![Ensemble Midtvest – Whirl’s World (2019) [FLAC 24 bit, 96 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2023/01/10/d0ha3n4qko20a_600.md.jpg)
Ensemble Midtvest – Whirl’s World (2019) [FLAC 24 bit, 96 kHz]
Per Nørgard is one of the most frequently played composers of his generation. He has written more than 400 works in all genres and inspired innumerable colleagues in Denmark and abroad. This album presents all of Nørgard’s music for the Oscar winning Babette’s Feast film version by Gabriel Axel of Karen Blixen’s short story – not just the snatches of it one can hear in the film. One can also get to know the hypnotic Spell, the ripples and bubbles in Whirl’s World and Trio Breve, which according to the composer himself are to be regarded as three as short expressive phrases – dream-like pictures – that change between light and dark, fast and slow but with introvert melodic features in common.
![Esbjerg Ensemble – Idylls, Elegies (2022) [FLAC 24 bit, 176,4 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/10/01/rwq94ejqm5tda_600.md.jpg)
Esbjerg Ensemble – Idylls, Elegies (2022) [FLAC 24 bit, 176,4 kHz]
Even as he emerges onto Denmark’s new music scene as a major new voice, Matias Vestergård is a rarity on it: a composer fluent, flexible, prolific and poly-stylistic who draws on genres ranging from hymnody to cabaret while probing some of the basic theories of sound and its production.
The music recorded here was written during Vestergård’s years at the Academy of Music in Copenhagen, charting a process of self-discovery described by the composer as “my younger self trying to deal with the serious classical music heritage I love”.
![Esbjerg Ensemble – Music of the Abyss (2021) [FLAC 24 bit, 96 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2023/01/18/tyr8w9703qgna_600.md.jpg)
Esbjerg Ensemble – Music of the Abyss (2021) [FLAC 24 bit, 96 kHz]
Rued Langgaard’s (1893-1952) inner division can be experienced at its extreme in the chamber music written between 1913 and 1924, in which the secure world of his youth is undercut by a dark musical understream. This is most apparent in the work for piano, Music of the Abyss, which is presented here in a transcription for chamber ensemble by Allan Gravgaard Madsen (born 1984) of which this is the first recording. This meeting between Langgaard and Gravgaard brings to a climax the work’s view of modern man’s destructive strength in a crazy ride towards the abyss.
![Duo Åstrand,Salo, Christina Åstrand, Per Salo – Kuhlau: Violin Sonatas, Vol. 2 (2019) [FLAC 24 bit, 192 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/12/23/t8ymgojosf9ra_600.md.jpg)
Duo Åstrand,Salo, Christina Åstrand, Per Salo – Kuhlau: Violin Sonatas, Vol. 2 (2019) [FLAC 24 bit, 192 kHz]
Duo Åstrand/Salo follow up their first installment of sonatas by Friedrich Kuhlau with a selection of some of the composer’s most impressive works for violin and piano. Included is what some consider the first Danish violin sonata in the Romantic style, a work that glances towards the composer’s idol Beethoven but contains plenty of individual spice and allure. It is followed by sonatas in all but name, the Trois Duos brilliants from late in Kuhlau’s career. They are brilliant, as the title suggests – three varied, evocative snapshots of the great cosmopolitan of Denmark’s Golden Age.
![Danish Chamber Players, Ian Ryan, Anne Marie Granau – Dichotomy (2022) [FLAC 24bit, 176,4 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/05/25/hmx3r3kod0qrc_600.md.jpg)
Danish Chamber Players, Ian Ryan, Anne Marie Granau – Dichotomy (2022) [FLAC 24bit, 176,4 kHz]
Explorations of continuity and discontinuity are central to Danish composer Kasper Rofelt’s (born 1982) aesthetic. Dichotomy, the aptly – named album title work, presents a challenge, combining contrasting and even incompatible materials. This can be heard across this album, which features new chamber works by Rofelt including a great variety of musical characters and idioms. Kasper Rofelt is a student of Bent Sørensen and Per Nørgård. His music often relies on small collections of materials and a large amount of repetition as well as a big musical curiosity and imagination.
![Christina Åstrand – Else Marie Pade: The Orchestral Album (2022) [FLAC 24 bit, 176,4 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2023/01/07/zydixxp66aiha_600.md.jpg)
Christina Åstrand – Else Marie Pade: The Orchestral Album (2022) [FLAC 24 bit, 176,4 kHz]
This album is nothing short of a sensation: it shows Else Marie Pade (1924–2016) in a hitherto unknown role as an orchestral composer. Although these are only a few works, their artistic weight and the quality and integrity she brings to her orchestral works, provide ample reason to challenge her established image. With this album, it will be equally legitimate to label her as an “acoustic” composer as it has been to call her an “electronic” composer in the past.
