Ulla Kappel was for years the leading Danish authority on the music by Buxtehude and Danacord was lucky to make this early LP release where Ulla Kappel plays some of the masterworks for harpsichord by Buxtehude. It is now available for the first time in new digital transfer. Also included are a few bonus tracks with never before released recordings featuring the Hungarian master organist János Sebestyén in music he never recorded commercially before. A must for all! Ulla Kappel was born in Munster, Westfalia, Germany in 1936 to Danish parents. She graduated from the Royal Conservatory of Music, Copenhagen, with diplomas in piano, harpsichord and organ. Further studies in harpsichord in Paris and Basel, organ studies in Innsbruck and Muri. During the period 1968-1974 she was a teacher of the harpsichord at the Conservatory in Copenhagen; and from 1975 organist at Slangerup Church, the old church of the famous Danish poet and bishop Thomas Kingo, a contemporary of Buxtehude.

Danacord’s tribute to the recorded legacy of Thomas Jensen continues with a unique compilation of 20th-century masterpieces in both live and studio performances. Available for the first time in any format. Jensen’s final concert appearance with the DRSO, in a noble account of Shostakovich’s heroic Fifth Symphony, recorded just a fortnight before his death. Album 2 demonstrates Jensen’s mastery of a wide range of contemporary repertoire in a Paris concert from 1962. 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.

Also available in this series by pianist Cecile Licad: Anthology of American Piano Music, Vol. 2: American Nocturnes and Anthology of American Piano Music, Vol. 3: American Landscapes

The history of music in America is very different to a history of American music, a fact borne out by this programme of piano sonatas written between 1786 and 1944 by four American composers. Each work is the first piano sonata written by their respective creator. The stylistic richness and formal diversity of the American sonata literature are immediately apparent. Reinagle’s and MacDowell’s sonatas are American by virtue of their composers’ nationality (though a hundred years separate them, the music is unmistakably and unapologetically European in its harmonic language), while those by Griffes and Siegmeister reflect the myriad influences that subsequently contributed to and shaped a specific and distinct American musical voice.

This is the final release in the Danacord tribute to the Danish cellist Erling Blöndal Bengtsson. This volume features a BBC broadcast from the 1973 Aldeburgh Festival in which Bengtsson is joined by violinist Manoug Parikian and pianist George Malcolm in concertos by Brahms and Beethoven. Bengtsson was invited to Aldeburgh by Benjamin Britten after hearing him perform one of his Cello Suites in Copenhagen. Thanks to Merete Bengtsson’s indefatigable detective work this amateur off-air recording was discovered in the British Library and is issued here for the first time. Substantial audio restoration work was undertaken by David Lord. While the recording quality is somewhat short of ‘Hi-fi’ It remains a valued testament to Bengtsson’s craft and his historic appearance at Britten’s legendary festival.

Also available in this series by pianist Cecile Licad: Anthology of American Piano Music, Vol. 1: American First Sonatas and Anthology of American Piano Music, Vol. 3: American Landscapes

The second release in the American Piano Music series with pianist Cecile Licad features Music of the Night. Many of the works are here performed for the first time in a modern digital recording and the whole concept is a portrait of the fascinating world of piano music worth discovering. Gramophone writes: “…you hear the music first, the pianism second, and that’s a good sign, not to mention the excellent engineering and annotations. I look forward to this series further installments.” (Jed Distler) Called "a pianist's pianist" by The New Yorker, Cecile Licad's artistry is a blend of daring musical instinct and superb training. Her natural talent was honed at the Curtis Institute of Music by three of the greatest performer/pedagogues of our time: Rudolf Serkin, Seymour Lipkin and Mieczyslaw Horszowski. Licad's large repertoire as an orchestral soloist spans the Classical works of Mozart and Beethoven, the Romantic literature of Brahms, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Schumann and Rachmaninoff, and on to the 20th century compositions of Debussy, Ravel, Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Bartok.

