Danish music

[Dundonnell]

Following up on shamokin's upload of seven symphonies by Niels Viggo Bentzon, I am uploading Bentzon's Symphonic Variations of 1953 and the Chamber Concerto for 11 Instruments of 1948.

These pieces are performed by the Royal Danish Orchestra under Jerzy Semkow and come from a Turnabout LP from 1970.

Notable is the fact that in the Chamber Concerto one of the three pianos is played by the composer and another by Hermann D. Koppel, another distinguished Danish composer.

The Symphonic Variations are particularly fine. There is a Classico cd with the work conducted by Douglas Bostock but the Semkow was the first recording.

[Dundonnell]

I shall shortly be uploading two symphonies by Vagn Holmboe: the Symphony No.8 "Sinfonia Boreale"(Royal Danish Orchestra/Jerzy Semkow) and the Symphony No.10(Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra/Sixten Ehrling).

Both of these symphonies have been recorded for cd by BIS with Owain Arwel Hughes conducting. Hughes turns in quite splendid performances, approved by the composer, but the Ehrling performance of No.10 is regarded as the better reading by critics. It comes from a Caprice LP and has, astonishingly, never been transferred to cd.

[eschiss1]

There have been a couple of recordings of Holmboe 7 that haven't made it to CD, including one conducted by Fritz Mahler and also a broadcast performance - which may be the premiere, but if not, at least involves the same performers (Malko conducting-- broadcast June 18 2000, recorded 1951 - see http://smdb.kb.se/catalog/id/001938036) and probably dates from around the same time - that just seems to me to be very much more convincing and energetic (where appropriate, in the latter case) than Hughes' performance. (I haven't heard the others of this work. I know that Hughes' is from very near the beginning of his cycle, though...)
(I am not sure where my copy of the Malko performance is. Somewhere! Not on my iPod either anymore, alas. Well, I'll find it.)

[Alex Bozman]

The Semkow recording of Holmboe's 8th was my introduction to his music and in some aspects like the percussion playing, I still prefer his approach to the Arwel Hughes version. The BIS recording of no 8 also seems a bit muffled in comparison to some of the others in the cycle.

[jowcol]

I shall shortly be uploading two symphonies by Vagn Holmboe: the Symphony No.8 "Sinfonia Boreale"(Royal Danish Orchestra/Jerzy Semkow) and the Symphony No.10(Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra/Sixten Ehrling).

Both of these symphonies have been recorded for cd by BIS with Owain Arwel Hughes conducting. Hughes turns in quite splendid performances, approved by the composer, but the Ehrling performance of No.10 is regarded as the better reading by critics. It comes from a Caprice LP and has, astonishingly, never been transferred to cd.

I'd be interested in any versions of Holmboe's 5th that haven't  made it to CD-- that is an amazing work.

[jowcol]

I've posted the Violin Concerto by Ingve Jan Trede (1933-2010) in the downloads folder.




Web snippet:
A harpsichordist and pianist, Yngve Jan Trede was born in Germany and graduated from Staatliche Hochschule für Musik and Hamburg with the subjects piano, conducting, music theory and composition in 1960. After that he taught music theory at the same place. In 1961, as a recipient of a scholarship, he studied for nine months at the German academy "Villa Massimo". In 1966 Yngve Jan Trede was employed by the Royal Academy of Music in Copenhagen as a music theory teacher, which made him settle in Denmark. He became a Danish citizen in 1970, and between 1973 and 95 he was a professor at the Academy. As a harpsichordist and pianist he has been active as a soloist as well as a chamber musician; since 1974 he has - among others - been a member of the ensemble Musica Danica.

Yngve Jan Trede's oeuvre includes piano music such as two sonatas and The Black Mirror, music for harpsichord such as Canonic Inventions, 12 Preludes and Ground, organ music (e.g. Toccata concertante, Fantasia quasi una sonata), chamber music (String Quartet, Trio Mobile, Sonata da camera, Dialoghi pastorali e concertanti, Sinfonia for seven strings or string groups among others), vocal music such as Five songs to poems by Poul Borum for mezzo and chamber orchestra, orchestral music (symphonies, Nachtlandschaft, Music for Brass Band a.o.), solo concerts (Organ Concerto, a number of chamber concerts, Viola Concert, Cello Concert), opera and ballet (e.g. the ballet Variations, which was performed by John Cranko in Stuttgart and Edinburgh; 22 chamber operas commissioned and performed by the Royal Theatre: The Stingy Bastard (!) (1980) and Mirandolina/ or Ambigious Love (1985), both based on lyrics by Poul Borum) and stage music such as Neuer Lübecker Totentanz for orchestra, based on a drama by the German author Hans Henny Jahnn.
   

