Technical matters first.
This is a lovely clean and ‘present’
recording in all respects, BIS’s high
standards are maintained. One feels
as if one is in the Aalborg Hall about
six or seven rows back. Well done the
engineers – again.
According to Grove
"Lange-Müller was a Romantic
by temperament and artistic inclination.
His style was strongly influenced by
the music of his countrymen Hartmann
and Heise and by that of Schumann, but
he evolved an individual late-Romantic
style built around emotionally concentrated
tonal effects on a dark harmonic background,
reminiscent of Brahms and contemporary
French developments." An opinion
I note because this CD may not represent
this more serious side and perhaps much
more is to be discovered. Is BIS perhaps
planning to record the Symphonies or
the Violin Concerto?
The prelude to Once
upon a time is very easy and tuneful,
played, like all these pieces, with
great accomplishment by the excellent
Aalborg orchestra. The appeal to Nielsen
mentioned at length in the excellent
commentary is easy to hear. The same
homespun cheerfulness is to be found
in many of Nielsen’s own folk-song settings.
Though the next item is entitled Gypsy
Music it is essentially more of
the same. The attractive serenade
for tenor solo and chorus shows the
Coro Misto to be somewhat sparsely populated
and a similar characteristic afflicts
the following aria for soprano solo
and chorus. Here Susanne Elmark seems
to me not wholly stable. The refreshing
aspect of this aria is the anachronistic
presence of a harpsichord accompaniment.
The hunting music, and indeed
much of this set of extracts, is a bit
like Gilbert and Sullivan without the
acid wit, but so attractive that it
really belongs in the regular repertoire
of programmes like Friday night is
music night on BBC Radio Two. No
horses will be frightened by Lange-Müller.
The waltz goes a bit more off the rails
but never to the delicious extent of
H. C. Lumbye whose inspiration is always
stronger. By the end of this set of
extracts I was left wondering a little
at Nielsen’s comments about Lange-Muller’s
‘strangely glowing halo which will remain
(with me) for as long as I live’. I
assume he admired his gift for simple
melody or was perhaps familiar with
other more serious works not present
on this recording. The lively overture
to Renaissance soon relaxes into
more of the same. It is not until we
reach the two Sea Songs and the
Flemish folk-song setting Late on
a night so cold that a more powerful
image emerges. These are less sweet
and all the better for it. The gently
martial character of the two extracts
from Viking Blood had me thinking
of inappropriately Pythonesque Vikings!
The failure of this opera apparently
caused him such distress that he almost
abandoned composition for the last twenty
years of his life. He died in 1926 just
five years before his (much greater)
young contemporary Nielsen.
BIS is to be congratulated
on filling an interesting gap in international
knowledge of the late 19th
century Danish repertoire. Recordings
of Lange-Müller’s music do seem
to be available on the Kontrapunkt and
Da Capo labels. Interested readers should
search the ’net.
Dave Billinge
see also choral
music
Aalborg Symphony Orchestra/Moshe Atzmon 
