The music of Per Nørgård

The Danish composer, Per Norgard (b. 1932) is widely acclaimed as the most important living composer in Scandinavia. His music, while highly personal in form and expression, takes up the mantle of Carl Nielsen and Jean Sibelius. The Music of Per Norgard: Fourteen Interpretative Essays is the first book on the composer in English. It is written by composers and scholars who have been concerned with Norgard's music for many years. Their essays cover the broad range of genres and techniques tackled by the composer, and in his own concluding essay, Norgard for the first time recounts, in fascinating detail, his childhood and adolescence in Copenhagen as well as his earliest years as a composer. The Music of Per Norgard not only pays hommage to a Danish master musician of universal appeal but also provides a valuable research tool for all those interested in contemporary music and its development over the last half of this century.