Otto Malling
Concerto for Piano & Orchestra C minor, op.43 (1890)
1. Allegro con fuoco
2. NOTTURNO. Andante
3. FINALE. Presto
Ludvig Schytte
Concerto for Piano & Orchestra C sharp minor, op. 28 (c. 1884)
4. Allegro
5. Intermezzo. Andante con moto
6. Finale. Allegro
Siegfried Salomon
Concerto for Piano & Orchestra A minor, op. 54 (1947)
7. Maestoso. Allegro vigoroso
8. Andante espressivo
9. Allegro
Danish romantic virtuoso concerti ©
The three composers represented here do not stand at the forefront of the history of Danish music, but all three of them have in at least one respect secured themselves a position for which they will be remembered. As the first and only Dane Otto Malling wrote a textbook on orchestration(1894), Ludvig Schytte published the collection “45 Sonatinas and Execution Pieces”, which has been a sine qua non for anybody leaming to play the piano in Denmark, and Siegfried Salomon wrote the opera “Leonora Christina” (1926), which includes one of the greatest hits in Danish opera, “There are three Cornerstones”, for many years a regular feature of Radio Denmark’s request programmes, sung by Tenna Kraft.
The romantic virtuoso concerto has never been highly thought of in Denmark. Is it envy which has caused us to be sceptical about the great individualist, the virtuoso who can do something of which other people are not capable? Are we afraid of losing touch with reality if we delight in elegance, virtuosity and music which breaks technical barriers? Certainly not many Danish piano concertos have been written, and none of the most important Danish composers of the virtuosic 19th century made any contribution to the genre with the exception of Kuhlau, and he wrote his only piano concerto before he left his German fatherland and settled in Demark. Neither Weyse, Hartmann, Gade, Heise, Hamerik, Lange-Müller nor, to include Denmark’s greatest composer, Carl Nielsen, created anything of this kind.
But some lesser figures did: old Hartmann’s son, Emil, and his son-in-law, August Winding, wrote fine piano concerti, but these have disappeared from the rcpertoire. By and large the only one to have survived is Otto Malling’s concerto.
RELEASE DATE: OCTOBER 2004
CATALOGUE NUMBER: DACOCD 597
EAN: 5709499597002
