Per Nørgård - Symphony No. 3 (BBC Proms 2018)

Had a great introduction to another fascinating composer over the past week whilst keeping my usual eye on the BBC Proms programme, so here's the performance in question.  The 86-year old Danish composer Per Nørgård was in the audience for this, the UK premiere a week ago of his 3rd Symphony completed in 1975.

This symphony is generally held to be the point where Nørgård fully integrated his composing style, of serial music generated by fractal-like integers in an "infinity series".  After listening to this being discussed in the radio preamble I was expecting something like Xenakis, but Nørgård isn't quite that explosive, at least not in this work.  Instead, it reminded me occasionally of Ligeti, sometimes of the French spectralists, but those were just really fleeting coincidences rather than similarities (there is definitely some microtonality in the strings though, from what I've read).

Overall, I really enjoyed listening to something unique-sounding in its construction and in the way the instrumental groups interact, and definitely want to hear more Nørgård.  The atmospheric moments of the first movement were right up my street, and the longer second movement, once it gets going, is all over the place (in the best possible way) with its epic choral stylings.  Definitely recommended.

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