Peter Heise (1830-79) was born in Denmark and was intended by his family to become a lawyer, but after graduating with high marks he chose music as a career instead. Romanticism was just flowering in Scandinavia and Heise became part of a musical generation that collected (and sometimes reformulated) folk songs of the region. Heise has hundreds of these songs to his credit. The two works on this release, Tornerose (a version of Sleeping Beauty written in 1873) and Bergliot (a Danish historical romance written in 1866) are built from these indigenous tunes. Musically, however, Heise was profoundly influenced by the great German composers–both living and dead–that were popular in his era. So in places the music can sound either like German beer-hall songs (as in the opening of Tornerose, “I borgen hist hun hviler”) or German lieder (just about anything sung by the character “the hermit” in Tornerose). Neither of the two works are operas or theatre pieces, however; they are more like cantatas with roles for soloists. Of the soloists here, the standouts are Stephen Milling (bass) and Helle Charlotte Pederson (soprano). We might wish, however, for a less matronly mezzo than Marianne Rorholm. Still, the music is lovingly performed, and the richly recorded sound has considerable sonic depth, typical of many dacapo releases. Recommended for 19th century romanticists.
