condition (record/cover): NM / EX- (light edges wear)

A document of one of the great champion pianists of the late twentieth century performing works composed specifically for him by three of Denmark's most distinctive voices. Yvar Mikhashoff (1941–1993) — born Ronald Mackay in Troy, New York, trained at Eastman, Juilliard, and with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, and for two decades Professor of Music at the State University of New York at Buffalo — occupied a unique position in new music: a performer of extraordinary technical command and breadth of curiosity, working in sustained close collaboration with the composers of his time. He commissioned 127 tangos from 127 composers. He was, for Per Nørgård, for Giacinto Scelsi, for Morton Feldman, the pianist of record.

Issued by Paula Records in 1983, this LP documents three such collaborations within the Danish context — where Mikhashoff had spent time on a Fulbright scholarship and where his advocacy had particular resonance. Nørgård (b. 1932), the central figure of Danish modernism after Carl Nielsen and Sibelius, had developed by this period his extraordinary "infinity series" — a recursive compositional method based on self-similar numerical structures — and the piano works here bear its characteristic combination of formal rigour and melodic luminosity. Ib Nørholm (1931–2019), for years considered part of the leading Danish compositional "troika" alongside Nørgård and Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen, moved from Darmstadt serialism toward a distinctive New Simplicity in the mid-1960s — melodic, theatrical, never quite what one expects. Poul Ruders (b. 1949), the generation younger, already displaying the polymorphic brilliance that would make him the most internationally performed Danish composer of his day.

A rare glimpse into a fertile period of Danish compositional life, documented by the ideal interpreter. Paula 28, 1983.