eine leibschere Präsenz
*****(Fono Forum)

Erik Kaltoft does a creditable job with the music; he is certainly on the rhythmical qui vive. The sound is good, too.
(International Record Review)

Enkelt og originalt formede lydskulpturer
(Politiken)

Credits
Recorded at Danish Royal College of Music, Århus, on 18 February 2001, 21 March and 3 July 2002
Recording producer: Claus Byrith
Executive producer: Erik Kaltoft
Sound engineer: Claus Byrith

Cover picture: Richard Mortensen: "Balance" (1969)