The Nightingale : 4 New Works for Recorder and Choir

   in Choir & Organ (Mar, 2012)
Only five years established, DNVS tackles challenges like these with energy and confidence. Latvian Ugis Praulins comes out of progressive rock music, and his settings of Hans Christian Andersen in The Nightingale call for and receive sustained lyricism in complex time signatures and considerable harmonic complexity. There’s a nice folkish tinge too, reflected in Michala Petri’s virtuosic recorder playing. Other pieces are by Sunleif Rasmussen (setting Inger Christensen), Peter Bruun (more avian impressionism, taken from Gerard Manley Hopkins) and Daniel Bortz, who sets Carl von Linne/Linnaeus in the sustained and darkly enigmatic Nemesis divina. A wholly satisfying hour of music. …