The Jena Philharmonic’s playing under Frank Cramer's sympathetic direction is a delight, and Dacapo's sound is excellent. These performances repay repeated listenings, the hallmark of a splendid disc.

The name Niels Høffding (1899-1997) is worldwide rather unknown, though in his home country Denmark the composer, for many years, used to be a very central and formative figure of Scandinavian music life.That, 15 years after his death, a representative profile of his orchestral works could be released on a CD of the Danish Label Dacabo Records - which emerged as not onlyworth to be heard, but rather to be virtually top-class - we first of all owe to Høffding country man and popular scholar Per Novgård. He, as a Høffding-connoisseur, provided the music assortment of the CD as well as written part of the booklet texts... The Jenaer Philharmonics, conducted by Frank Cramer, submitted an immaculate interpretation and enriched the repertoire of three highly-interesting orchestra scores 'made in Denmark'.

We celebrate this impassioned discovery and are highly enthusiastic about the tremendous joy of listening it! The German performers, an exemplary Thüringer Orchestra, which exists since 1934, and his from Essen orginating conductor Frank Cramer, who studied with Horst Stein, refuse every pretencious concession and every inappropriate reduction, and with this triumph with the rediscovery of these unnoted masterpieces.

The German Frank Cramer offers more nuanced accounts of these two scores... His Third Symphony is as magisterial as this great score demands and deserves… This release is essential to anyone interested in 20th-century Scandinavian repertoire.

Recovered Opulence

It is the great chance of excellent orchestras in the so called boondocks, to position themselves on the CD-sector with hidden rarities. Well considered, the Jenaer Philharmony takes advantage of this chance, whom recently has come out with an unusual record... Now the Jenaer under Frank Cramer are presenting a complete Hoeffding CD, which contents two premiered recordings.The three pieces from three decades show the arbitrary hand writing of the Master in the most fascinating way. Late Romantic opulent Evolution (1939) develops a stunning colorfulness.The in 1943 originated Det er ganske vist shows a way for European modernism, beyond the well-trodden tracks and the third Symphony from 1928 already presents a mature composer. Frank Cramer, an approved partner of the Jenaer Philharmony, understands how to make use of the capacities of the orchestra, in the sense of a balanced and likewise record-suitable sound pattern and conclusive dramaturgy.

Rarities

Dedicated and accurate in every detail Frank Cramer took a stand for, in this country barely known Danish composer Finn Høffding (1899-1997), who studied in Vienna by Joseph Marx and changed from the Late Romantic to the quaintly Neoclassic.

At any rate the symphony is shapely, potent, dramatic, and powerful without eccentricity or bombast—well worth seeking out for listeners drawn to modern-but-mainstream symphonic music.

Conductor Cramer (a German, born in Essen) leads sensitive and sensible performances.The orchestra plays splendidly, with real feeling for the music. The recording (September 1999 in Bamberg) is clean, crisp, and clear – all one could ask for!

It is a superb and deeply moving reading that invites a wide audience for this previously unrecorded symphony, and had I to choose just one highlight of this listening year, this it would have to be, by a wide margin.

This is a magnificent orchestral piece, deeply romantic in its delicacy of sensations and epic structure, full of soaring melodies, sensuous in sound (never again did Nielsen write for a larger orchestration), but clear and manifest in structure: a wonderful alternative to the long time classics of Romanticism.

The playing of the South Jutland Symphony Orchestra is perfect, and the conductor gives the impression that he has been occupied all his life with nothing else but the work of Ludolf Nielsen. I think this recording of Symphony Nr.2 sounds much better than the one recorded with Ole Schmidt.

Frank Cramer and the solid orchestra show a fine sense for precisely graded sound registers, favoured by Nielsen. Those interpretations are sensitive and have a wide range of dynamics.

Together with the Danish Philharmonic Orchestra, Frank Cramer managed sonorous and colourful interpretations, which turn into an emphatic plea for this long forgotten composer.