The textual history of Tveitt’s ‘melodramatic ballet’ Baldur’s Dreams is highly convoluted. Composed between 1934 and 1937, it was performed in concert in Germany and Oslo, and the score forwarded to Covent Garden for a possible staging. It was believed destroyed in the London Blitz, so in 1951 – just after Jón Leifs had completed his own ‘choreographic’ drama Baldr – Tveitt attempted a reconstruction; from that, Kaare Dyvik Husby reconstructed in 1999 three excerpts, which the team on this new release recorded as the Sun God Symphony (7/01). Examination of fragments from the fire that destroyed Tveitt’s home in 1970, however, revealed that a score of the original version had survived. Using the fragments and a recording of a 1938 broadcast, Husby and Alexei Rybnikov reconstructed the full ballet, recorded here for the first time.

The treatments by Tveitt and Leifs are very different. Where the Icelander spotlit Baldr within the Norse divine pantheon, pitting him against the evil Loki, Tveitt creates a more pastoral version, where a human Baldur is reincarnated, after falling in battle, to be revered as a sun god. At the end, Tveitt depicts Baldur’s apotheosis caused by the setting sun while Leifs capped his drama, typically, with a volcanic eruption.

Tveitt’s folk-oriented, more danceable score is written in a brand of Nordic impressionism. His orchestration is far more brilliant than that of Leifs, remarkably so since he was not yet 30 when he completed it – which might also explain some naïve bombast in the later stages. His use of solo voices is key to the textural variety without crossing into opera or oratorio.

Telemarkin dates from just before Baldur’s Dreams but is a rather different piece, a cantata in honour of the folk fiddler, Myllarguten. Hence the prominent part for Hardanger fiddle. Part cantata, part concerto, Telemarkin is a curio, full of invention that does not quite come off.

Once again the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra play out of their skins in some difficult and unfamiliar repertoire under Ole Kristian Ruud’s inspired direction. All of the soloists give of their best, though Kringelborn’s contribution to Act 3 of the ballet and Trine Øien in Telemarkin are especially fine. The BIS sound is near ideal. An attractive release.