The music of Jesper Koch (b. 1967) is in a constant and fruitful dialogue with the past. Often melodious with tonal connotations and with a dreamlike quality that seeks to escape from reality in the cello concerto Dreamscapes, feels at home in oases of happiness and nostalgia in the violin concerto Arcadia Lost. And finally, the clarinet concerto Lonesome deals with different aspects of loneliness. The three concertos are presented here in world premiere recordings featuring the soloists they were written for. They, in turn, share a deep connection with the Odense Symphony Orchestra, always close to the composer's heart. Born in England, conductor Justin Brown studied at Cambridge University and Tanglewood Institute with Seiji Ozawa and Leonard Bernstein. Internationally acclaimed in both the symphonic and operatic repertoire, Justin Brown is General Music Director of the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe in Germany and was Music Director of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra in the United States.
Rued Langgaard (1893–1952) was a major Danish late-Romantic composer who did not gain recognition in his mother country. His greatest successes took place in Germany and Austria, where his Symphonies Nos. 2 and 6 were met with considerable acclaim. Back home, he never received that kind of backing and praise. He died a careworn and despairing individual. On this recording with one of the world’s leading orchestras, the tradition-conscious Vienna Philharmonic, one is therefore able to hear Langgaard's music 'return home' to a central European musical culture. At the same time things were going swimmingly for his colleague Jacob Gade (1879–1963) whose ‘Tango Jalousie’ has become the absolutely most frequently played piece of Danish music for almost a century. The two pieces are juxtaposed here to create a delightful programme.
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REVIEW:
Oramo and the Vienna Philharmonic [take] on two contrasted works by Rued Langgaard that illuminate this composer in all his stylistic diversity and recklessness. Such an idiom should be in this orchestra’s blood and the VPO do not disappoint – whether in the lyrically effulgent initial movement, with its discreetly modified sonata form, or the lithe finale. A mandatory purchase for its interpretative insights, committed playing and tangibly realistic sound.
All three composers featured on this recording were central to the Danish Golden Age, a period of blossoming in the arts and music that delivered countless gems. Here, principal players from the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra perform fine concertante works from two composers who are experiencing a renaissance and one who still languishes in obscurity. From the splendour of Kuhlau's William Shakespeare and his melodious Concertino, the fresh melodic qualities of Gade's Capriccio, and the as yet unpublished Oboe Concerto by Barth these new recordings from Aarhus make the case for four winning Danish scores.
Elverskud (The Elf-King’s Daughter) is a dramatic cantata from 1854, based on Danish medieval ballads. It became one of Niels W. Gade’s greatest successes, not only in his native Denmark, but throughout Europe, where Elverskud was performed several hundred times, often conducted by Gade himself. The work was written in the most fruitful and happy period of Gade’s life. This is reflected in the consummate work, in which, both textually and musically, Gade has struck a fine balance between national and more universal elements. Gade was especially admired in Germany, and on this album Elverskud is not only played on period instruments for the first time, but is also sung for the first time with the German text that brought the work international fame. Perhaps this Danish national work isn’t so Danish after all?
Horneman: Orchestral Works / Gustavsson, Danish National Symphony Orchestra
Dacapo Classical
SACD
$13.99Feb 28, 2012
Some of this music has been recorded before, by BIS, but the overture and the complete Kalanus Suite aren't otherwise available. Christian Horneman (1840-1906) wrote comparatively little music, most of it for the theater, and all of it (that I've heard anyway) is of high quality. The idiom is late romantic, the melodic invention consistently attractive, the scoring colorful and ear-catching. The music leaves you wanting more. The Gurre-Suite follows the same basic story as Schoenberg's Gurrelieder, except that in this version Tove gets locked in a sauna and steamed to death rather than poisoned by the jealous queen. The four concise movements consist of an overture, a love scene, Tove's funeral procession, and a brief Entr'acte as a finale.
The other major work here is the suite from Kalanus, in five relatively substantial movements--but arguably the most fun comes from the two dances (of satyrs and a bacchanal, respectively) in "Contest with the Muses". Trust me, it's all good, and the performances are absolutely terrific, with Johannes Gustavsson encouraging his players to give their very best. Dacapo's SACD engineering is also excellent. It may be that Horneman's entire life's work can be summed up on a single CD (not necessarily a bad thing in these days of mega-boxed sets), but it's one you won't want to miss.
