Prokofiev:
Quintet in G minor, Op. 39 for Oboe, Clarinet, Violin, Viola and Double-bass

Ness, J O:
Bal?rak, Quartet for Oboe, Violin, Viola and Cello
Balsi?, Concerto for Oboe and Sinfonietta

Prokofiev's chamber music output is relatively modest--a handful of sonatas, two string quartets, an overture of Hebrew themes for clarinet, string quartet and piano, as well as this quintet for oboe, clarinet, violin, viola and bass.

The quintet, with its peculiar instrumentation and its tonal and rhythmic playfulness-- described by some as "successfully circusy"--is a prime example of Prokofiev as an ironist and humorist, a superb craftsman who elegantly juggles his material and produces surprisingly sonorous, tonal and rhythmic kaleidoscopes. The work is one of his most radical, but the crassness of the elements is placated by the lightness of the form--like a kind of polite insolence

Humour has long been a central ingredient in Jon Oivind Ness's music, ever since he put his perilous life as a cat owner to music in the trombone concerto Dangerous Kitten (1997). In recent years, his music has transformed significantly, from the complex irony of the 90s, via the almost--to quote the composer himself--romantic fervour of the mid-00s, to a microtonally oriented musical language and occasionally ascetic expression in the last 10 years or so. Broadly speaking, there has been a development from the anarchistic maximal to the punctuated minimal (albeit occasionally massive), but as is so often the case, a leopard doesn't always completely change his spots.

Performers on this recording:

Sara Ovinge - violin; Anders Rensvik - viola; Ingvill Hafskjold - clarinet; Gunnar Hauge - cello; Marius Flatby - double bass; Ensemble Ernst