Following on from the previous collection of Norwegian Classical Favourites (Naxos 8.557017), this selection of orchestral works marks the transition between the more traditional music inspired by folk-song, dance and poetry as exemplified by Grieg, Sinding and Svendsen, and the music of the ‘progressive’ composers active in the 1920s. Amongst the best known are the individualist Harald Sæverud who explained that his music grew “out of the Norwegian soil and the landscape – not from Norwegian folk-music”, the even more radical Fartein Valen, whose The churchyard by the sea was popularised by many conductors, including Stokowski and Markevitch, and Geirr Tveitt whose highly individual style is heard to best effect on this recording in Hardanger ale, a Norwegian version of Ravel’s Boléro.