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A review by saareman
The Northern Silence: Journeys in Nordic Music and Culture by Andrew Mellor
5.0
Nordic Classics
Review of the Yale University Press hardcover (July 2022)
I started following music journalist Andrew Mellor on Twitter several years ago after some of his reporting from Estonia at Tallinn Music Week. The formerly UK based writer has lived in Copenhagen, Denmark for a while now and regularly reports on classical music and opera throughout Scandinavia and the Baltic.
Northern Silence is both a travelogue and a musical guide to the major composers of the Scandinavian countries. Mellor travels to various major festivals, premieres and events and the book incorporates some of his earlier review reports over the past years. It is not a collection of previous articles though but takes a broad view of Nordic composition in its overall environment:
Sections of the book concentrate on the most widely known composers in each of the Scandinavian countries: i.e. Edvard Grieg in Norway, Carl Nielsen in Denmark, Jean Sibelius in Finland, etc. but there is also an extensive amount of information about lesser known and present day contemporary composers as well. Some rather wonderful and humorous trivia also to be discovered, e.g. see the video for a composer dancing to his own orchestral music linked below. Or see the rather fun series of Danish composer Carl Nielsen taken in his early teenage years which is used to illustrate some of his music here and from which I've selected one below:
I would recommend this highly as an excellent introduction to the classical and contemporary music composition history of the Nordic countries. You don't need a musicological background to follow along. Only a curiosity about or a passion for composers and composed music is needed.
Soundtrack
Andrew Mellor complied his own playlist to accompany the book which you can listen to on Spotify here. Some folk and pop music is also included.
Trivia and Links
You can watch a showreel sample of Andrew Mellor introducing or discussing various musics on YouTube here.
You can see a rather unique video of composer Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen dancing to his own orchestral work Triptycon (1985) at PGH Dances.
Review of the Yale University Press hardcover (July 2022)
I started following music journalist Andrew Mellor on Twitter several years ago after some of his reporting from Estonia at Tallinn Music Week. The formerly UK based writer has lived in Copenhagen, Denmark for a while now and regularly reports on classical music and opera throughout Scandinavia and the Baltic.
Northern Silence is both a travelogue and a musical guide to the major composers of the Scandinavian countries. Mellor travels to various major festivals, premieres and events and the book incorporates some of his earlier review reports over the past years. It is not a collection of previous articles though but takes a broad view of Nordic composition in its overall environment:
As I write in the book’s preface Tapiola, I was keen to ‘trace some parallel lines’ between the musical, cultural, political, social and so on. As a Scandinavian taxpayer of seven years, I have become convinced that the music and culture of the Nordic countries are inextricable from the wider societal, geographical and topographical realities one experiences here…for better or worse.
Sections of the book concentrate on the most widely known composers in each of the Scandinavian countries: i.e. Edvard Grieg in Norway, Carl Nielsen in Denmark, Jean Sibelius in Finland, etc. but there is also an extensive amount of information about lesser known and present day contemporary composers as well. Some rather wonderful and humorous trivia also to be discovered, e.g. see the video for a composer dancing to his own orchestral music linked below. Or see the rather fun series of Danish composer Carl Nielsen taken in his early teenage years which is used to illustrate some of his music here and from which I've selected one below:
I would recommend this highly as an excellent introduction to the classical and contemporary music composition history of the Nordic countries. You don't need a musicological background to follow along. Only a curiosity about or a passion for composers and composed music is needed.
Soundtrack
Andrew Mellor complied his own playlist to accompany the book which you can listen to on Spotify here. Some folk and pop music is also included.
Trivia and Links
You can watch a showreel sample of Andrew Mellor introducing or discussing various musics on YouTube here.
You can see a rather unique video of composer Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen dancing to his own orchestral work Triptycon (1985) at PGH Dances.