An unfairly forgotten Danish master pianist!

Arne Skjold Rasmussen was one of the finest Danish musicians and a truly virtuoso pianist. Nerves and the lack of interest in the concert halls kept him away from the audience. As a professor in piano at the Royal Danish Music Academy he was much sought after. The whole idea of making recordings he detested and his discography is small. Here are all the solo recordings he did for the Danish TONO label. There are no concerto recordings and only a small handful of chamber music recordings done shortly before he died.

His Beethoven sonatas, sadly only those on this 2 CD set, are among the most convincing and overwhelmingly authentic. He was brought up in the Carl Nielsen tradition and his rare Nielsen recordings are probably the closest we will ever get to that Danish composer. Extensive notes from the Skjold Rasmussen specialist Jonas Barlyng and the high class transfers by Claus Byrith underlines the importance of this piano release. Remember the other releases in this series 3 sets featuring Danish Women Pianists One with pioneer Danish pianists and now 6 volumes with the great pianist Victor Schiøler.

Vol. 5 of American Piano Music. The Anthology of American Piano Music is designed to show the stylistic breadth, high musical quality, and great originality of the best American piano works. The series contains underrated, neglected or forgotten masterworks of the American literature for solo piano from the 18th to the 21st century that have been selected primarily for their musical worth and originality. The com- positions are assembled in a series of themed CDs, their programs being connected by one common theme or overarching idea. Vol. 1, "American First Sonatas", comprises the first piano sonatas by four American composers from different periods, including the very first sonata ever composed in North America. Vol. 2, ‘Music of the Night’, a 2 CD album, assembles a selection of American nocturnes and other piano works related to the theme of Night, while Vol. 3, 'American Landscapes', includes three complete cycles of character pieces and eight stand-alone works featuring musical impressions from North American landscapes. Vol.4 contains the complete set of compositions for piano and orchestra by George Gershwin. The present CD (Vol.5, "American Dances") is a compilation of works for solo piano that are related to the theme of Dance.

Greatest ever Danish pianist in concert - His activities as a soloist and his increasingly comprehensive work as a teacher were central to his ?nal years from about 1950 until his death in 1967. Here I am thinking not only of his teaching as a professor at the conservatoire, but even more of his efforts to stimulate and encourage interest in classical music. One of his tools was television. TV was completely new. Many people were interested in it, and in Denmark only one channel was available. This was Danmarks Radio, which only transmitted a few hours daily. It opened up a unique opportunity for Schiøler to gain access to “the general public” in this way. There were many broadcasts which had the title “About the Piano” in common. In this series the sound track of Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy has already been included in Vol 4. Besides the music, viewers could also hear Schiøler’s eloquent, inspiring and appealing introductions. Volume 6 also includes an example from these broadcasts. Schiøler introduces and talks about Saint-Saëns’ Variations for two pianos on a theme of Beethoven. The theme is the trio from the minuet in the Sonata in E?at, op. 31 no. 3. The variations make considerable demands on the two pianists, who constantly cast little bits of the theme to each other which they then have to grab in such a way that it never affects the pulse and continuity of the music. It demands perfect synchronization between the two players, here Schiøler and his pupil Peter Westenholz (1937 – 2008). And it is a joy to listen to them playing together! The recording was made in Schiøler’s own home on his two Hornung og Møller concert grands.

1805-1847 were a short time to live for the very talented sister of Felix. History aimed the spotlight on the brother, not without justice, for he was a musical genius and to many an icon. His sister, Fanny, who later married and took the last name Hensel, often played four-hand with brother Felix, she was a fine singer and music came as natural to her as to her brother. Sadly time only allowed her too few compositions, but what we have today should be much more appreciated. The 12 piano pieces, each for every month of the year surely could have been composed by Felix and they lack nothing in brilliance, musicality and pianistic virtuosity. Leading Danish pianist Christina Bjørkøe gives a splendid performance.

