Wednesday, May 07, 2008

O verden hav da gode nat

Heard on NKR today ... "O verden hav da gode nat," innspilt 1948 ... by Odd Mehus, Per Vetrhus and Anders Lunde. Singing in unision, lots of ornamentation, sounds like Scottish psalmody.

A keyword search on the title turns up this CD by Unni Løvlid on Amazon.com ... called Vita. Sound clips available on this Brittish website. Lovlid's home page has her schedule. And Scanarts management has a good bio. Excerpt:
... She was the first to take a Master’s degree in the performance of vocal traditional music at the Norwegian State Academy of Music in 2002. She has been a teacher at the Ole Bull Academy and the Norwegian State Academy of Music and has done a number of recordings. With the trios Fjøgl and Rusk she has broadened the scope of traditional music in the direction of contemporary music. Typically, she has recently performed Schoenberg’s ‘Pierrot Lunaire’ as a concert project of her own in Oslo.
And an Amazon.com reviewer had this to say:
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Experiencing the Divine, January 13, 2006
By someone - See all my reviews

I've never heard an album quite like this one [Vita]. The entire album features Norwegian singer Unni Løvlid singing acapella religious music, and while this prospect sounds only remotely appealing at first, it the location of the performance that is truly phenomenal.

Løvlid sings in the cavernous Emanuel Vigeland mausoleum underneath a Norwegian church.

While her voice alone is gorgeous enough to carry this entire album, it is the huge space of the crypt that elevates the experience toward the heavenly. The notes whisper in the absolute stillness, then crescendoing to echo and ripple against the walls to completely fill the gigantic cavern. The audio quality of Vita is as perfect as the acoustics, and it really makes you feel like you're there in the subterranean space.

An audio preview and better description of Vita is available at cdRoots.

No comments: