Most pianists who record both Chopin concertos tend to ignore the composer’s other concerted works for piano and orchestra. As a result, the catalog contains few complete cycles, and they’re uneven at that. Those by Abbey Simon (Vox), Garrick Ohlsson (Hyperion), and Kun-Woo Paik (Decca) consistently satisfy. So does the present release with pianist Oleg Marshev.

Aside from his tone turning slightly metallic and strident in loudest passages, Marshev’s vibrant, fluent, and tastefully inflected pianism fuses power and poetry at every juncture. Listen, for example, to the First Concerto Rondo’s elegantly racing octave runs, to the sustained drama in the central minor episode of the Second Concerto’s Larghetto, or to the perky runs and roulades throughout the Grande Polonaise and you’ll hear what I mean.

Neither Krakowiak’s knotty passagework nor the glittery bravura of the Là ci darem la mano variations pose problems for Marshev’s fingers. What is more, the South Denmark Philharmonic under David Porcelijn offers alert and vividly detailed support that belies any received notions that Chopin’s orchestrations are humdrum. Both soloist and orchestra unify the potentially piecemeal Fantasy on Polish Airs with sharp accents, darkly shaded modal twists, and a real chamber-like repartée. Notice also the gorgeous textural interplay in the Krakowiak’s introduction, with sustained strings, solo horn and clarinet, and the piano’s haunting unison lines. Marshev won’t cause collectors to jettison favorite individual performances, yet his high standards add up to an easy recommendation for those who want all of Chopin’s concerted works together, not to mention Danacord’s superb engineering and Jeremy Nicholas’ succinct, information-packed booklet notes.

-- Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

Classical Music

This new release, featuring a truly sensational Bruckner 9, is the premiere recording of the finale completed by Nors Josephson. Josephson writes of this release: “The present edition of the finale to Anton Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony is the result of a ten year-long project. I have utilised the sketches and score sketches to this movement that are found in the Oesterreichische Nationalbibliothek in Vienna, Austria, the Viennese Stadt-und Landesbibliothek and the Viennese Hochschule fur Musik und darstellende Kunst; all of these institutions kindly provided me with microfilms and photographic copies of these sources. In addition, Alfred Orel’s 1934 edition of most of these sources as part of the Bruckner Complete Works was of particular value. Thanks go to the Oesterreichische Nationalbibliothek in Vienna for sending me a copy of this edition.” Conductor John Gibbons brings a transparent and insightful interpretation to the entire work.

Classical Music

Both in his native Denmark and around the world, Thomas Jensen became known for his uniquely authoritative interpretations of Carl Nielsen’s music. His postwar Decca and HMV studio recordings of the first two symphonies are inflected with unrivalled sweep and passion. They are coupled here with previously unpublished broadcasts of music by four Danish composers from the generation after Nielsen, including the brooding Largo which set the scene for Carl Th. Dreyer’s cinematic masterpiece, Ordet (The Word). Thomas Jensen studied at the Danish Conservatory of Music. Jensen led several Danish ensembles, including the Danish National Symphony Orchestra (from 1957) and the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra (then known as the Aarhus Civic Orchestra). In Aarhus he built the small orchestra up through broadcasts and tours within Denmark and later to Germany and the Netherlands. He also conducted the Tivoli Concert Hall Orchestra.

Made between December 1948 and June 1950, these recordings enjoy an unusual history which is bound up with the burgeoning industry of classical music retail in the postwar era. Among the best stocked record stores in New York at that time was The Gramophone Shop on 42nd East Street, co-owned by William H. (Bill) Tyler and Joseph F. (Joe) Brogan, an Irish-American collector and dealer. Trying to rival or surpass the mail-order business of H. Royer Smith in Philadelphia, the shop issued (in 1929 and 1931) two fat paperback catalogues, The Gramophone Shop Encyclopedia of Recorded Music. Three further editions, from 1936, 1942, and 1948, remain standard reference works. The store also ran it's own mail-order business with the reputation as a specialist in rare and high-quality recordings from Europe. From that arm of the business naturally developed the store's own label, marketed as the Gramophone Shop Celebrities (GSC) series. This is the first time these recordings have been available on modern media.

