Review in UK Recorder Magazine
Palle Mikkelborg is a Danish jazz trumpeter and composer who has collaborated with such luminaries as Miles Davies, Ravi Shankar and Don Cherry. This disc features “Going To Pieces Without falling Apart” and “Afterthoughts”, the former being a concerto for harp and recorder and strings (with michala Petri`s contribution as soloist earning the disc a note in this illustrious publication) and the latter. A work for solo trumpet.
Mikkleborg`s music is very deeply rooted in his own spiritual life. Says he, “ I see my musical career as a symphony in many movements: each movement capturing impressions of fascinating meetings with musicians from many cultural spheres, knowing that we are all painting with different colours on our palettes” That painterly attitude to life provides an insight the compositional process behind his concerto, which takes the form of twelve short movements. The Dawn Chorus – Morning Raga – Sunrise – The African Girl – A Summer Nightfall – Chanting Monks – Gentle Summer Rain – A Spiritual carousel – A Golden Mystery – The Chines Girl – Lullabies While the Adults Are Talking – Shadow Waltz.
NO movement is more than six minutes long, and each is primarily concerned with the crystallizing of a sound-world rather than the generating of a long-range emotional or tonal structure. Mikkelborg is, if you like, an imagine maker, and this isen`t to damn his work with faint praise; his emotional pictures are obviously very deeply felt. Perhaps his music might effectively be described as film music, with the film left to the listeners imagination. At any rate, his performers respond beautifully, Helen Davies` harp and Michala Petri`s recorder intertwining and entering fully into what are undeniably some pretty supremely crafted sound-worlds; Mikkelborg owes a lot to his very fine engineer, too.
Petri`s sound is instantly recognizable, of course, and its fullness is entirely appropriate her, this double concerto is a fitting vehicle for her. Cat Groom,- January 2014