![Christina Bjørkøe – Animal Universe (2021) [FLAC 24 bit, 96 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/11/21/xh3qi773qb5ib_600.md.jpg)
Christina Bjørkøe – Animal Universe (2021) [FLAC 24 bit, 96 kHz]
The challenge of the Etude has intrigued and inspired composers from Bach and Chopin on: can music designed to improve technique hold its own aesthetic value?
Pianist Christina Bjørkøe has an inspired answer to that question. She commissioned a set of three animal etudes from twelve composers and here presents the charming, evocative and very useful musical menagerie that resulted. From flea to hippo, beginner to professional, there is something for everyone.
![Christina Bjørkøe – Fini Henriques: Piano Pieces (2019) [FLAC 24 bit, 96 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/11/21/q51rccor9edac_600.md.jpg)
Christina Bjørkøe – Fini Henriques: Piano Pieces (2019) [FLAC 24 bit, 96 kHz]
During the last two decades of the nineteenth century, the generation of Danish composers born in the 1860s started to make an impact. Among them, Fini Henriques, who had a special gift for beautiful, well-shaped melodies, and his popularity rested firmly on a generous output of single pieces, usually strung together in collections such as those presented here by Christina Bjørkøe. Billedbogen (The Picture Book) is a collection for children and proved one of his absolute bull’s eyes, whereas Erotik (Eroticism) and Melodiske profiler (Silhouettes) see the composer exploring the world of adult life. Henriques’s best works maintain a high level with their honesty and that brilliant touch which few of his contemporaries could rival.
![Concerto Copenhagen, Lars Ulrik Mortensen – Champagne! The Sound of Lumbye and His Idols (2023) [FLAC 24 bit, 192 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2023/09/01/wkel7rpem89ea_600.md.jpg)
Concerto Copenhagen, Lars Ulrik Mortensen – Champagne! The Sound of Lumbye and His Idols (2023) [FLAC 24 bit, 192 kHz]
With the establishment of Copenhagen’s Tivoli Gardens in 1843, the Danish composer and conductor Hans Christian Lumbye (1810–1874) swiftly rose to fame as the city’s internationally acclaimed king of waltzes and galops, leading his orchestra from the violin. For this recording, Lars Ulrik Mortensen and Concerto Copenhagen – Scandinavia’s leading period instruments ensemble – studied Lumbye’s original scores and used instruments from the era to recreate an authentic sound. This collection showcases Lumbye’s enchanting music, along with popular pieces by his idols, Lanner and Strauss I.
![Carl Nielsen-Kvintetten – Bentzon: Wind Quintets (2022) [FLAC 24bit, 88,2 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/07/01/zbzdl2ijxh2qa_600.md.jpg)
Carl Nielsen-Kvintetten – Bentzon: Wind Quintets (2022) [FLAC 24bit, 88,2 kHz]
Prodigiously gifted Danish composer and pianist Niels Viggo Bentzon (1919-2000) wrote nearly 1,000 musical works in every known classical genre and style. He retained a constantly questing and exploratory nature throughout his life, as we can hear in his five known wind quintets, recorded here by The Carl Nielsen Quintet. The results are captivating in their own way, stoked by Bentzon’s distinctive, virtuosic language and great ingenuity. The Carl Nielsen Quintet is a young Danish ensemble formed in 2006. The members have positions in Danish and Swedish symphony orchestras alongside their career in the quintet.
![Christoph Poppen, Danish National Symphony Orchestra – Before Heaven, Before Earth – Symphonies 1 & 2 (2013) [FLAC 24 bit, 96 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/11/19/0636943610923_600.md.jpg)
Christoph Poppen, Danish National Symphony Orchestra – Before Heaven, Before Earth – Symphonies 1 & 2 (2013) [FLAC 24 bit, 96 kHz]
The Danish-German composer Søren Nils Eichberg is the first composer in residence in the history of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra. This disc presents the premiere recordings of his Symphony No. 1, the large-scale doomsday vision “Stürzten wir uns ins Feuer” (2006), and of his Symphony No. 2 “Before Heaven, before Earth” (2010), that was first performed by the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and concludes an explosive phase of creativity in the young composer.
