Crossing Borders

Paul Hillier and Ars Nova Copenhagen continue their exploration of Danish vocal music.

The main work here, Line Tjørnhøj’s ‘Vox Reportage’, was composed in close cooperation with the artists, and weaves various sources together – including 1981 Nobel laureate Elias Canetti, Chelsea Manning, and Rabi’ah al Adawiyya (8th-century Iraq) – to create a ‘reportage’ on the nature of humanity over the past thousand years. In Carl Nielsen’s ’Three Motets’, Renaissance polyphony and the composer’s more personal style are molded into something fresh and powerful; the Swedish Romantic composer Wilhelm Stenhammar sets Danish texts, while Vagn Holmboe sets British border ballads. Everything about this album crosses borders of one kind or another!