Few who have invested in this series so far can doubt that these are among the most commanding symphonies to have emerged in postwar Europe. Some might even argue that they're the finest since Sibelius and Nielsen. All credit to Owain Arwel Hughes and the Aarhus orchestra for their committed advocacy and to BIS for recording them in such vivid, naturally balanced sound. The 11th, composed in 1980, is quintessential Holmboe, and its atmosphere resonates in the mind long after you've heard it. To quote Knud Ketting's notes, 'the symphony's climax in dynamic and emotional terms comes in the second movement and it then slowly retreats within itself…[it] is cast as a strong arch, which impresses at first hearing, and commands increasing admiration on closer acquaintance'. The arabesque that opens the symphony seems to come from another world and the transparent, luminous textures communicate the sense of a spiritual quest that one rarely encounters in modern music. The 12th is a taut, well-argued piece, and is, like its two companions on this disc, in three movements.
No one listening to the 13th, written at the instigation of Owain Arwel Hughes, would think that it was the work of an 85-year-old.
There have been other octogenarian symphonies, but none that sounds quite so youthful or highly charged as this.