Symfoni nr. 7 (2006)
(Symphony no. 7)

The nature of the music might be described as a drunken night prowler’s walk through a strange city being rebuilt for a carnival.

A rythmically animate music, a vibrant, busy and almost metropolitan driving force.
****** (6 stars out of 6)

Bold and arresting. There’s a Wagnerian sweep and grandeur to his writing that is leavened by sudden appearances of dance interludes or little bursts of sunny tonal harmony.

Well worth exploring.
**** (4 stars out of 5)

Spellbinding. It captures the imagination on first hearing and reveals ever more secrets with subsequent listening.

Danish music radio’s best kept secret: Per Nørgård’s Seventh Symphony.

A gestural music that may seem downright aggressive. However, at the same time lyrically simple and lucid in its second movement initiated by unadorned, beautifully singing woodwinds before a wall of gleaming white major rises in perfect contrast.
***** (5 stars out of 6)

Strident intensity in three movements. Nørgård produces music of virtually prophetic dimensions reflecting the violent temper of our times.
**** (4 stars out of 6)

As with its two predecessors, this work confronts the perennial challenges of symphonic writing head-on – its three movements (lasting 27 minutes) bringing a Classical rigour and focus to bear on material that, in common with Nørgård's music these past two decades, has an aural and expressive spontaneity such as offers numerous possibilities but also a ready incitement to listening: the expected and unpredictable brought into a poised and constantly changing accord.