A pair of great Danish pianists and celebrated violinists contribute to a wide-ranging program, which demonstrates Thomas Jensen’s versatility and command of his orchestras in both pillars of the repertoire by Grieg and Tchaikovsky, and a stirring but unfamiliar piano-concerto movement by the Dane August Winding. Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegelis new to the Jensen discography: a stunning live performance from 1952, newly remastered from the original tapes. This collection brings together live DRSO broadcasts from the 1950s and the 1960swith earlier gramophone recordings, made before Jensen’s DRSO tenure when he was principal conductor of the Aarhus Civic Orchestra (documented on Volume 8 of the series.)

Review:

It’s fortunate – and generous – of Danacord to offer their twofers ‘as for one’ as of late they have been engaged in wholesale reshuffling of their packs.

The only previously unissued item in CD1 is August Winding’s Concert Allegro, preformed by Boris Linderud (1915-95) in 1960. This fluid rhapsodic piece is cast in a Schumannesque mould with plenty of right-hand filigree. The only non-studio live performance on CD2 is Strauss’ Till Eulenspiegel, in a very competent 1952 reading in the characteristic acoustic of Denmark’s Radio Concert Hall. The remainder of the programme is largely given over to the violin repertoire on the Tono label, played by the country’s then leading player, Emil Telmányi, between 1947 and 1951. He plays Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen with plenty of slides but also a sure awareness of style. You will find the Introduction and Rondo capriccioso on DACOCD851 where you’ll also find recordings made by Telmányi’s great teacher, Hubay – the recording Telmányi made of Hubay’s Hejre Kati in that disc is a later one than the 1947 Tono here, which features his Chamber Orchestra and offers a less successful accompaniment.

Svendsen’s Romance is in the secure hands of Carlo Andersen in his famous 1939 HMV recording which must have sold by the bucketload as it always turns up on record lists to this day. It’s a valuable snapshot of Andersen’s playing as he only ever recorded a couple of pieces by Lumbye so far as I’m aware. Finally, there’s Tchaikovsky’s ‘1812’, spread across four 78 sides, recorded a few days after the Introduction and Rondo capriccioso. Nothing unduly odd happens in the ‘1812’ – strong, decisive conducting and well recorded. Till is newly remastered, and everything comes up sounding good.

--MusicWeb International (Jonathan Woolf)

As a friend and supporter of many Danish composers in the middle of the last century, Thomas Jensen brought unrivaled energy and conviction to their music. The five composers presented here engage in a dialogue between tradition and modernity which is personal to each of them, from the generous Romanticism of Siegfried Salomon to the biting humor of Niels Viggo Bentzon, and including the less familiar names of Franz Syberg and Leif Thybo. Several first-ever releases feature within new remasterings of live broadcasts and studio recordings made between 1949 and 1962.

The return of a Titan! Returing to the record studio, a pianistic titan. The first volume of Oleg Marshev’s new Ravel survey draws together threads of pianistic innovation and Spanish influence from the composer’s earliest surviving work through to the groundbreaking cycle of Miroirs published in 1905. Rarities include the first-ever piano recording of one of the fugues written by Ravel in his attempts to win the Prix de Rome.

Born in Baku, Azerbaijan, Oleg Marshev trained with Valentina Aristova at the Gnessin State Musical College and with Mikhail Voskresensky at the Moscow Conservatoire. He is numbered among the fifth generation of Russian pianism since Liszt, through the lineage of Alexander Siloti, Konstantin Igumnov and Voskresensky’s teacher, Lev Oborin. Resident in Italy since 1991, Marshev received awards in several international piano competitions in Canada, Italy, Portugal, Spain, USA, including four first prizes. He is now widely acknowledged as one of the most talented pianists of his generation.

Returing to the record studio is a pianistic titan. A trio of thunderous roars from a young keyboard lion: Johannes Brahms was still in his teens when he composed this standalone Scherzo and pair of sonatas. With these pieces, he won Schumann’s lifelong friendship and support. Two of the sonata movements are inspired by songs of love and loneliness, but every bar here is vintage Brahms, even as the product of his youth.

