Leif Ove Andsnes releases first single from the album Geirr Tveitt

The recording marks the culmination of a two-year artistic immersion in one of the most ambitious and distinctive works in Norwegian music history, a work Andsnes himself has described as “perhaps the most ambitious solo piano piece written by a Norwegian composer.” The project has yielded striking results: Andsnes’ performance of the sonata at Carnegie Hall was named one of the Best Classical Performances of 2025 by The New York Times.

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Sonata etere holds a unique position in Geirr Tveitt’s output. Of the composer’s 36 piano sonatas, this is the only one to have survived the devastating fire at Tveitt’s farm in 1970, in which an estimated 70 to 80 percent of his complete works were lost. That this particular sonata, the one Tveitt himself valued most highly, was preserved makes it a rare and invaluable testament to the composer’s artistic legacy.

In February 2026, Leif Ove Andsnes visited the Tveitt farm, where he saw the burnt manuscripts and played the piano on which Geirr Tveitt composed Sonata No. 29, Op. 129 “Sonata etere”.

For Andsnes, the sonata stands as an exceptional work: “A large-scale sonata, possibly the most epic piece ever written for solo piano in Norway. Fantastically colorful in its writing for the instrument, full of tension in its architecture, harmony, and rhythm.”

In Sonata etere, French-inspired sonorities, modal scales, and compelling, Russian-influenced rhythms converge in a musical language that is unmistakably Tveitt’s own. The entire work is built on two simple, folk-inspired themes that are continuously transformed.

The album Geirr Tveitt also includes a selection of piano pieces from Fifty Folk Tunes from Hardanger, as well as songs set to poetry by Norwegian poets, performed by Solveig Andsnes with Leif Ove Andsnes at the piano. Together, the album presents a comprehensive portrait of a composer who fused Norwegian folk music with currents of European modernism to create a highly individual musical voice.

The album Geirr Tveitt is produced by Jørn Pedersen with Arne Akselberg as recording engineer, and will be released on Simax Classics on April 24, 2026, on CD, in a limited LP edition, digitally, and in Dolby Atmos.