Johan Peter Emilius Hartmann anyone?

[Jonathan]

Hi All,
I was awake at 4.30am this morning and put the radio on.  It was Through the Night on BBC Radio 3 and there was a lovely piece being played by the above composer.  I've just had a look around on iTunes, Amazon and MDT and there are about a dozen CDs of his music available - however, not all are single composer discs.  I just wondered if anyone here have any of these CDs in their collections and would they like to comment on the music?

[Alan Howe]

I thoroughly recommend his two symphonies on Dacapo: No.2 is a masterpiece. There is also a very good CD of overtures on the same label.

[TerraEpon]

One cannot forget The Valkyrie -- it's on CPO I think. It's a great entry into the 19th Century ballet canon as it were...

I have the symphonies disc, and enjoy it very much. There's also an (unfortunetly OOP) piano disc that's very good as well.

[Mark Thomas]

JPE is a greatly underrated composer IMHO. I agree that the Second Symphony is  a really fine work, but so are every one of the overtures of his which I've heard. The Valkyrie ballet is a very strong work too, as is his opera Liden Kirsten. Even the Piano Sonatas plumb real depths and reward repeated hearing. Had he been writing in Germany and not the musical backwater of Denmark (with all due apologies to any Danish readers) I'm sure that he would have secured a reputation as a major composer. He son Emil, although not really in the same league, also wrote some enjoyable works - we could do with recordings of the three symphonies.