‘Marshev is a phenomenon’ --BBC Music Magazine

Born in Baku, Azerbaijan, Oleg Marshev trained with Valentina Aristova at the Gnessin State Musical College and with Mikhail Voskresensky at the Moscow Conservatoire. He is numbered among the fifth generation of Russian pianism since Liszt, through the lineage of Alexander Siloti, Konstantin Igumnov and Voskresensky’s teacher, Lev Oborin. Resident in Italy since 1991, Marshev received awards in several international piano competitions in Canada, Italy, Portugal, Spain, USA, including four first prizes. He is now widely acknowledged as one of the most talented pianists of his generation.

The present release is the ninth volume in the Thomas Jensen Legacy series from Danacord, and it is a sumptuous feast of popular but now little-known Danish repertoire, mostly given in live broadcast concerts by Thomas Jensen and the DRSO, newly remastered and issued here for the first time. A Hans Christian Andersen memorial concert casts orchestral enchantment on album 1, while extracts from two portrait concerts on album 2 revive the distinctively Danish idioms of Hamerik and Sandby.

As he turns 80 years old, Danish pianist John Damgaard is still going strong. This release features immaculate performances of pieces by three composers close to his heart: Late Beethoven and Chopin sonatas are paired with a truly strong-willed version of the Brahms Handel Variations. The release includes Damgaard’s informative booklet notes that point out new and intriguing sides to the pianistic Handel variations. A release for all lovers of great piano playing. The Danish pianist John Damgaard (1941-) studied at Eastman School of Music (New York), The Royal Danish Conservatory of Music in Copenhagen with Georg Vasarhelyi and later with Ilona Kabos in London and Wilhelm Kempff in Italy. From 1969-1984 John Damgaard was assistant professor at The Royal Danish Academy of Music and 1979-81 guest professor at Musashino Academia Musicae in Tokyo, Japan. From 1984-2005 he held the academic position of professor at The Royal Academy of Music, Aarhus. John Damgaard has given concerts in USA, Canada, Mexico, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Italy, France, Belgium, Japan, Australia, primarily with classical, romantic programs, but almost always including Danish piano works. He has performed more than 31 different piano concerti.

Composed in memory of the wife who passed away. The Danish composer, pianist and leading jazz improvisator Thomas Clausen has composed some of the most intimate and tender songs in the memory of his wife and mother to his soprano daughter Nina Clausen and the result is this new album where they together perform a selection of songs. According to Gyldendals The Great Danish Encyclopedia: “A Danish jazz pianist and composer, influenced by jazz and contemporary European scored music, who has been an integral part of the European jazz scene since the beginning of the 1980s. He is greatly appreciated for his work both as a solo pianist, as trio ensemble leader and for his work accompanying prominent American musicians. As a composer for big ensembles, he has created works that suggest Alban Berg as a big inspiration.“

Friedrich Kuhlau's Luluis the Danish 'Magic Flute'. Long unavailable on record, this foundational work in the repertoire of Danish comic opera can be enjoyed once again in a historic broadcast performance from 1956. Remastered from original radio tapes and never previously issued, this performance represents the Danish sing-spiel tradition at it's most delightful. Five bonus tracks pay testament to Launy Gr�ndahl's sympathetic partnerships with the finest Danish singers of his day. Volume 7 will have concerto by Beethoven and symphony by Schubert, scheduled for late 2021 Summer release.

The first (almost) complete recording of Nielsen's comic masterpiece, plus a previously unreleased fairy-tale rarity, under the inspirational baton of the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra's founder-conductor. Launy Grøndahl knew both Carl Nielsen and Knud Jeppesen personally: he conducted their music with unrivalled sympathy and passion. His 1954 recording of Maskarade is full of native wit and simple joys, while Aesop's fable of The Eagle and the Beetle is dramatized as a typically Danish morality-tale of revenge on the high and mighty. Volume 5 is in preparation for a 2021 release and will have Grøndahl conducting 4 Danish symphonies and two orchestral suites.