Buxtehude: Scandinavian Cantatas / Hillier, Theatre Of Voices
Dacapo Classical
SACD
$13.99Nov 16, 2010
As the notes point out, Buxtehude "never held a position that required him to compose vocal music," but as these works show, he was no stranger to the practice, writing for the voice with adept concision that shows a remarkably wide expressive range and engaging tunefulness. The works are not complex by any means, and employ a minimal contingent of strings and/or organ just sufficient to support and add color to the vocal parts, and to supply textural and occasional imitative or contrasting thematic interest.
These little cantatas--each lasting between five and eight minutes--feature four or five voices (in one case, only a solo singer), with texts in Latin or (in two instances) Swedish, drawn from the Psalms or religious poetry. In addition to the cantatas--and a welcome organ Praeludium and Passacaglia--we hear the Kyrie and Gloria of a Missa alla brevis, Buxtehude's "only strictly liturgical work"; the extraordinary and delightfully surprising chromatic passages in the final few pages of the Gloria make this one of the program's more memorable--and immediately repeatable--moments.
Paul Hillier's one-voice-to-a-part configuration works very well for these pieces whose style often seems closer to the earlier 17th-century Italian madrigal than to northern European church music of the late 1600s (the opening vocal flourishes and overall expressive character of "Ecce nunc benedicite Domino", for instance). All of these singers are excellent, but among them Else Torp is particularly fine in her solo-cantata "Att du Jesu vill mig höra" (That you will hear me, Jesus). The instrumental ensemble and continuo playing, as well as the solo-organ renditions by Buxtehude expert Bine Bryndorf, are equally stylish and assured--and everything is recorded in state-of-the-art sound, from the church of St. Mary's, Elsinore (Helsingør), where Buxtehude once served as organist, and who played the (now restored) instrument heard here.
Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (1932–2016) wrote string quartets all his life. Fourteen in all; the first three dating from 1959, the last ones from 2013. Launching its complete cycle of Gudmundsen-Holmgreen’s string quartets, the Nordic String Quartet here presents the first six quartets: Honesty meets schoolboy pranks, obstinacy meets doubt, yes meets no – Gudmundsen-Holmgreen’s string quartets are full of such clashes. We start at one point and end at a totally different one. Never fusty, often entertaining, always adamant. Nordic String Quartet is a young, highly skilled quartet, formed by professor Tim Frederiksen, and thus following the successes of the Danish String Qartet and Nightingale String Quartet. The album is the first in a series of three with the complete string quartets by Gudmundsen-Holmgreen- all in all 14 string quartets. All works on this first album are world premiere recordings.
His instrument may have been the violin, but Niels W. Gade (1817-90) was a great admirer of piano virtuoso Felix Mendelssohn and Robert Schumann. In fact, the great Danish Romantic composer left behind a collection of piano works that inspired both professionals and amateurs. Breathing new life into a selection of these, Armenian-Danish pianist Marianna Shirinyan performs Gade's poetic "Aquarelles," the almost orchestral "Sonata in E minor", four chopin-esque "Fantasy Pieces" and the little "Chanson danoise", here in its first recording.
Abrahamsen: Works for Wind Quintet / Ensemble MidtVest
Dacapo Classical
CD
$16.99Jun 10, 2016
Nordic composer Hans Abrahamsen (b. 1952) has recently come into the public eye for winning the Royal Philharmonic Society Award in 2015, and then the Grawemeyer Award in 2016. Two of his earliest works are featured on this recording: Landskaber, composed in 1972, and Walden, composed in 1978. Along with these original works, this programme includes two arrangements by Abrahamsen, of Schumann’s Kinderszenen, and Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin.
Over the last 10 years, Copenhagen-based graphic designer Denise Burt has been on a unique discovery of contemporary classical music through her work designing covers for hundreds of art music releases. In Seeing New Music she tells, from a personal viewpoint, the stories behind the creation of 24 of her CD designs. She also explains how - starting out as a music novice - she learnt to enquire and engage with the ideas behind the often-complex music in order to create more meaningful designs. She takes us on a visual journey through a diverse range of new music projects and gives us an easily understandable entry-point into a genre of music that is generally considered difficult or elite. 'I've been repeatedly told over the years that the CD is dead... I don't worry any more about them becoming obsolete. What interests me is not the format itself but the challenge of finding a way to represent and communicate conceptual music to new audiences. It's the ultimate design task to try to make someone understand something about a piece of music before they have heard it.' (Denise Burt)
Danish composer John Frandsen (b. 1956) is well known for his interpretation of texts. This new release collects some of his most evocative solo song cycles with a myriad of poems set to this music. Four of Scandinavia’s most promising young vocalists are featured on this album, including Lise Davidsen and the composer’s own son, Morten Grove Frandsen.
