Your guide to classical music online

Riisager: Orchestral music, Vol. 1/Holten

David Hurwitz

Artistic Quality:

Sound Quality:

Knudage Riisager was a born orchestral composer, and he seemed to understand exactly what kind of writing best suited his natural proclivities. The occasional sudden dissonance, sardonic brass commentary, bright woodwinds, and high-lying violin ostinatos all suggest comedy, and in the four overtures, especially Klods Hans (translated here as “Jack the Dullard”) that’s exactly what we get. You might think of Riisager as the Danish Malcolm Arnold, without the bitterness and melodrama. The music is rhythmically vivacious, full of good tunes, and wonderfully scored, even without special coloristic effects. Right from Riisager’s Op. 1, the overture Erasmus Montanus, you can hear in the brass chording his splendid feel for sonority.

The First Symphony is a perky, three-movement piece that contemporary critics described as Stravinsky mixed with Puccini, but to modern ears it sounds like neither. It is indeed cast clearly in a neo-classical mode, and there’s not a shred of obvious Scandinavian sound–amazing for the date of composition (1925), when Nielsen’s influence was strongest in Danish music. It’s not perfect–the outer movements could be better sustained–but the sheer charm of the work’s ideas carries the day. The performances in this first volume of a projected series of Riisager’s symphonic works are first-rate, and so is the engineering. Bo Holten and his players clearly relish the music’s color and energy, and I can only welcome this release with great enthusiasm and high hopes for the series as a whole.


Recording Details:

Reference Recording: None

KNUDAGE RIISAGER - Overtures: Erasmus Montanus; Klods Hans; Comoedie; Fastelavn (Carnival); Symphony No. 1

  • Record Label: Dacapo - 8.226146
  • Medium: CD

Search Music Reviews

Search Sponsor

  • Insider Reviews only
  • Click here for Search Tips

Visit Our Merchandise Store

Visit Store
  • Ideally Cast Met Revival of Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette
    Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center, NY; March 19, 2024—The Met has revived Bartlett Sher’s 1967 production of Gounod’s R&J hot on the heels of its
  • An Ozawa Story, November, 1969
    Much has justifiably been written regarding Seiji Ozawa’s extraordinary abilities and achievements as a conductor, and similarly about his generosity, graciousness, and sense of humor
  • Arvo Pärt’s Passio At St. John The Divine
    Cathedral of St John the Divine, New York, NY; January 26, 2024—When one thinks of musical settings of Christ’s Passion, one normally thinks of the