New Romanticism in Danish Music: about the Artistic Method of Bent Sorensen

At the center of the article's attention lies the music of contemporary Danish composer Bent Sorensen, who was awarded the prestigious Gravemeyer Awards in 2018. The author reveals the sources of compositional inspiration, the peculiarities of the figurative system, and the artistic ideas sustaining the musical compositions demonstrate the characteristic techniques which determine the descriptive topos of his music (an abundance of glissandi, sound repetitions, use of tapering of sound, special performance techniques, etc.). Special attention is given to two of Sorensen's compositions - the triple concerto L'isola della.itta (2015), the second movement of which reevaluates the finale of Beethoven's Piano Sonata opus 110, and the concerto for accordion and string instruments It is pain flowing down slowly on a white wall (2010), which contains a revised version of the idea of the musicians departing from the stage, similar to Haydn's "Farewell Symphony." On the basis of their analysis the particularities of the composer's interaction with the past and with tradition are shown. A complex of specific features intrinsic to Sorensen's artistic method is revealed: the programmatic character of the music; the poetics of silence; the aestheticization of the processes of decay; the specific figurative system focusing itself on "the evanescent" or "the absent"; the combination of tonality and atonality, sound and noise elements; the allocation of dialogue with the composer's predecessors by means of stylistic allusions and the reevaluation of their architectonic constructions. In conclusion, emphasis is made of the connection between Sorensen's musical thought and romantic aesthetics.