J.P.E. Hartmann (1805-1900) composed music throughout eight decades and was greatly admired by Grieg, and a stylistic inspiration for Nordic national romanticism. Hartmann took centre stage in the wake of the old Danish masters Weyse and Kuhlau and became the prime exponent of Danish ‘national’ music. The finest examples of this can be found in among other works the remarkable piano sonatas, the masterly theatre overtures and the opera Little Kirsten, judged at the time to be the very essence of Danishness.
Gudmundsen-Holmgreen: Green Ground / Hillier, Kronos Quartet, Theatre of Voices
Dacapo Classical
CD
$8.49$16.99Save 50%Oct 14, 2016
Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen has made a name for himself as one of the most prolific northern European composers in the past half century. He was known for his unique personality and was established as a major figure in Danish musical life. Gundmundsen-Holmgreen wrote of his compositional style: “I often write music that cannot make up its mind, and that is deliberate.” This is an accurate description, as much of his music is ambiguous and provocative. He repeats motifs and sound elements without mercy, and the violent clashes of expression within the pieces are memorable. This release presents the world premiere recording of Green Ground, a unique set of pieces which were written for and dedicated to the Kronos Quartet and Theatre of Voices with conductor Paul Hillier. The works use text from Henry VIII’s Songbook and take inspiration from Baroque canons.
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REVIEWS:
Some of the most unique and hilariously raucous new music we heard all year.
– Time Out Chicago
Trying to describe the opening quartet in words—or any of his music in words—is inevitably going to fail because the music takes so many unexpected turns and practically none of them fit a verbal narrative. This is a wonderfully imaginative recording, albeit one that’s pretty far off from center.
– The Art Music Lounge (Lynn René Bayley)
Under any circumstances, a new record by the Kronos Quartet or Paul Hillier’s Theatre of Voices is worth attending to. Put the two together and that’s even more true. And now, for a couple of pieces by Danish composer Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen, base a half hour of it on “a famous old ground that (was) used by Johan Pachelbel in his well-known canon.”
In the words of notater Andrew Mellor, on top of that ground, the resultant “discourse becomes ever more complicated and outlandish and, in this case, fractious, flailing, scared and animalistic.” And, as outrageous as it is to put old Pachelbel on the run this way, it’s also exhilarating and crazily compelling. This is why it is ALWAYS necessary to keep up with what the Kronos Quartet and Hillier’s Theater of Voices do.
This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.
Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (b. 1932) is one of the leading Scandinavian composers, an outstanding and insistent voice from the generation born in the inter-war years. This CD is the culmination of the composer’s unique collaboration with the world-famous American Kronos Quartet, which has been commissioning specially tailored works from the Danish composer for over 20 years.
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REVIEW:
The CD concludes with the ninth string quartet of Holmgreen, written for the Kronos Quartet in 2006. It is in a single movement, beginning and ending with recorded sounds of a roaring ocean. The blending of recorded sounds of nature and instrumental music is effective and moving, a beautiful tribute to the power of nature, representing a kind of Danish impressionism.
There is much on this collection of music that is similarly evocative, as well as much that is rather frustrating, but that mix reflects a powerful musical talent.
August Enna: Kleopatra / Odense Symphony Orchestra, Joachim Gustafsson [2 CDs]
Dacapo Classical
CD
$26.99Nov 20, 2020
Treason, desire and murder - served on a silver platter of glorious Romantic music from 1894 in this world premiere recording of a stirring opera about the murderous plot against Kleopatra, fabled Queen of the Nile. Beautiful melodies, alluring harmonies and tense leitmotifs, all expertly put to use by probably the most celebrated Danish opera composer of his time, August Enna. Born in Nakskov, Enna made his compositional debut in 1892 with The Witch, which was followed by several popular operas, songs, two symphonies, and a violin concerto. His work is strongly influenced by the music of Wagner, which can be heard in the present recording. He himself was a major influence on Danish composers, such as Carl Nielsen.
