If you read Inger Sørensen’s seven pages worth of sprawling liner notes, you will get a picture of the composer Emil Hartmann that is very much like reading one of Selma Lagerlöf’s sagas of Scandinavian life in the 19th century. Hartmann, of course, whose father and grandfather were both prominent composers, and who belonged to the circle which include Gade and Reinecke, was Danish, but there is in his music that combination of delicate (think Mendelssohn) and robust (think Dvorak) that Scandinavian composers drew on so effectively, and that makes late 19th century Scandinavian music so attractive. Add the inevitable need for sounds of the hunt, stark dramatic contrasts and exuberant pagan celebrations (and sublime spiritual consolation), and you’ve got the fixings for music that is not only fun but often fit for an audiophile.
To various degrees, the three works on this wonderful new CD from Dacapo supply all of the above ingredients. Hakon Jarl is a 21-minute symphonic poem in the best Scandinavian tradition: a grisly and gruesome but also gloriously heroic and ultimately uplifting tale pitting pagan against Christian.
Each of the two world premiere recordings provides memorable moments amidst their generic beauty and vivid orchestrations. In A Carnival Feast, it’s the exquisite four-minute trumpet solo preceding an elegant waltz reminiscent of the fantastical music Eric Idle and Michael Kamen wrote for Terry Gilliam’s movie, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. In Nordic Folk Dances, it’s the energetic opening Scherzo which, like all of the 24-minute suite, sounds like it was based on actual folk music—but wasn’t.
The sound is rich and powerful provided you’re willing and able to crank up the volume, in which case the performances are bigger than life, full of color and immersed in an intoxicating intensity.
– Laurence Vittes