![Copenhagen Piano Quartet – Kuhlau: Piano Quartet No. 3 – Malling: Piano Quartet (2019) [FLAC 24 bit, 192 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/10/31/dtxc4rwagdrla_600.md.jpg)
Copenhagen Piano Quartet – Kuhlau: Piano Quartet No. 3 – Malling: Piano Quartet (2019) [FLAC 24 bit, 192 kHz]
The prizewinning Copenhagen Piano Quartet presents works by composers cosmopolitan and conservative, but each brimming with charm. German-born Friedrich Kuhlau was a leading figure in what posterity has dubbed the Danish Golden Age. From the outset, Kuhlau stated that he intended to write three piano quartets. With this new release, Kuhlau’s complete piano quartets are available in recordings by the young and rising Copenhagen Piano Quartet. Kuhlau declared his Piano Quartet No. 3 ‘my best to date,’ speaking of a large-scale work of drama offset by grace and highlighting the composer’s contrapuntal gift. Otto Malling was a Danish composer and organ player and the pupil of JPE Hartmann and Niels W Gade. In 1903 Malling wrote his one and only piano quartet, which was also his very last chamber work to compose. The work by ‘The Danish Saint-Saens,’ as he was affectionately called by some of his peers, presents a perfect picture of this master craftsman’s clarity and concision while showing tantalizing signs of his sensuality, too.
![Concerto Copenhagen – The Four Seasons After Vivaldi (2019) [FLAC 24 bit, 192 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/10/30/jhe8sym1fue1a_600.md.jpg)
Concerto Copenhagen – The Four Seasons After Vivaldi (2019) [FLAC 24 bit, 192 kHz]
Danish National Baroque Orchestra Concerto Copenhagen is one of the leading baroque orchestras in the world.
![Berliner Philharmoniker – Symphony No. 1 in B Minor BVN 32 “Klippepastoraler” (Live) (2022) [FLAC 24 bit, 192 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/11/30/rs9gxmjry7s4b_600.md.jpg)
Berliner Philharmoniker – Symphony No. 1 in B Minor BVN 32 “Klippepastoraler” (Live) (2022) [FLAC 24 bit, 192 kHz]
Despite being at odds with his fellow human beings for most of his life, and regarded by many as merely eccentric, Danish composer Rued Langgaard (1893-1952) believed that his time would come, and so it has proved. His First Symphony reveals the teenage composer celebrating his love of beauty and harmony in the most hedonistic terms. This recording sees the symphony return to its first home, performed by the Berliner Philharmoniker, the orchestra who premiered the work in 1913 and the first to recognize it as a masterpiece.
![Berit Johansen Tange – Langgaard: Piano Works, Vol. 4 (2022) [FLAC 24 bit, 192 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/10/10/e0tc5q3w0j2xa_600.md.jpg)
Berit Johansen Tange – Langgaard: Piano Works, Vol. 4 (2022) [FLAC 24 bit, 192 kHz]
Berit Johansen Tange trained at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen with the lecturer Anne Øland, and in the spring of 1995 studied in Paris with Brigitte Engerer. In 1997 she was admitted to the Royal Academy’s special class for pianists with the subjects chamber music and accompaniment (with Anne Øland and Tove Lønskov) and made her debut from there in December 2000. Berit Johansen Tange is a pianist with a wide range of talents. She is an experienced and much sought-after accompanist and chamber musician in the clas¬sical repertoire, and with her regular ensemble Trio Fatale she also plays, among other things, concert tango and klezmer-inspired music. The trio won Second Prize in the International Astor Piazzolla Competition in Italy in 2000. As a soloist Berit Johansen Tange has worked intensively since 2001 with Rued Langgaard’s piano music. Along with Esben Tange she has created the musical production Rued Langgaard’s Struggle. This has been performed in among other places Ribe Cathedral, and at the Court Theatre in Copenhagen in connection with the performances of Langgaard’s opera Antichrist. Since 2002 Berit Johansen Tange has been employed at the Royal Danish Academy of Music as an accompanist and repetiteur.
![Athelas Sinfonietta Copenhagen – A Talk of Our Time (2022) [FLAC 24bit, 96 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/03/08/f2bivi5hbbana_600.md.jpg)
Athelas Sinfonietta Copenhagen – A Talk of Our Time (2022) [FLAC 24bit, 96 kHz]
Influenced by Grisey, Murail and Xenakis, Rosing-Schow writes music in which timbre and colour are as important as theme and harmony. His works unfold like blossoming flowers, and his early interest in improvisation brings a sense of interdependent, conversational instinct to the three concertos and two ensemble works on this release. His sources of inspiration are many, including ecological concerns, and his material is released with a calligraphic, aerated clarity and sense of functionalism in which no note, timbre or color is wasted.
