Halvorsen - Dance Scene from 'Queen Tamara'

Composed by Johan Halvorsen, a late nineteenth-early twentieth century Norwegian composer. It is a piece of incidental music for a play based on Queen Tamara of Georgia, written by Knut Hamsun. It is also heavily influenced by Halvorsen's visit in 1896 to the colonial exhibition in Berlin, where he was greatly impressed by the collection about the Egyptian khedive. Halvorsen has been called Norway's Rimsky-Korsakov, as a result of his brilliant orchestration. In this dance scene this is doubly true, as it has a exotic, eastern sound that Rimsky often employed. Grieg commented: "Your piece of ballet music is in my opnion worth more than the entire Tamara! [referring to the play]" Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra Neeme Jarvi, conductor