Ole Olsen; 3 Pieces for Piano & Orchestra (1877-1901)

Описание: Ole Olsen (1850-1927) was a Norwegian composer. As you can tell from the photo in the thumbnail, he was a military man, who collected folk tunes and composed marches during his time in the Norwegian army, which is evident in much of his music, particularly so in the first and third of these three pieces:

"Væringetog", Op. 28 (1885), is one of his more well-known pieces, though still unrecorded as far as I can tell, and has at least 3 different orchestrations. The one I've used has the unusual arrangement of 2 solo keyboards: piano and harmonium (a first for me, it seems to be a cross between organ and accordion), along with a small wind section consisting of 1 each of flute, clarinet, cornet, and trombone, some assorted percussion, and a reduced string section of 2 violins, cello, and bass (no viola). There is also a piano solo version, and another version with no keyboards or strings but instead a much larger brass and wind section. The name refers to the elite Norse warriors who worked for the Byzantine Empire.

The second piece, "Spindevise", Op.1 (1877) ("Spinning Wheel") features a more typical arrangement of piano, strings, and 2 each of flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and horn. It seems to work well as a slower "middle movement" to this pseudo-concerto I've pieced together from these three works.

Rounding out the set, we have a "Gallop-Caprice" (~1901). This fun jaunt brings back the more militaristic tone, though with similar orchestration to the "Spindevise" which makes for an ideal finale.

If you like what I do, please consider supporting me on Patreon: patreon.com/ForgottenPianoConcertos
Patrons get priority requests and early access on all my videos.

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ole_Ols...
IMSLP: https://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Olsen...

"Movements":
0:00 - I. "Væringetog", Op. 28 (1885)
6:20 - II. "Spindevise", Op.1 (1877)
11:46 - III. "Gallop-Caprice" (~1901)

The scores for the "Spindevise" and "Gallop-Caprice" are handwritten in pencil, which made them very difficult to read. The same was true for the full wind-band version of "Væringetog", which I used as a reference, but the version with keyboards was nicely formatted and split into parts, as you'll see in the video. (You unfortunately miss some of the melody when the harmonium is getting its solo section, but I still find the individual parts much easier to follow along with.) The scores are all freely available on IMSLP if you want to follow along with the full band version.

Disclaimer: Yes, it's synthesized. Obviously real musicians with real instruments would be vastly superior, but this simulated performance is better than nothing at all, which is what existed previously. My greatest wish is that these videos will inspire someone with the means to arrange a real performance and hopefully record and publish it so we can hear them in their full glory. If that someone is you, or you know of an existing recording of this, please let me know and I may add a link to this description.