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.