Emil Reesen
1. Intermezzo from the opera The Story of a Mother
Finn Høffding
2. Procession from the opera The Emperor’s New Clothes
Henning Wellejus
From H.C. Andersen’s picture book, first performance
3. Ole Lukøje arrives. Ole’s dance Andante sostenuto
4. The Top and the Ball. The butterfly. The butterfly’s dance. The Spring Guys. The little Mermaid
5. The Nightingale. They talk in each other’s mouths. They dance a gallop. The figures gradually disappear. The boy’s lullaby. Ole’s dance (and the disappearance)
Knudåge Riisager
From the H.C. Andersen ballet Twelve with the Mail
6. January
7. May
8. August
9. October
Fini Henriques
Suite from the ballet The Little Mermaid
10.Polonaise
11. Menuet
12. Valse lente
13. The Dance of the Joy of Life
Knudåge Riisager
On the Occasion of –
14. In the Black Pot
15. Paul and his chickens
16. Tinkle-tankle, tin soldiers
Finn Høffding
17. “It is Perfectly True!” after H.C. Andersen
Knudåge Riisager
Paradise of Fools, suite
18. Prelude
19. Departure
20. The Royal Guardsmen
21. Lazy-Bones Polka
22. Princess Sweets
23. Procession of Gluttons
24. Point Finale
Two Beggar-pupils Songs
Now let us sing
26. The song about the birds
Ebbe Hamerik
1. Quasi passacaglia e fuga. For string orchestra
Suite from the opera Marie Grubbe
2. Masked Ball at Rosenborg
3. Winter Day at Tjele
4. On Akershus
5. The Song of Tjele
6. Ribe Market
7. Outside the Cathedral
Herman Sandby
The Vikings at Helgeland
From Forest Impressions
9. Summer
10. Autumn
Johan Peter Emilius Hartmann
11. Triumphal March of the Nordic Gods from the ballet Thrymskviden
Niels W. Gade
12. Mariotta. Comedy play overture
Herman Sandby
Double Concerto for violin and cello
13. Allegro moderato
14. Andante
15. Allegro
Three Danish Folk Songs, arranged for string orchestra by Launy Grøndahl
16. The song about Marsh Stig’s daughters
17. An Adorable and Joyful Summertime
18. Folk song from Langeland
Thomas Jensen Legacy, Vol. 10 ©
Martin Granau/Peter Quantrill
The present collection of live and studio recordings focuses on repertoire little known beyond Denmark and even within it, including a pair of first performances and several other pieces which receive here their first commercial release in any medium. It could be considered almost de rigeur for a Danish composer to write at least one piece inspired by the nation’s most enduring author, Hans Christian Andersen, and the anniversary of his birthday on April 2, 1805, has always been celebrated with events, readings, concerts and broadcasts. One such took place in 1958. The actor Poul Reumert read two of Andersen’s tales in a broadcast from the author’s house in Odense.
On the following day, April 3, the DRSO gave a concert of Danish pieces all inspired by Andersen’s writing, beginning with a Festival Overture by August Enna. The remainder of the concert presented on CD1 has survived on tape, and so the album begins in melancholy fashion with the Intermezzo from Historien om en moder, composed by Emil Reesen in 1940 for the soprano Tenna Kraft in the title role. Carl Gandrup’s libretto is based on Andersen’s black tale of a mother who loses her sick child and eventually gives up negotiating with Death, when she realizes that the child – were it returned to her – might face a life of misery. A more familiar tale to readers and audiences beyond Andersen’s native land is The Emperor’s New Clothes, which Finn Høffding adapted as a three-act opera first performed at Copenhagen’s Royal Theatre in December 1928. In this early part of his career, Høffding composed in an idiom owing something both to Nielsen and to wider trends in European modernism – such as the clear-cut textures of Igor Stravinsky which exert an influence on the opera’s climactic orchestral Procession.
While the ballet company of the Royal Theatre had sustained a rich culture of music for dance since the middle of the 19th century, the influence of Diaghilev’s Ballets russes and the composers who wrote for it such as Stravinsky and Dukas – may also be discerned in Knudåge Riisager’s score for Twelve with the Post. At this Andersen concert, Jensen conducted four movements, summarised by the journalist Børge Friis in his review for Berlingske Tidende: ‘Robust January, graceful May, August with its autumnal dance and the month of October, characterized by a hunting mood.’
RELEASE DATE: February 2022
CATALOGUE NUMBER: DACOCD 919
EAN: 5709499919002
