
Rued Langgaard was a loon, but a compelling loon. His Fourteenth Symphony has fanciful titles like “Radio-Caruso and forced energy” and “Dads’ rush to the
Talk about a slam-dunk! This is without doubt the finest collection of Nielsen’s short orchestral works currently available. It is perfectly played, brilliantly conducted, and
Anyone who claims that the recorder’s tiny dimensions cannot possibly compete in a solo capacity against a full-sized 21st-century orchestra should investigate these three dazzling
Michael Schonwandt proves a formidable Nielsen conductor as he leads powerful renditions of all six symphonies. Symphonies Nos. 4 and 5 stand out as being
With characters like The Scarlet Beast, Hatred, Despondency, and (my own personal favorite) The Great Whore, how can you not love an opera like Antikrist?
Franz Berwald deserves to be as highly regarded worldwide as he is in Scandinavia. On this recording, Thomas Dausgaard and the Danish National Symphony Orchestra/DR
Franz Berwald strikes me as being as tasteful and well-trained as Mendelssohn, but without the fantasy; as innovative and imaginative as Schumann, but without the
Rued Langgaard’s Antikrist is fabulous–a genuine, undiscovered, eccentric masterpiece. Of course, it helps that the composer was basically out of his mind, poor guy, and
Sunleif Rasmussen is the Faroe Islands’ first “art music” composer, and he’s quite a serious one. His Symphony No. 1 was the 2002 winner of
A near-hour’s worth of Brahms choral music might seem daunting to those familiar only with his at-times lugubrious German Requiem, but the four works in