August Enna: The Little Match Girl

August Enna (Composer), Roman Zeilinger (Conductor), Danish Radio Sinfonietta (Orchestra), Gitta-Maria Sjoberg (Performer), Henriette Bonde-Hansen (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Gitta-Maria Sjoberg, Henriette Bonde-Hansen
• Orchestra: Danish Radio Sinfonietta
• Conductor: Roman Zeilinger
• Composer: August Enna
• Audio CD (October 7, 2003)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Cpo Records
• ASIN: B00005UVU1
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #409,953 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Modestly appealing but not stunning music, well played, September 9, 2009

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G.D. (Norway) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: August Enna: The Little Match Girl (Audio CD)

August Enna (1859-1939) enjoyed some popularity in his day, but his works - especially stage works - are pretty much forgotten today. Enter CPO to show us what we have been missing. The verdict is: not very much, really. That is not to say that the two works here lack merit, but they are far from forgotten masterpieces, and even thought this disc is almost guaranteed to provide enjoyment and pleasure, if you decide to pass it by, your life won't exactly be severely impoverished.

Both works are based on HC Andersen. The 35-minute opera The Little Match Girl (1897) was probably his single most successful work, and despite its modesty it involves some touching features and nice, unchallenging tunes and harmonic developments; quite effective, if a little sentimental. It receives a good performance here, both with respect to singing and orchestral playing. The Shepherdess and the Chimney-Sweep is a ballet with narration, and the music exemplifies the same virtues as the opera - lyrical, romantic, singable and easy on the ear with some inventive use of orchestral textures, but modest in scope and not particularly memorable. Performances are again rather good, though, albeit a tad uninvolded, and overall CPO provides good sound quality. So, a modestly enjoyable release of modest music - well worth hearing but not really anything to go out of your way to experience.