Halvorsen: Violin Concerto & Chant de la "Veslemøy" - EP

In Oslo in 1909, the Canadian violinist Kathleen Parlow gave the premiere performance of Norwegian composer Johan Halvorsen’s Violin Concerto. But just 20 years later Halvorsen had burnt a number of manuscripts on retiring, and it was thought that the Concerto was among those works lost forever. In 2015, however, a copy of the orchestral score was discovered among Parlow’s personal possessions in the archive of the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music Library. The search for this magnificent Concerto is the subject of the 2024 film Measures for a Funeral, at the end of which a character named Elisa (played by violinist María Dueñas) performs the newly discovered work. The recording here is a new 2026 performance by Dueñas with the Orchestre Métropolitain and conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and captures all the music’s drama and soulfulness. Blending Sibelius and Bruch, Halvorsen’s Concerto is richly Romantic with moments of raw, dance-like Scandinavian ebullience.