The complete orchestral works of Hans Christian Lumbye (1810-74) are the subject of a continuing survey for Marco Polo, which reaches Volume 5 with this release. Fittingly, these recordings of “the Danish Johann Strauss” are being made in the hall in which Lumbye himself directed performances of his dance music, the famous Tivoli Gardens Hall, whose symphony orchestra is itself the direct descendant of “Det Lumbyeske Selskab”, the orchestra of the Lumbye Society. The present conductor, Tamás Vetö, guides his players through these charming and tuneful miniatures with considerable skill, but often with shrewdly gauged restraint as well, and the music is thus substantially elevated from its expected salonesque stature. Lumbye’s 1845 waltz Memories from Vienna sounds especially dignified as a consequence–although none of it matches the quality of Strauss’ great works in the genre.
Further highlights of this nicely engineered disc include the orchestral fantasy In the Dusk (good horn playing here) and the Fountain Waltz, a regular favorite among Lumbye’s audiences. The solo trumpet of today’s Tivoli Orchestra gives an agile display in the Salute Gallop, though the most ingenious piece here is the Telegraph Gallop, a reciprocal exchange between two orchestras in which the antiphonally “telegraphed” dialogue is clearly reproduced by the recording.
