1. Bouquet Royal Galop
2. Dronning Louise Vals
3. Columbine Polka Mazurka
4. Salut for August Bournonville Galop
5. Hesperus Vals
6. Amager Polka
7. Sophie Vals
8. Nordiske Fostbrødre Galop
9. Krolls Balklange
10. Livjægerne paa Amager: Finalegalop
11. Amélie Vals
12. Britta Polka
13. Champagne Galop
14. Drømmebilleder
15. Godnat Polka
16. Kjøbenhavns Jernbane Damp Galop
17. Aufforderung zum Tanz, Op. 65
18. Eugene Onegin, Op. 24: Waltz from Act 2
19. Hungarian Dance No. 5 in G minor
20. Hungarian Dance No. 6 in D flat major
CD 2
1. Rosamunde, D797: Entr’acte No. 3
2. The Nutcracker, Op. 71: Waltz of the Flowers
3. The Nutcracker, Op. 71: Russian Dance, Trepak
4. Eugene Onegin, Op. 24: Polonaise from Act 3
5. La Gioconda: Danza delle ore
6. Kaiser-Walzer, Op. 437
7. Danse macabre, Op. 40
8. Bal costumé, Op. 103: Toréador et Andalouse
9. Aubade printanière, Op. 37
10. Pomp and Circumstance, Op. 39: March No. 1
11. Coppélia: Czardas
12. Carmen: Prélude
Carl Frederik Emil Horneman
13. Aladdin: Overture
14. King Kristian II, Op. 27: Nocturne
15. Carmen: Danse bohème
16. Coppélia: Mazurka
Producer´s note ©
By Claus Byrith
Most of the recordings on this volume were made between 1942 and 1947, and issued on 78rpm discs. Many wartime records were pressed on shellac partially recovered from old records which had been processed for re-use. Such material was often more grainy than fresh shellac and consequently noisier, also because it was contaminated with dirt and dust. However, the shortage of raw materials became even more acute in the years immediately after the war. In many cases a new 78 could only be acquired if the buyer turned in an old record for re-use. The years 1946-47 marked a low point for the production quality of records in Denmark, and the situation improved only gradually during the late 40s. Listeners will hear this for themselves on the present volume. While recording techniques gradually improved, pressing quality worsened. I have drawn all the original records here from my own collection, and gone to every effort to find the cleanest possible sources, with the hope that the listener will enjoy these rare recordings despite their technical deficiencies.
Born on 25 October 1898 in Copenhagen, Thomas Jensen entered the Royal Danish Conservatoire of Music in 1913 where he studied with, among others, Carl Nielsen. Between 1917 and 1919 he was a solo cellist of the Northwest Skåne Orchestra in Helsingborg in Sweden. From 1920 to 1927 he played in the Tivoli Symphony Orchestra in Copenhagen, first as 3rd, then 2nd cellist.
The cellist Jensen nurtured ambitions as a conductor which he began to fulfil in 1923, as conductor of the amateur Euphrosyne orchestra. Two years later, his conducting of Stravinsky’s L’histoire du soldat at Det Ny Theater (The New Theatre) attracted attention, and he decided to further his conducting career with periods of study in Paris and Dresden, returning once in a while to conduct at the Nørrebro Theatre, and at the Tivoli in the event of its permanent conductor Frederik Schnedler-Petersen being indisposed. When Johan Hye-Knudsen left the Scala Theatre in 1925 to join the more prestigious Royal Theatre, Jensen was encouraged to apply for the vacancy. He chose instead to become conductor of the Philharmonic Society in Aarhus. The post enabled him to take on more purely orchestral repertoire, even when coupled with work at the Aarhus Theatre, but he probably also saw the opportunities afforded by the city’s cultural potential. Plans were afoot for a university (founded in 1928) and even a permanent symphony orchestra. This ambition took another decade to bear fruit with the Aarhus Civic Orchestra, founded and named in January 1935 by Jensen himself.
In the meanwhile, Jensen did not restrict his work to the relatively provincial Aarhus. In 1931 he was invited by the head of Danish radio, Emil Holm, to apply for a new post as a second conductor to the radio’s symphony orchestra, assisting the work of Launy Grøndahl and Erik Tuxen. Even though several board members suggested hiring him without further ado, the management (mostly Holm) insisted on an open audition. Jensen came third, and the post went instead to the Austrian conductor Fritz Mahler, whose father was a cousin of the composer Gustav Mahler. Jensen’s reputation had preceded him, however, so that he nevertheless returned to the DRSO as a guest conductor. 1935 was a watershed year for Jensen. As well as founding the City of Aarhus Orchestra he made his debut with the DRSO in November with a programme of light popular music.
The two ensembles continued to lie at the centre of his work for the next two decades. With 26 permanent members, the City of Aarhus Orchestra was a Classically constituted ensemble, whereas the radio orchestra was more than twice as large, expanding from 55 musicians in the 30s to an ‘international standard of 92 musicians in 1948. From 1936 to 1948 he also led regular concerts with the Tivoli Orchestra, acting as deputy to Svend Christian Felumb during the Aarhus orchestra’s annual summer break.
RELEASE DATE: November 2021
CATALOGUE NUMBER: DACOCD 917
EAN: 5709499917008
