Håkan Hardenberger and Roland Pöntinen - Autumn Aubade (2025) [Hi-Res]

Håkan Hardenberger and Roland Pöntinen have enjoyed a fruitful artistic relationship for over forty years. They have played, toured and recorded together and have devoted much time and energy to repertoire ideas. ‘For us to create a new programme is an exciting, stimulating and fun process’, says Pöntinen. ‘A process that often mirrors our mutual interest in jazz, film and other art forms. The idea of juxtaposing works of contrasting characters, or composed centuries apart, can often shed new light on the music itself.’ We are treated here to recently composed works, arrangements, favourites of both musicians and standards from the Great American Songbook.

The centrepiece of the programme is Three Autumns by Staffan Storm, atmospherically connected to Anna Akhmatova’s poetry, a reflection on elegiac autumn moods. Among contemporary composers, Mark-Anthony Turnage and HK Gruber, who have provided Hardenberger with more works than any other composers, are also represented. Roland Pöntinen contributes two pieces, one of them a meditative work inspired by the simplicity and mood of Thomas Newman’s masterful film scores. Légende by George Enescu reflects the impressionistic style of the composer’s teachers.

The recital is also interspersed with shorter pieces, arrangements and reinterpretations of classic American songs, and includes legendary jazzman Ornette Coleman’s Chanting, a favourite encore in Harden-berger/Pöntinen programmes – always improvised, every time different.