This work is a major late-career statement by composer Bent Sørensen, born in Copenhagen in 1958. In all likelihood, he will have the satisfaction of hearing it performed often in his old age, for it is an absolutely fascinating work. Much of Sørensen's music has been in smaller forms and closely explores extensions of the tonal repertory of choral singers, but here, he works on a larger canvas. Integral to the project is the text, which he designates as "Curated by Jakob Holtze." Words describing the Passion from Gospel According to St. Matthew are there, but they are interleaved with poetry, most of it in English (even the Danish poetry), by Edith Södergran, Anna Akhmatova, Emily Dickinson, Seren Ulrik Thomsen, Ole Sarvig, and Frank Jæger.

Bent Sørensen’s quietly spoken universe incorporates loneliness, nostalgia and a feeling of loss and leave-taking. Of the works on this album, his triple concerto, L’Isola della Città (2015), has a purity that makes it one of the composer’s most immediate and gripping orchestral works. His dramatic Second Symphony (2019) dives into the resonance of music’s classical history, where every sound is considered with the greatest care and refinement.

The recording project Northscapes weaves works—from the first decades of the twenty-first century by composers from the Nordic and Baltic countries of Europe—into a tapestry of soundscapes, vibrating between landscape and the imagination, between the external and internal, between nature and psyche. What these works for piano solo share is a particular attunement to nature, reverberating out of the ever-present reservoir of pagan myths, legends, and folk music of the region. Their sensitivity to the sonic environment allows these composers to explore the liminal space dividing yet connecting landscape, soundscape, and mindscape.