Danacord continues its tribute to the Danish cellist Erling Blöndal Bengtsson with previously unpublished recordings from the archives of the BBC and German radio. There is cello music dedicated to Bengtsson's mentor Piatigorsky and chamber music by Mozart and Offenbach with fellow friends and colleagues. His stylishness, distinctive timbre and subtle colours, as well as his trademark impeccable intonation, may be enjoyed in full. Erling Blöndal Bengtsson performed extensively throughout Europe, the United States, South America and Russia. He has appeared with most of the world´s leading orchestras including the Royal Philharmonic, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, English Chamber Orchestra, Salzburg´s Mozarteum Orchestra, the Hague´s Residentie Orchestra under the direction of many of the contemporary leading maestros, such as Yuri Temirkanov, Mariss Jansons, David Zinmann, Sixten Ehrling, Herbert Blomstedt, Sergiu Commissiona. His repertoire was all-encompassing and he has championed the works of leading Scandinavian composers, as well as performing the Scandinavian premieres of cello concertos by Britten, Barber, Khatchaturian, Delius, Lutoslawsky and Walton and, indeed, the latter two, themselves, conducted several performances each with Mr. Bengtsson as soloist. A consistent recording artist, with over 50 albums, he has, along with the complete standard repertoire for cello and orchestra, recorded many contemporary concertos, most of which were dedicated to him.

The result of the turbulent 1950s in Denmark's second largest city, Aarhus, was the foundation of a symphony orchestra, spearheaded and forcefully directed by conductor Thomas Jensen. His pioneering early Danish TONO recordings, comprising popular orchestral music, were a triumph and were re-released even in the US by the Mercury label. They are all here, collected together for the first time. In frustration, Jensen left Aarhus for a new job as head of the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra, however he returned to conduct two concerts which are here presented for the first time.

Danish composer J.P.E. Hartmann was the leading romantic Danish composer who influenced generations of Danish composers, not least Niels W. Gade and the son Emil Hartmann. He was a prolific composer and composed in all genres. His extensive music for piano is sadly too little known outside Denmark, but with its romantic tone, melodic charmed and harmonies known from Schumann and Mendelssohn it will come as a pleasant surprise to all lovers of romantic piano music. Danish pianist Thomas Trondhjem is here presenting the third album of a complete recording of all the works for solo piano by J.P.E. Hartmann. The first two volumes received very positive comments from many critics.

A magical evening at the Tivoli Gardens! This new compilation features live and studio recordings of light orchestral waltzes and polkas, including the greatest hits of the Danish 'Waltz King', HC Lumbye. Several studio recordings from the 1940s receive their first release on album. Album 2 features a previously unpublished live concert broadcast direct from the Tivoli Gardens, where the people of Copenhagen have enjoyed relaxation and entertainment ever since 1843. Thomas Jensen directs the Tivoli orchestra with the same authority he brought to his classic recordings of Nielsen and Sibelius.

Thomas Jensen in his element: a trio of classic Nielsen recordings, plus a first-time release for broadcast performances of Sibelius’s Third Symphony and two pivotal works by Jensen’s countryman and contemporary, Niels Viggo Bentzon. Newly remastered direct from the original tapes, these live recordings find Jensen on fiery form, giving incisive interpretations well suited to the formal innovations of these masterpieces of Danish and Finnish modernism.

All-new remasterings of live and previously unissued recordings: a Mendelssohn concert from 1962 demonstrates Thomas Jensen’s undimmed power to galvanize an orchestra towards the end of his life. From his very last concert, given a fortnight before his death in 1963, works by Handel and Mozart find him (and pianist Annie Fischer) on fluent, sparkling form. Novelettes by ‘the Danish Mendelssohn’ Niels W. Gade make a neat coupling, and the set closes with the Dvorák overture which launched the DRSO on the international scene. Another landmark album in the wider appreciation of a conductor whose legacy has been too narrowly restricted to the music of his homeland.