Release Date: 10 April 2026
Label: Simax
Packaging Type: Digipak
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 7033662013951
Genres: Classical
Composer/Series: Wallin, Part, Hallgrimsson
Description
Simax Classics presents this album featuring four major works for viola and strings, performed by Lars Anders Tomter and the string orchestra 1B1 under the direction of Jan Bjoranger. The release brings together music by Rolf Wallin, Haflidi Hallgrimsson, and Arvo Part, presenting the viola as an instrument with a singular voice: introspective, warm, and deeply human - a quality that has increasingly drawn contemporary composers to its sound.
Tomter reflects: "The composers are of different generations, but all vibrantly alive. Over the past decades, I have commissioned and premiered numerous concert works for viola and orchestra - a challenge many composers have approached with both curiosity and some hesitation. The fundamental character of the viola may be more inward than declamatory; it carries more of a Mona Lisa smile than theatrical gestures. This has made it a less frequently used solo instrument historically, yet perhaps all the more attractive to today's composers - its possibilities do not feel exhausted."
The album brings together four works that, in different ways, connect what we know with what we can only sense: city and wilderness, grief and silence, the body and the beyond.
"It is a powerful experience to witness the unveiling of a work of art in real time," says Lars Anders Tomter. "I hope listeners will find joy in this music, and that violists will take up these works and make them their own."
Performers:
1B1, Lars Anders Tomter: viola, Jan Bjoranger: leader
Tracklisting
Leif Ove Andsnes
Lars Anders Tomter / 1B1
Ensemble 96, Nina T. Karlsen & Vox Clamantis
Jonas Batstrand, Jorn Fossheim
Tone Kummervold
Per Kristian Skalstad, Telemark Chamber Orchestra
Ketil Bjornstad
Marius Neset, Leif Ove Andsnes
Clemens Hagen, Jan Bjoranger, Lars Anders Tomter & 1B1
