I had hoped I could 'sneak' in a write up of 'Frederik Magle's' new composition 'The Secret Garden' on Easter Sunday, but it didn't prove possible, although I still feel it would have been an appropriately reflective track for that day. Magle is a Danish composer we've written about before, last July in fact, when he released his piece for two trumpets and an organ entitled 'The Fairest of Roses', and he's a successful composer who has written for Danish Royal Family, and has seen his compositions performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra as well as the Danish National Symphony Orchestra.
His new release is 'The Secret Garden', and touchingly its written specifically for the patients of the specialist Rigshospitalet Hospital in Copenhagen, which appealed to me having spent a lot of personal time in the last few weeks thinking of the difficulties and challenges of long term care in Hospitals and Care Homes, as well as visiting those places too.
It is also nice to be sent a slightly more substantial 9 minute classical piece to get totally lost in, as many of the similar classically influenced submissions we get have been squeezed into a disappointingly standard 3 mins 30 seconds. 'The Secret Garden' (performed in the video by the 'University of Serbia Faculty of Arts Orchestra' is given time, as if it needs to be discovered and then totally lost in. The main musical theme is introduced by flute, and he uses the full sounds of the orchestra to define both the gardens mystery and beauty. I'm going to make no attempt to compare with other classical composers, because I know nothing, but I am vaguely reminded at one point by Benjamin Britten, and there are some particularly beautiful moments, especially when the strings build just over 5 minutes in, and you can hear the resonance of the cello section pushing through - and the ending is really gorgeous too.
This is 'The Secret Garden':
Anyway if you want to read more about this lovely composition then he has written more about the reasons for writing 'The Secret Garden', along with the process he went through whilst composting it. https://www.magle.dk/blog/2019/677-the-secret-garden-music-for-the-radiation-therapy-at-rigshospitalet/
We look forward to future 'Frederik Magle' releases, and you can find him in the following places.