All three composers featured on this recording were central to the Danish Golden Age, a period of blossoming in the arts and music that delivered countless gems. Here, principal players from the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra perform fine concertante works from two composers who are experiencing a renaissance and one who still languishes in obscurity. From the splendour of Kuhlau’s William Shakespeare and his melodious Concertino, the fresh melodic qualities of Gade’s Capriccio, and the as yet unpublished Oboe Concerto by Barth, these new recordings from Aarhus make the case for four winning Danish scores.

The Danish Golden Age is the period of cultural and intellectual life in Denmark in the first half of the nineteenth century; a period when the national identity developed into a foundation that can still be clearly felt today. It was a period with an abundance of artistic expression, and names like Hans Christian Andersen, Søren Kierkegaard, the painters Købke and Eckersberg, and composers like Gade and Kuhlau, defined a whole era.

The works on this release are rather rare works from the era, with the late-Romantic Capriccio by Niels W. Gade as the only regularly performed work.

Christian Frederik Barth (1787–1861) is not well known today, and this album features the world premiere recording of his Concerto for Oboe and Orchestra. He came from a dynasty of oboists and was perhaps one of the most important, thus this work might become part of the repertoire of the not particularly extensive Danish oboe literature.