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In the introductory work The Volga Boatmen, Niels Viggo Bentzon works with the ancient melodic material in twenty fundamentally different variations, each of which is about the reality associated with the material. The old worksong is treated reverently, challengingly and parodically. In Bentzon's early sonata from 1941, the young composer ranges over the musical idioms of the period. The music is at once atmospheric and clearly stated. The form is traditional, but not reactionary. The later sonata from 1971 is full of energetic motifs and is coloured by mechanical repetition, intense accumulations of energy and powerful drive. There is something of the perpetual motion machine about the work that makes the musical material crystallize in a typically Bentzonesque way.