Three Short Variations on the Chorale, "Fear, my child, the true God"

The organist, composer and conductor Bjarne Sløgedal (1927-2014) was born in Finsland in Vest-Agder on June 13, 1927. As a 13-year-old he started collecting folk tones. Sløgedal has created several hundred compositions and arrangements during these years. Some of his organ compositions are often played internationally.

He studied at the Music Conservatory in Oslo, The Royal Conservatory in The Hague, and at the Juilliard School of Music, New York.

In Norway he is best known as the initiator and artistic director of the International Church Festival in Kristiansand from 1971 - 1996, and as an organist, composer and conductor. He was employed as a cathedral organist in the city from 1951 - 1996, and started at that time Kristiansand Cathedral's Motettkor choir. He developed the choir to great recognition both in Norway and internationally. For several years in the 1960s, the choir won Scandinavian choir competitions. As an organist and conductor, he gave concerts in a number of countries in Europe, Israel and the United States, and received excellent reviews in international press.

Bjarne Sløgedal has received many awards and honors, including the Knights Cross of the first class of the Order of St. Olav.

Bjarne Sløgedal died on February 3, 2014.

I kept seeing this (without knowing what it was) in a stack of music, so, I pulled it out and recording it, hoping to do justice to the music, and showing the Peterborough Hill in a different "sound costume."

"Three Short Variations" ("Liten partita over koralen "Frykt mitt barn, den sanne Gud") was published by Norse Musikforlag in 1982. It is a theme, and and as the title states, 3 short variations on the chorale.

I don't know too many works by Bjarne Sløgedal, but the few that I have heard seem to be colorful, well-conceived, and nicely balanced.

I've attached two photos of Bjarne Sløgedal below.