[JollyRoger]

Atsushi,

Thanks very much for the upload of the Tarp 2nd Symphony

I have wanted to hear more Tarp ever since acquiring the 7th Symphony on a Marco Polo/Dacapo-where it was coupled with the Piano Concerto and the Te Deum- many years ago now. The 2nd Symphony was on an old LP but this is obviously a different performance. I see that Tarp wrote ten symphonies

I heartly agree with the accolade from Dundonnel re Tarp, he is a fascinating and uniquely gifted composer and I am eager to hear more..I have never heard music like his before ...the more I listen, the more I like..and I have everything here at least twice.

[JimL]

Did I miss something about the Tarp 6th Symphony?  There are 3 files, but the 3rd is an 18 second radio blurb.  Are there only two movements, or are there two movements in one file, or two movements in each?  Also, do you have the movement titles?  Just listening to the beginning I can hear the influence or Bartok (especially the Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta).

[jowcol]

Did I miss something about the Tarp 6th Symphony?  There are 3 files, but the 3rd is an 18 second radio blurb.  Are there only two movements, or are there two movements in one file, or two movements in each?  Also, do you have the movement titles?  Just listening to the beginning I can hear the influence or Bartok (especially the Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta).

I don't think you missed anything-- that was what my source had, but it would have been helpful if I labeled the radio outro as such.

if anyone can come up with movement titles, I'll update the posting. 

[Mark Thomas]

I've posted in the Danish Music thread links to four orchestral works by Emil Hartmann (1836-1898), so of the more famous J.P.E. Hartmann and brother-in-law of Niels Gade. Whilst the overture is available commercially in another performance the thee symphonies are not and they're well worth a listen with their thoroughly mid-19th century German vocabulary and lightness of touch. I've not been able to track down the movement tempi of either the First or the Third Symphony and if anyone has them then I'd appreciate them being posted.

[jerfilm]

Has anyone else had problems accessing the website with Hartmann 3?  Both IE and Firefox report the same problem after repeated attempts.

J

[Mark Thomas]

It's working fine for me at present, Jerry. Let me know if the problem persists.

[Richard Moss]

Mark,

Many tks for Hartmann syms (et al).  I was very frustrated some years ago (10?) when Danacord or Dacapo (I can't remember which), announced the the planned release of all his symphonies (or that is what I took their announcement to mean) but then nothing ever appeared.  As a fan of scandinavian romantic music, it very much whetted my appetitie at the time, so at long last I can now hear them.  Many tks again!

Richard

PS In response to your v. recent plea for others to  make contributions, I would gladly do so if I had anything 'rare/unusual' I could legally add that might interest members.  However (i) I don't have the exotic range of Alan, yourself and others in the first place (I haven't mastered internet recording (yet!) and (ii) , since replacing all my old LPs with CDs over the last couple of decades, I'm not aware of anything that wouldn't potentially breach copyright laws.  How do we stand on out of print CDs (such as Koch Swann?)

[eschiss1]

Re Tarp, his 3rd symphony (first? published in 1971) was published in the Samfundet til udgivelse af dansk musik series (3rd series, no.216) which many university libraries subscribe to - hopefully next time I actually get over to the university library (as I keep trying to remember to do), I'll check the score and mark down the subdivisions. It's called Sinfonia quasi una fantasia, op.66. (The library here also has the 1949 score of his Symphony op.50, plus the LP of that work with the Te Deum op.33, and scores of several other works. Also the piano 4h reduction of Emil Hartmann's 3rd symphony. Time for me to have a look-around, I certainly have the time, I just have to get up there )

[regriba]

Re the movement tempi for the Emil Hartmann symphonies. I had hoped to find them in Inger Sørensen's substantial, Danish-language biography of the Hartmann family, but unfortunately they are not there. All I could find was that the second movement of the first symphony is "a fantastic scherzo à la Mendelssohn", plus that the second and third movements of the third symphony are, respectively, "a peaceful Andante and a Nordic Minuet".

By the way, there seems to be some confusion as to how many symphonies Emil Hartmann actually wrote. Quite a few sources, including Michael Herman's discography of Scandinavian symphonies, say he wrote seven. Yet according to Sørensen he only wrote four numbered symphonies, plus two "youth symphonies", one of which was played quite a few times in Berlin, but never in Denmark. Generally Emil Hartmann's symphonies were quite successful in Germany but had quite a bad press in Denmark, where they were seen as unoriginal and pale imitations of Niels W. Gades's symphonies. Hans Christian Andersen, a close friend of the Hartmann family, declared that the difference between Hartmann father and son was that "old Hartmann is a born composer. Young Hartmann was brought up to be one."

It is correct that a recording of the Emil Hartmann symphonies was announced some years ago by Danacord, but the project came to nothing. However, though I hate to sound ungrateful, the loss may not be so great, as they planned to use the same orchestra and conductor as on their recordings of the Victor Bendix symphonies. For me at least the Bendix recordings are some of the few recordings of unsungs where the quality of playing and sound seriously impede my enjoyment of the music.