Concerto Copenhagen is acknowledged as one of the leading Scandinavian ensembles for early music. With two new releases the ensemble demonstrates that it not only masters Baroque music but also works that have only recently been written – both played on Baroque instruments.

Buxtehude and his Copenhagen connections

The release Ich bin die Auferstehung. Buxtehude and His Copenhagen Connections combines solo cantatas and chamber music characterised by fearless innovation and effervescent creativity from the Baltic countries during the second half of the 17th century – the so-called Early Baroque. The works have been selected and recorded by the bass-baritone Jakob Bloch Jespersen, together with Concerto Copenhagen under its conductor Lars Ulrik Mortensen, and it paints a picture of the sources of inspiration and development of the Baltic composers, with Dietrich Buxtehude as a key figure.

A follow-up to last year’s success

Friday’s second release Alone & Together contains completely new works by the Danish composer Karl Aage Rasmussen (b. 1947), who in 2015-17 was house composer for Concerto Copenhagen. The album features three solo concertos that investigate the relationship between the loner and the community – and archetypal contrast that for centuries has imbued the genre with a special fascinating attraction for composers and audiences alike.

The concertos have been recorded by Concerto Copenhagen with the soloists Fredrik From, Baroque violin and Alfredo Bernardini, Baroque oboe, together with Athelas Sinfonietta Copenhagen with the violinist Anne Søe as soloist in the work Sinking Through the Dream Mirror.

Alone & Together is a follow-up to Concerto Copenhagen’s rave-reviewed release in 2019 of The Four Seasons After Vivaldi with Karl Aage Rasmussen’s recompositions of major Baroque works by Vivaldi and Respighi.

Music video from Trinitatis Church

Apart from the two new albums, a music video is being released of Buxtehude’s Ich bin die Auferstehung und das Leben, BuxWV 44. The video was recorded in the Beautiful Trinitatis Church in Copenhagen, where parts of the recording of the album Ich bin die Auferstehung took place and can be seen i.a. on Apple Music.