Arne Nordheim was rightly considered to be the one of the most innovative composers of our time. This status is affirmed by almost every work of his impressive output, which provides clear evidence
of his inspiring pioneering spirit and supreme command of the compositional craft. Nordheim’s openness and international orientation, his willingness to receive musical impulses from abroad and his constant search for new means of expression and new musical forms and ideas, became a worthy alternative to the prevailing national-romantic movement in Norwegian music. It is Nordheim’s merit that new doors were opened to creating music – young composers especially learned through Nordheim that there was a worthy world to explore intensively outside Norway.
Furthermore Nordheim’s Danish colleague, Per Norgard, has hailed him as ‘the innovator of not only Norwegian music, but also of Scandinavian music as such’.

During his life Nordheim worked with a long list of prominent musicians, ensembles and orchestras: Mstislav Rostropovich, Electric Phoenix and the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam
to mention a few.

Arne Nordheim’s death follows a period of prolonged illness.

Please click here for violinist Peter Herrestahl’s music video homage ‘Partita for Arne’

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