Odd Grüner-Hegge: The Piano Trios 1919 & 1968
Berit Cardas (Violin) | Bjørg Lewis (Cello) | Tor Espen Aspaas (Piano)
Listen
Tracks
Odd Grüner-Hegge (1899–1973)
TrioOp. 4 (Odd Grüner-Hegge)
TrioOp. 4 Revista 1968 (Odd Grüner-Hegge)
Credits
- Performer
- Berit Cardas (Violin) | Bjørg Lewis (Cello) | Tor Espen Aspaas (Piano)
- Composer
- Odd Grüner-Hegge
- Producer
- Vegard Landaas
- Engineer
- Thomas Wolden
- Editing
- Vegard Landaas
- Mastering
- Thomas Wolden
- Liner notes
- Trond Olav Svendsen
- Executive producer
- Vegard Landaas
- Booklet editor
- Alison Bullock Aarsten
- PR
- Camilla Momkvist-Skau
- Accounting
- Torgeir M. Landaas
- Artist photo
- Tor Espen Aspaas by Eirin Østgaardsgjelten Sørum | Berit Cardas by Sveinung Hoel Bjorå | Bjørg Lewis by Sveinung Hoel Bjorå
- Design
- Anette L’orange | Blunderbuss
- Recording location
- Ris Church, Oslo
- Recording country
- Norway
- Recording year
- 2024
- Recording dates
- 27.11.2024 | 28.11.2024 | 29.11.2024
- Original source
- DXD (352.8 kHz, 24 bit)
- Discs / tracks
- 1 disc | 8 tracks
- Release year
- 2026
- Label
- LAWO Classics
- Duration
- 1:06:26
- EAN
- 7090020184098
- ISRC
- NOEHX2617010-70
Biographies
Berit Cardas
Berit Cardas started playing the violin at the age of 8. She studied at the music conservatoire in Oslo, at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hanover, Germany, and at the University of Minnesota, USA. She plays both the violin and the viola and appears regularly as a soloist on both instruments. In her quartet, the Vertavo String Quartet, she has played both 1st and 2nd violin and the viola. Founded in 1984, the ensemble has won the Grieg Prize, the Nordic Chamber Music Competition and the 1st prize, the Audience Prize and the Radio listeners’ Prize at the 2nd Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition in 1995.
Berit Cardas is on the artistic committee of the Oslo Quartet Series and she runs twinned chamber music festivals in Norway. She is an active chamber music teacher and leads popular workshops combining her backgrounds in theater improvisation and chamber music.
Orchestral conducting is the latest addition to Cardas’ career. She has conducted the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Bergen Philharmonic orchestra, Arctic Philharmonic and the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Stavanger Symphony orchestra and The Royal Norwegian Navy Band. She is the chief conductor of the Norwegian Youth Symphony Orchestra.
Berit Cardas is grateful to be able play a Lorenzo Storioni violin (1770) lent to her by the Norwegian Dextra Musica foundation.
Bjørg Lewis
Bjørg Lewis is one of Norway's most sought-after and admired cellists. She has been a soloist with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra with Mariss Jansons conducting, as well as performing with orchestras throughout Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Baltics. She has collaborated with musicians such as Leif Ove Andsnes, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Elisabeth Batiashvili, Truls Mørk, Steven Isserlis, Martin Fröst and the Nash Ensemble.
Bjørg is a founding member of the Vertavo String Quartet, an internationally acclaimed ensemble that has received numerous awards, including Norway's prestigious Grieg Prize in 2005, and made numerous highly acclaimed recordings.
A busy performance schedule takes Bjørg throughout Europe, North America and Japan. In the UK she has performed at several festivals, including The BBC Proms, Edinburgh, Bath and Aldeburgh, and she performs regularly in the Wigmore Hall. From 2001 to 2015 she was Artistic Director of the Elverum Festival in Norway, and in 2009, together with Paul Lewis, she started Midsummer Music, an annual chamber music festival held in the Chilterns. The Vertavo Quartet started its own festival in Norway, which launched in September 2016.
Bjørg Lewis plays a Gennaro Gagliano cello of 1748 – previously played by Martin Lovett of the Amadeus Quartet – generously loaned to her by the Dextra Musica foundation.
Tor Espen Aspaas
Tor Espen Aspaas is one of Norway’s leading pianists, chamber musicians and musical communicators. In 2016 he was made Knight 1st Class of the Royal Norwegian Order of St Olav, recognising his significant contribution to Norwegian musical life.
Aspaas earned his postgraduate soloist diploma at the Norwegian Academy of Music in 1996 and made his acclaimed Oslo debut the following year. He has since appeared with major Norwegian and international orchestras, beginning with the Oslo Philharmonic in 2000 and 2002, performing Mozart’s C minor Concerto and Ravel’s G major Concerto. His collaborations include conductors such as Frans Brüggen, Michel Plasson and Krzysztof Urbanski, and he has premiered several piano concertos, notably works by Olav A. Thommessen and Terje Bjørklund.
At the age of 34, Aspaas became a tenured professor at the Norwegian Academy of Music, later serving as Vice Principal. His research has focused on Beethoven’s improvisational practice, particularly in the 32 piano sonatas, which he performs complete. After a period as a full‑time freelance artist, he returned to academia in 2025 as professor at the music faculty of The Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim.
A co‑founder and several times artistic director of Vinterfestspill i Bergstaden in Røros, Aspaas appears regularly at festivals worldwide. His discography includes 16 titles, among them acclaimed recordings of Beethoven, Schönberg, Berg, Webern, and the complete piano works of Paul Dukas, named historic reference recording by Diapason magazine in 2025.