London Festival of Baroque Music
Rímur
Trio Mediæval and Arve Henriksen
Smith Square Hall. 30 October 2026
Trio Mediæval are a Scandinavian trio that I have reviewed and followed since their very first UK concert, nearly 30 years ago. The unique blend of traditional music from their homelands and mainstream medieval and contemporary music is always inventive and beautifully performed. These two elements combined in this concert when they joined with jazz trumpeter Arve Henriksen in a programme based on their 2016 ECM recording. The roots of the CD go back to summers spent by the Dalsfjorden on the Norwegian coast, where most of the music for the recording, and this concert was created. Inspired by Icelandic sagas, chants, folk songs, religious hymns and fiddle tunes, the quartet arranged songs combining improvisation, mediaeval and traditional music from Iceland, Norway and Sweden.
Their concert was an extraordinarily evocative and moving experience, combining perfect vocal intonation and unaffected pure tone from the three singers of Trio Mediæval (Anna Maria Friman, Ditte Marie Bræin, and Jorunn Lovise Husan) and subtly inventive trumpet playing from Arve Henriksen, who also successfully joined in vocally in several of the pieces. Along with the trumpet, we also heard some cleverly designed square-section hand chimes, a neat little squeeze box, and the haunting sound of a traditional Norwegian hardanger fiddle and some pre-recorded sounds controlled from a tablet by Arve Henriksen. He also played a range of instruments alongside a traditional trumpet, including some that looked a little home-made, not least a trumpet with its bell removed, and extra length of tubing added, and played through what looked like a saxophone mouthpiece, producing a wonderful bass tone.
The concert opened with the gently rocking Morgunstjarna, from 17th-century Iceland in an arrangement by Anna Maria Friman who, along with earlier members of Trio Mediæval, had arranged most of the music. The gentle sound of the trumpet blended beautifully with the sound of the three voices. Other highlights were the anonymous 13th/14th century St Magnus Hymn Nobilis humilis, Bånsull, a traditional lullaby from Norway arranged by the founder of Trio Mediæval, Linn Andrea Fuglseth, and Sol lucet, an impressive contemporary piece by Marianne Reidarsdatter Eriksen, the three voices intertwining evocative melismas and vocalisations as though calling across the valleys from mountain tops, in praise of the sun. A YouTube video of it can be found here.