On Rosenhill is a tribute to the neighborhood where Jakob Buchanan grew up, revisiting the area many years later on. Initially a Danish housing project, characterized by high-rise concrete apartments built in the 1960s, today's Rosenhøj (Rosenhill) is a fascinating cultural melting pot that offers previously undreamt-of possibilities to the locals. The album is Buchanan's first for Dacapo Records, introducing a wonderful new group of close musical associates in music of flowing lyricism, delicate texture and inspired interplay in settings of poems by best-selling writer, Iain S. Thomas. Buchanans previous albums have been heralded by critics as An eminently impressive contribution to new Danish music and an obvious candidate for the Nordic Council Music Prize (Politiken) and without a doubt, one of this decades most important jazz releases, a true masterpiece! (Gaffa)
A lyrical suite of seven chapters for mixed choir a cappella, Jesper Koch’s Choirbook is a meditation on nature, complex and yet simple, communicating openly with the listener. Sincerity and a sense of timelessness pervade this large-scale work based on the poetry of Frank Kjørup, highly accessible and deeply immersed in the mysteries of its own beauty. Danish composer Jesper Koch (b. 1967) wrote very little vocal music until he reached his mid-40’s, primarily focusing on music for symphony orchestra. But in 2012, something unexpected happened. Jesper Koch suddenly felt a strong urge to write for the human voice and go back to the basic principles of melody and tonality, after having written rather complex orchestral music. The music in the vocal project Choirbook is melodic, concise and transparent: ‘When I write purely melodically, nothing must stand in the way of clarity. So everything superfluous is stripped away’, says Jesper Koch.
REVIEW
It is hard to imagine any ensemble such as this sounding better, and this is truly state-of-the-art high definition multichannel sound.
The notes accompanying this recording turned out to be quite illuminating...relating how in 2012 something unexpected happened regarding Koch’s approach to composition: “I suddenly had a strong urge to write for the human voice, and deal with ‘old school’ stuff like melody and tonality. These two things are, for me, closely connected...I wanted to go back to something completely basic, which I missed after having written some rather complex orchestral works.”
Koch’s Choirbook is organized in seven so-called “chapters,” each of which consists of a number of short sub-sections. I am loath to call these “movements” as they don’t really act as such. Chapter 4—at the center of the cycle—contains perhaps the most concentrated music as well as the fewest internal tracks (three). The other six chapters each contain between four and six tracks, none of which are more than three minutes long. The entire Choirbook is only a fraction over 51 minutes, spread over 31 tracks.
[The music] can be seen as a sort of personal journey, and has emotional as well as natural and even mystical overtones. The style is, as Koch set out to achieve, melodic in essence, and also features many familiar tonal gestures, not all of which go quite where the listener might expect.
The real attraction of this new recording...is the Danish National Vocal Ensemble, and the singing here is simply spectacular. I have recently had the occasion to begin to consider for review a new CD by the well-known English specialist vocal ensemble The Sixteen, and while that is a fine group, it is not even in the same cosmos as this Danish group, of much the same size. The singing here is about as close to perfect as anyone could expect, especially in terms of blend, intonation, balance, and ensemble...everything sounds just gorgeous.
The recording matches the singing in every way, and the sound presented here is luxuriously nuanced and detailed, with a massive dynamic range that never sounds anything but totally real. There is a lovely overall bloom to the sound, but also great detail, and the ensemble’s sound fills the room in such a way as only a very few choir recordings I have ever heard can manage. Enthusiastically recommended.
Hegaard: Octagonal Room – Solo and Chamber Works for Guitar / Jesper Sivebæk
Dacapo Classical
CD
$17.99Mar 19, 2021
The prize-winning Lars Hegaard (b. 1950) has, over more than 40 years, been an important voice in Danish musical life. Centered on the composer’s own instrument, the guitar, we present six of his most important works for small groups. With their refined modernist expressivity, they offer a fascinating picture of the guitar’s possibilities as a solo instrument, as accompanist and as the first amongst equals in chamber music. Lars Hegaard studied guitar with Ingolf Olsen (diploma 1973, music teaching degree 1977), and composition with Ib Nørholm (diploma 1980). He has also taken a music degree at the University of Copenhagen. In 1983 he was awarded a three-year working grant by the National Arts Foundation, and in 1992 the Sylvia and Poul Schierbeck Grant. In addition to that, he has since 1986 received annually working grants from the National Arts Foundation.
![August Enna: Kleopatra / Odense Symphony Orchestra, Joachim Gustafsson [2 CDs]](http://arkivmusic.com/cdn/shop/files/3856728-2610498.jpg?v=1786649108&width=800)
![August Enna: Kleopatra / Odense Symphony Orchestra, Joachim Gustafsson [2 CDs]](http://arkivmusic.com/cdn/shop/files/31fIV11y6LL.jpg?v=1786649108&width=800)
![August Enna: Kleopatra / Odense Symphony Orchestra, Joachim Gustafsson [2 CDs]](http://arkivmusic.com/cdn/shop/files/3856728-2610498.jpg?v=1786649108&width=400)
