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 They are coupled here with previously unpublished broadcasts of music by four Danish composers from the generation after Nielsen, including the brooding Largo which set the scene for Carl Th.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.

Metamorphoses run through nature, history and society. Transformation is one of the leitmotifs of our life, art and culture. For the album ‘Metamorphosen’, flutist Anette Maiburg and her ensemble (Maiburg Ensemble) were also interested in using arrangements to look at works from the classical repertoire and rarities from a different perspective. Whether Anette Maiburg is infusing classical soundscapes with glowing lyricism, luxuriating in the melancholy of a French chanson or swaying with dance-like suppleness in samba rhythm, her flute always sounds exciting, sensuous and colourful. Anette Maiburg is an elegant soloist and sensitive ensemble player and thus a virtuoso on her instrument but more besides. She is a true artist with a zest for experimentation, who moves with the surefootedness of a sleepwalker across the boundaries of genre and style.

Soprano Theresa Nelles and cathedral organist Winfried Bönig invite us to an atmospheric Christmas Eve in Cologne Cathedral and present a varied programme of Romantic works from various countries: music for the feast that goes straight to the heart. The great acoustics of Cologne Cathedral have been deliberately captured on this audiophile SACD. Born in Cologne, Theresa Nelles has had close ties with Cologne Cathedral since childhood, not only emotionally but also musically. During her 10 years of choir membership in the girls' choir at Cologne Cathedral, she already received her first solo tasks, was also the singer of a jazz band of the so called Cathedral-music for a long time and, after her High school graduation, studied singing at the Cologne Academy of Music with Prof. Mechthild Georg and in Rome at the Conservatorio Santa Cecilia. Engagements take the singer to festivals at home and abroad, such as the Festival Internazionale di Musica e Arte Sacra in Italy, Switzerland, South Tyrol, Russia, the International Handel Festival in Göttingen, the Beethoven Festival Bonn, the Brühl Castle Concerts, to opera houses such as Krefeld/ Mönchengladbach, Koblenz, Gelsenkirchen, the Margravial Opera House in Bayreuth, the Tonhalle Düsseldorf, the Cologne and Essen Philharmonics and, last but not least, regularly to large churches, always particularly fond of the local cathedral.