My review of Ketil Bjørnstad's wonderful new song cycle, Sunrise, today at All About Jazz.
For a country with such a small population, Norway has much to be proud of when it comes to the arts...and not just music, though it remains a country whose support has certainly resulted in a disproportionate number of creative musicians across the broadest musical spectrum. Looking at the violin and its variants alone, there is the traditional Hardanger fiddle work of Nils Okland, already known to fans of the ECM label for albums including Lysoen: Hommage a Ole Bull (2011), his subtle and sublime duo recording with pianist/harmonium player Sigbjørn Apeland; the more decidedly classical leanings of violinist Bjarte Eike, a member of keyboardist Jon Balke's Magnetic North Orchestra, most recently heard on Diverted Travels (ECM, 2004) and whose own The Image of Melancholy (BIS, 2014) is an overlooked gem; or the more pedal-to-the-metal work of violinist Ola Kvernberg in the recent debut of Grand General (Rune Grammofon, 2013).
But Norway also has artists in other disciplines that have put this small, Northern European country on the map. Perhaps best-known in the realm of visual arts is Edvard Munch, whose "The Scream" is one of those rare pieces that are truly iconic--a painting whose creator may not be known to everyone, but whose work has been seen by most. Pianist/composer/poet/writer Ketil Bjørnstad is more familiar with Munch's work than many; aside from living in Nordstrand, just a few houses away from where Munch resided from time to time during his life (1863-1944), Bjørnstad has written, amongst his many novels and books of poetry, Historien om Edvard Munch (Gyldendal, 1993), a "documentary novel" on the life of Munch that is one of too few books by Bjørnsta--two, to be precise--to be translated into English, in this case as The Story of Edvard Munch (Arcadia, 2001).
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