It's Not British, but...Fini Henriques's Piano Music on Danacord

First things first. This is a delightful CD of ‘straightforward’ piano music. Every one of these 52 tracks are a little bit of pleasure. And not only that, they are played with imagination, a touch of wistfulness and complete attention to detail.

There is a snag. There are three music ‘albums’ on this disc. It is very difficult to listen to this CD at one sitting: all the music would seem to blur into one long assortment of sameness.  And that is hardly fair to Henriques’s achievement. Even taking one collection at a time is not much more successful. Take Schumann’s Album für die Jugend, op. 68, (Album for the Young). This is one of my favourite collections of miniatures – both to hear and to play. In the Schumann, there is a moderately wide-range of material– some more or less straightforward, others requiring greater technical achievements. Much as I love the Album für die Jugend, I could no more take it at one sitting: playing or listening. And Fini Henriques is the same. Several commentators have suggested that his Children's Poetry, Op. 30 (1908) is an early 20^th century Danish version of Schumann delightful album. So, my stricture applies here too.

I would suggest dipping in and out of this CD. Listen to a few of these pieces at a time. Enjoy the imaginative effect of these largely ‘innocent’ titles. They are quite beautiful and surprisingly full of interest.

A word about Fini Henriques. He was born in Frederiksberg, Copenhagen on 20 December 1867. After early piano studies with his mother and violin with Lars Valdemar Tofte, he began composition lessons with the well-known Norwegian composer Johan Svendsen. Further training took place at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin with Joseph Joachim and Woldemar Bargeil. Much of Henriques career was spent as a highly regarded freelance violinist. I have only heard a couple of fugitive pieces by Henriques before reviewing this CD. Based on this disc and a few comments in Grove’s and information in a couple of reviews, I note that he writes in a melodic, romantic style, probably regarded as old-fashioned in his day. As stated above, Schumann was a model for much of the music on this present disc (that is no complaint!) and I understand that there are influences of Wagner and Tchaikovsky at play in his ballets such as The Little Mermaid. It is not difficult to discover hints of Edvard Grieg either. Fini Henriques died in Copenhagen on 27 October 1940.

I am lucky to have found the piano score of Henriques’s Children's Poetry, Op. 30: I was unable to locate the other two albums within the timeframe of this review. The pieces here represent the child’s world - at least at the time of composition. This was an era when imaginative reading was of more importance that social networking on electronic devices - at least for some children. Just look at a few of the titles: ‘The Juggler’, ‘The Cat after the Mouse’, ‘The Chatterbox’ and ‘Will o' the Wisp’. Then there are some more ‘pathetic’ pieces such as ‘The Minuet of Sorrow’, ‘Doggy’s Death’ and ‘The Lonely Person’. There are even one or two titles that would be deemed politically incorrect in 2019 – ‘Dancing Bears’ and the ‘The Dance of the Wild People’.  My personal favourite is the melancholy ‘At the Grave from the Melodic Album, op. 50, composed in the aftermath of the Great War.

Henriques does not try to write tiny tone-poems on these subjects, but there is often some musical onomatopoeia which adds charm and delight.

The liner notes by Thorkil Mølle give a good introduction to the life and times of the composer but say precious little about the music. As noted above, the playing by Thomas Trondhjem is well-judged and is never patronising. Clearly, many of these pieces are technically ‘easy’ but are probably harder to interpret than the ‘notes’ would imply.  

It is a delightfully splendid achievement by Danacord to have recorded these charming, but always interesting, little pieces. It leads me to wonder if there would be a market for British-born composers Felix Swinstead, Alec Rowley and Thomas Dunhill – all of whom wrote a splendid catalogue of music aimed at the younger player and suffused with evocative and innocently imaginative titles.

Track Listing:

Fini HENRIQUES (1867-1940)

Children's Poetry, op. 30 (1908)

Melodic Album, op. 50 (1919)

Miniature Water-Colours), op. 21 (1900)

Thomas Trondhjem (Piano)

Rec. St Markus Kirke, Aarhus, Denmark May 2018

See titles and timings below.

DANACORD DACOCD 840

For detailed track-listing, please see Danacord Website page for this CD