Perhaps you like your music in a mindfulness mode and are on the look out for new moodmusiq to help you through part of the day. Good piano playing is a great start, especially where it is pretty unknown and brings no annoying baggage of familiarity with it. Under the hands of Leif Ove Andsnes you’ll hear unusual piano sounds which come from an undetected well of gold. Try track 2: are they golden raindrops, or ancient Chinese modes? Where does your imagination take you?

Ten tracks are short folk songs from the Hardanger part of Norway, where  special fiddles have eight strings and a heavy resonant sound that you might have heard in the voice of the Rohan theme in The Two Towers and The Return of the King. Try track 8 if you like Peter Maxwell Davies’ Farewell to Stromness but have heard it a bit too often.

For truly melting simple beauty, the singing of Solveig Andsnes will take you into the Scandinavian realms overseen in Barbara Bonney’s Diamonds in the Snow. The blend of tender immediacy and the artistry of the brother and sister Andsnes have hardly been heard since Lorraine Hunt Lieberson’s legendary album of Peter Lieberson’s Neruda Songs. Try tracks 14, 17 and 22.  Then try tracks 18, 19 and 20 where there is a touch of the bitter sweet of the cabaret songs of Sylvia McNair and André Previn.

Available now for streaming here. For more information about Leif’s concerts, click here.