An old fiddle maker from Hardanger in Norway once said about the really old Hardanger fiddles: "They are not good because they are old; they are old because they are good." The same goes for playing slåtter (a general term for Norwegian folk melodies, songs and dances) and folk music in general. This music has been refined over time, and the best has survived where there was a living folk music tradition - mostly where traditions were passed down orally from one generation to the next, as is still the case in many places today.
The album "Vetra" features folk music that Ludvig Mathias Lindeman collected and wrote down in Valdres.
After two chamber music programs, Norwegian Ragnhild Hemsing has been able to win over one of her country's most important orchestras for her third album with the Berlin Classics label: The Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Eivind Aadland. "This excellent orchestra has been very dear to me for many years. I was 14 years old when I first performed with them. At that time with the violin concerto by Mendelssohn. I was terribly excited and I will never forget it," recalls the violinist, now 35. Since then, she has played many concerts with the orchestra and has been able to increase her fame in her home country and also in the international music world.
Adventurousness, boasting and fistfuls of lies... For her second album on the Berlin Classics label, the Norwegian violinist and Hardanger fiddle player Ragnhild Hemsing has taken on one of Norway's most famous and legendary figures: Peer Gynt. She is not part of the original orchestration, but has had selected sections of the Peer Gynt showcase music, op. 23 arranged for her solo instruments hardanger fiddle and violin together with string orchestra - and thus establishes the connection between Peer Gynt's traditional story and Norwegian folk music.
On RØTA, her debut album with the German label Berlin Classics, Ragnhild Hemsing presents her Norwegian roots on the violin and Hardanger fiddle, thereby placing her identity and the link to her musical training centre stage. Ragnhild Hemsing, in compiling RØTA, has recorded works by famous Norwegian composers such as Grieg and Halvorsen alongside four different folk melodies for the Hardanger fiddle from her homeland.
RØTA has won the renowned OPUS KLASSIK award in 2021 in the category "Classical music without boarders".
NEW RECORDING: Ragnhild Hemsing´s new recording together with pianist Tor Espen Aspaas will been released in October 2020 on record label 2L.
Repertoire:
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827)
Sonata No. 8 for Violin and Piano in G Major, Op. 30 No. 3
Sonata No. 9 for Violin and Piano in A Major, Op. 47 «Kreutzer»
NEW RECORDING: Ragnhild Hemsing´s new recording together with pianist Tor Espen Aspaas has been released in May 2017 on record label 2L.
Producer: Morten Lindberg
Repertoire: Nordic programme with works for Violin and Piano by Edvard Grieg, Carl Nielsen and Jean Sibelius
Ragnhild Hemsing´s debut album with all Norwegian music; classical and Norwegian folk music performed both on classical violin and the Hardanger fiddle, a Norwegian folk music instrument.
Pianist: Tor Espen Aspaas
Record label: SIMAX
Year: 2011
YR is the debut of an artist with a dynamite personality that is audible in every stroke of the bow. Combining traditional Hardanger fiddle playing and a classical approach at this level is done by few others that Ragnhild Hemsing (1988).
Halvorsen: Orchestral Works, Vol. 3 with Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Neeme Järvi, Marianne Thorsen, Ragnhild Hemsing & Melina Mandozzi.
Record label: Chandos
Year: 2011