Emil Reesen (1887-1964) was one of those multi-talented “light music” composers whose works will never get much attention from musical scholars and historians, but who wrote finely-crafted pieces that deserve to be played and enjoyed. Large scale works such as the Schubert Variations (on a theme from the piano four-hand Divertissement on French Motives), the rhapsody Himmerland, or the two delightful suites, are memorably tuneful, inventive, and very well-made. The remaining pieces are all short–you might call them “trifles”–but they are all refreshingly entertaining.
They are also well played and conducted on this new recording. The Aalborg Symphony, in case you didn’t know, is sort of the Danish equivalent of orchestras such as the Albany or Milwaukee symphonies here in the U.S., or Bournemouth and Liverpool in the U.K.–a proficient, well-trained “second tier” ensemble that you wouldn’t necessarily want to hear in standard rep (anyone desperate for an Aalborg Beethoven cycle?) but that handles this mellifluous, unfamiliar stuff with plenty of spirit and enthusiasm. It may be damning Reesen with faint praise to call his music “pleasant”, but he really is, and sometimes that’s just the ticket.
