New music from Denmark is one of the themes of this year's Huddersfield Contemporary Music festival, with an exploration of the recent work of 53-year-old composer-in-residence Bent Sørensen at its heart. The emphasis of Sørensen's music has shifted in recent years, away from conventional chamber and orchestral pieces towards projects that are more conceptually based, such as the outdoor installation The White Forest. Its audio element, Snowbells, featuring recordings of church bells from Jutland together with Sørensen's choral music, has been transplanted from Jutland in high summer to the chilly courtyard outside the performing space at Bates Mill for the festival.
An introduction to Sørensen's creative world was provided by a documentary concert given by the Danish group Ensemble Scenatet, in which the screening of a silent film by Michael Madsen showing the composer at his home in rural Denmark was juxtaposed with performances of a sequence of his recent instrumental miniatures. Solo pieces for violin, guitar, trombone and piano, together with movements from the 2007 piano trio Phantasmagoria, accompanied slowly panning shots of everyday activities such as watching TV, cutting the grass and playing solitaire, as well as composing. It was charming but rather lightweight, while the selection of music underlines a fondness for a rather sentimental brand of melancholy.
The UK premiere of Sørensen's most recent piece, included in the low-key opening concert by the strings of the Trondheim Soloists, had offered more of the same. Composed for the accordionist Frode Haltli, It Is Pain Flowing Down Slowly on a White Wall sometimes evokes Astor Piazzolla's Buenos Aires, sometimes the Paris of Inspector Maigret. The ensemble hums along at one point, play melodicas at another, and eventually troop off stage, leaving the accordionist with just the cellos and bass for company.