First recording of Danish Piano Music. Louis Glass was born in 1864. His childhood home was full of music. His father, Christian Henrik Glass, was a prominent and highly recognised music educator whose primary instrument was the piano, though he was also an organist. In 1877, he founded his own music conservatory, which focused on piano playing and soon gained a good reputation. The piano works of Louis Glass make up a significant part of his collected works. Aside from arrangements of orchestral works in different piano editions, the many two-handed piano pieces appear as either single movements or as part of collections. The collections of piano works include no fewer than 12 opus numbers with a total of 75 movements from Glass’ entire output.

Svend Simon Schultz (1913-1998) is one of the most remarkable Danish composers and as a conductor he made a significant contribution to Danish songs, not least during his 30 years as head of the Danish Radio Chamber Choir. He was constantly composing and wrote music for movies, chamber ensemble and especially for choir. Svend S. Schultz made a stamp on Danish choral music which is still beaming today. His songs are known by every Dane and his production probably one of the most encompassing of all Danish composers. This is the third CD of a project to record all his nearly 90 choral songs, all of them musically and technically on the highest possible level.

Danish Romantic composer JPE Hartmann was born 1805 and lived nearly to be 100 years. During his time he was the most influential composer in Denmark and wrote beautiful music for solo piano. Here Danish pianist Thomas Trondhjem has reached the fourth volume in this enterprising series. Thomas Trondhjem (born 1954 in Lemvig, Denmark) was in January 1990 appointed teacher in piano and accompaniment at the Music Academy of Jutland West and 2004 appointed ass. professor of piano and accompaniment at The Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus, Denmark. He studied at The Royal Academy of Music, Aarhus with Poul La Cour and finished his studies with a debut concert in 1985. The concert received brilliant reviews and rewarded Thomas Trondhjem with a Diploma with the highest grade. Trondhjem often gives solo recitals showing his immense repertoire, mainly from the classical period, the romantic period plus the composers of the 20th century.

Music is NOT that which sounds. Music is WHY that which sounds, sounds like it sounds - WHEN it sounds. The above quote by legendary Finnish conductor and larger-than-life composer Leif Segerstam neatly and - in typical Segerstam fashion - cryptically summarizes his philosophy on music, as wells as his unique approach to why music matters. It was felt by and intrigued anyone who was lucky enough to work with him, and it fuelled every aspect of his work in Aarhus, first as principal guest conductor (2018-21) and later honorary conductor (2021-22) for the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra. It is also evident in the recordings you have before you, the last ones made before his passing in October 2024. "This man has more music in his little finger than many conductors have in their whole body" is a popular quote by one of the orchestra's musicians, and it aptly describes the feelings of electricity and passion that ran through rehearsals with Leif. There is no doubt that music was everything - and in everything - of Segerstam's life.

Rare Italian Madrigals Composers from the upper drawer number several well-known names (music quality increasing a lot over the century), among them principally Giaches de Wert (1535-1596), Carlo Gesualdo (1566-1613), Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643), and, not least, Luca Marenzio (1553-1599), to whom the present CD is entirely devoted. In his rather short lifespan, he managed to write about 500 madrigals between 1580 and 1599. In those two decades, his music developed immensely, reaching it's climax in the last ten years of his life. Though continuing to satisfy his great popular following with loads of small, lighthearted songs, Marenzio excelled also in writing ambitious madrigal cycles, of which two are recorded here: Baci soavi e cari (five 6-part madrigals describing several aspects of kissing) and, maybe his magnum opus, Capitolo - Se quel dolor (ten 6-part madrigals delving into one of the period's favourite subjects: melancholia).

Thomas Jensen is hardly known as a Wagnerian, and yet this complete First Act of Die Walkure - with an all-star Danish cast - is paced and shaped with a keen ear for drama. CD2 continues to expand the Jensen discography with works by two composers intimately associated with Wagner, his father-in-law Liszt and his Belgian disciple Franck. The concert overture Piazza del Popolo is a forgotten showpiece which the Danish composer Walther Schroder drew from his score to a silent movie directed by A.W. Sandberg. All the previous volumes are available and in stock.

