Fartein Valen string quartets (2013)

"If Valen (1887-1952) had not been such a shy, self-effacing person, he would have won fame throughout Europe." So said Issay Dobrowen, a prominent conductor in the inter-war period, and chief conductor from 1927 to 1931 of Oslo's Filharmonisk Selskaps Orkester (predecessor of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra). The path to fame was indeed uphill for Norway's leading modernist. However, Valen's diffidence was not the only reason for this - another was his chosen musical language, which grew out of the twelve-tone method of composition associated with Arnold Schönberg, Alban Berg and Anton Webern. By writing this sort of music, albeit with his own highly personal stamp, he was asking for trouble in the conservative world of Norwegian music.

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