![Anna Katrin Øssursdóttir Egilstrøð, Aarhus Symphony Orchestra, Andreas Delfs – Madsen & Egilstrøð: Beinta (2022) [FLAC 24bit, 192 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/04/27/cf1r077cm8hxa_600.md.jpg)
Anna Katrin Øssursdóttir Egilstrøð, Aarhus Symphony Orchestra, Andreas Delfs – Madsen & Egilstrøð: Beinta (2022) [FLAC 24bit, 192 kHz]
Attend the tale of Beinta Broberg. So dark an aura gathered around this unfortunate seventeenth-century soul that she became known on her native Faroe Islands as “Wicked Beinta”. “I think that society reacted to her rebellious spirit by trying to stain her reputation, by casting her out and portraying her as a kind of falle nwoman”, says Faroese singer and electronic composer Anna Katrin Øssursdóttir Egilstrøð. Composed by Anna Katrin Øssursdóttir Egilstrøð and Allan Gravgaard Madsen, the symphonic song cycle’s introspective, veiled songs are couched within a mostly passive-aggressive orchestral landscape: not a roaring and surging ensemble but a brittle, desolate and minutely changeable one.
![Anna Agafia, Bogotá Philharmonic Orchestra, Joachim Gustafsson – August Enna: Violin Concerto · Symphony No. 2 (2023) [FLAC 24 bit, 96 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2023/09/01/llvpguiwo4dmc_600.md.jpg)
Anna Agafia, Bogotá Philharmonic Orchestra, Joachim Gustafsson – August Enna: Violin Concerto · Symphony No. 2 (2023) [FLAC 24 bit, 96 kHz]
On this newest endeavour, the Bogotá Philharmonic Orchestra, under the direction of Joachim Gustafsson, turns its attention towards Danish composer August Enna (1859-1939) with renderings of two of his charming orchestral works. Traces of several elements from Enna’s musical life converge in the Violin Concerto: his background as a violinist and his deep connection to opera meet the tradition of Nordic national romanticism. While Symphony No. 2 may be considered conservative for its era, it is abundantly rich in its continuous melodic flow, creating an immediately impactful experience.
![Alpha – Bach: Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 (Arr. P. Navarro-Alonso) (2018) [FLAC 24bit, 96 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/06/12/zewgn26w73rvb_600.md.jpg)
Alpha – Bach: Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 (Arr. P. Navarro-Alonso) (2018) [FLAC 24bit, 96 kHz]
These Goldberg Variations present new perspectives on a well-known score. Danish composer Peter Navarro-Alonso’s composition is a note-by-note reinvention of the original Goldberg Variations by J.S. Bach. Thus Alpha’s innovative performance adds no additional notes in comparison to the original. It is merely through the very creative and extreme orchestration that the new composition gains its own life. “The combination of recorder, saxophone and percussion is clearly not very well suited to a baroque-style reorchestration,” claims Peter Navarro-Alonso, responsible for this arrangement tailor made for the members of Alpha. “But the richness in that combination lies in its enormous diversity in timbre and dynamics.” Alpha is a unique Danish ensemble, founded by Bolette Roed, Peter Navarro-Alonso, and David Hildebrandt, who all graduated from the soloist class at the Royal Danish Academy of Music, Copenhagen. As early as 2003, they were the first to explore this instrument combination, attracted by its many possibilities. Alpha was an immediate success, and have been prize-winners at contests and festivals all over Europe.
![Aldubáran, Jákup Lützen – Andalag (2020) [FLAC 24bit, 88,2 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/06/08/oy7x77pdhrzmb_600.md.jpg)
Aldubáran, Jákup Lützen – Andalag (2020) [FLAC 24bit, 88,2 kHz]
Sunleif Rasmussen (b. 1961) is the undisputed pioneer of Faroese classical music, and this album features some of the Faroe Islands most talented performers, the New Music ensemble Aldubáranand violist JákupLützen. Recorded in Tórshavn, the music they present here pivots on Rasmussens deft harbouringof momentum and energy, his gift for transformative textures, and his closeness to the unique musical traditions and landscapes of the Islands themselves one of the most beautiful, distinctive and naturericharchipelagos on earth.