The final volume of this groundbreaking Thomas Jensen series encapsulates the series as a whole. New remasterings of rare studio recordings from the 1940s complement first-ever releases for live broadcasts from the 1950s and 60s. The repertoire demonstrates Jensen's excellence as a sympathetic concerto partner; an insightful interpreter of Sibelius; and a devoted advocate for the composers of his native Denmark

Previously unreleased broadcast recordings capture Thomas Jensen in Baroque and Classical-era repertoire new to his discography. Jensen makes a stylish Mozartian in these rhythmically sprung and cultivated concert performances, given by the DRSO in Copenhagen and on tour. They are joined by the Danish violinist Tutter Givskov for one of Mozart’s earliest masterpieces, the Violin Concerto No. 3 K216.

Significant new additions to the recorded catalogue of this most broad-minded of Danish conductors, working in the last two years of his life and featuring several composers of his own time who were writing in their own post-Nielsen styles. Hardly less novel is the wartime recording of Coates’s Knightsbridge March, never reissued since first appearing on 78s. Several other light-orchestral classics are complemented by spontaneous-sounding live Tchaikovsky in the hands of a little-known French violinist.

Thomas Jensen Legacy now at Vol. 20

There was no more unprejudiced or enthusiastic promoter of Danish music than Thomas Jensen. Twelve composers are featured here, in styles ranging from Romantic ballet to modernist oratorio. Nearly all the recordings are issued for the first time ever since they were originally broadcast. Taken together, they present a panoramic picture of Danish music in the 19th and 20th centuries.

His renown as an interpreter of Scandinavian composers has obscured Thomas Jensen’s excellence as a conductor of the central-European classics. On this collection of newly remastered recordings, most of them issued for the first time since their original broadcasts, he brings authority and a forthright pulse to bear on Haydn, Beethoven and Brahms, in excellent sound from the 1950s and 60s. Note the first ever release of the Brahms Violin Concerto with Isaac Stern from Copenhagen 1961.

Broadcast performances of the Fifth and Sixth symphonies complete a Sibelius cycle within the Thomas Jensen collection on Danacord. Their dramatic sweep and control demonstrate the conductor’s special affinity with this music, which he played under the composer’s direction as a cellist. Jensen worked tirelessly for Danish composers throughout his career; this volume includes newly published performances of works by three composers, now almost unknown outside their home country, who emerged from the shadow cast by Carl Nielsen to write in a distinctively individual but still quintessentially Danish idiom.

The First and Fourth symphonies of Jean Sibelius, in previously unpublished live recordings from the early 1960s, are major additions to the recorded legacy of Thomas Jensen. As a young cellist, Jensen had known and played under both Nielsen and Sibelius, and his interpretations of their symphonies are stamped with authority: respectful of the score while seeing deep inside its mysteries. This is the thirteenth volume in Danacord’s renowned Thomas Jensen Legacy series and also includes recordings of Nielsen's Fifth and Sixth symphonies by Jensen with the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra.

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)

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.

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.

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.

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.

"Although the horn has some obstacles to overcome, [...] nature seems to have intended it by and large for singing; moreover, the horn player can draw the best lessons from the school of a good singer. There he learns the art of good phrasing and proper breathing; there he purifies his taste, shapes his style, and ultimately discovers all he needs to know to capture the listener's attention, move him, and - on many occasions - stir his enthusiasm.” (JosephÉmile Meifred: Méthode pour le Cor chromatique ou à pistons, Paris 1840) Solo horn player in the Danish Royal orchestra Claudio Flückiger is here presenting what is the art of playing the horn. He is accompanied by pianist Galya Kolarova.

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.

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.“