Old and new, north and south.

Romantarctica, by contemporary Norwegian violinist and composer Henning Kraggerud (born 1973), comes with a subtitle: Heroes from the past and hopes for the future. The ‘heroes from the past’ include Artic and Antarctic explorers Roald Amundsen (1872-1928) and Robert Falcon Scott (1868-1912), adventurers whom Kraggerud describes as ‘romantics first and foremost’. Noting that Scott took a gramophone with him to Antarctica, Kraggerud is also mindful of the music that Amundsen and Scott may have been exposed to in their formative years, music by composers of the so-called Romantic era (basically, the 19th century). Thus, the title Romantarctica signals ‘Romantic’, ‘Arctic’ and ‘Antarctica’. Scored for two (unspecified) solo instruments and orchestra, Romantarctica is heard in this performance with solo violin and clarinet. The clarinet, incidentally, is more accurately a basset clarinet, having a lower range than the B-flat and A clarinets. While Romantarctica is not overtly pictorial, some listeners might imagine an arctic fox frolicking about a white landscape at the start of the piece and, a little later, we hear a theme described by the composer as a ‘funeral theme’, a reminder of the fact that both Scott and Amundsen perished in the world’s polar regions.

KRAGGERUD Romantarctica (20')

Henning Kraggerud director & violin
Andrew Seymour clarinet

Federation Concert Hall
Friday 12 May 2023
nipaluna/Hobart, Tasmania, Australia