Vagn Holmboe - Ballata Op. 159, for violin, viola, cello and piano

Ballata, Op. 159
I. Con moto
II. Allegretto -- Quieto -- Vivace

Ensemble MidtVest
Ana Feitosa, violin.
Matthew Jones, violin.
Karolina Weltrowska, violin.
Sanna Ripatti, bratsch.
Jonathan Slaatto, cello.
Charlotte Norholt, fløjte.
Martin Qvist Hansen, klaver.

Ballata, Op. 159, a piano quartet written in 1984. Ballata is to be understod here as "ballad", that is, a folk song. It is a rhapsodic piece typified by a modal folk-music sound with roots far back in both Nordic and eastern European soil. Here, Holmboe is stylistically close to his chamber concertos of the1940's, and one rembers his colleague Svend Erik Tarp's teasing remark from then: "We are all fond of Vagn's Romanian folk rythems from the Horsens area". (Horsens, in Jutland, was Holmboe's native city.)
The first movment is a powerful prologue to the second movment wich is the main part of the work. Like a popular festival the music grows here through a combination of complex temperaments, and the movement even involves somthing as atypical for Holmboe as a long solo cadenza for piano.