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Orchestral music by
Lodewijk Mortelmans -
heard by
ROBERT ANDERSON

'The performances ... are a delight ...'

Mortelmans: Homerische symfonie. © 2009 Hyperion Records Ltd

This Flemish composer finds increasing breathing-space as successive Groves expand; but we're told the songs are the best of him. The first and last of these orchestral works are among the curtain-lowerers of the nineteenth century, with Wagner not long dead, and Brahms battling cancer during Spring. Strauss may have been hurtling across the musical stage, but Mortelmans took no notice; nor did he worry that Mahler clearly felt the play was already over and entertained himself with a few protracted and more or less grotesque curtain-calls; still less did he bother that Schoenberg busied himself imposing a musical tyranny in the name of musical democracy...

Copyright © 27 November 2010 Robert Anderson,
London UK

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CD INFORMATION: MORTELMANS - HOMERISCHE SYMFONIE

BELGIUM

ORCHESTRAL MUSIC

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