Scandinavian, Finnish & Baltic Concertos

From the 19th Century to the Present
A Discography of CDs and LPs
Prepared by Michael Herman
Maintained by Stephen Ellis

Introduction
The composers included in this discography were either born in or came to live in the Scandinavian nations of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, as well as their cultural offshoot, Iceland, neighboring Finland and the Baltic Republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. All of these have had strong cultural ties over the centuries.

While only two works documented here, Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto and Jean Sibelius’s Violin Concerto, can be considered as belonging to the international orchestral standard repertoire, it can be readily seen from the contents of this work that this part of the world has been a very fertile ground for producing concertos over the last two centuries. The large numbers of composers and recordings listed below stand as a great tribute to the dedicated recording companies of these various countries who have given the rest of the world an ability to look into an important aspect of their national cultures.

“Recorded” is here defined as being available in a physical format that can be (or could have been) purchased or obtained from either a commercial or non-commercial source. Tape recordings, DVD’s, music available exclusively as downloads from the internet and formats other than CD’s or LP’s are not included.

The entry for each composer consists of two sections. First there is a compact biographical paragraph that notes some essential information such as place of birth, higher musical education (including schools and prominent teachers), subsequent musical careers in addition to composing, and details of other concertos that have not been recorded. Compositional styles are not discussed in these paragraphs, and readers are referred to the bibliography where various reference books that cover this subject are listed. The second part of each composer entry consists of lists of his or her concertos that have been recorded and the various recordings of each work. A concerto is very broadly defined defined for the purposes of this discography to include any work that has the word “concerto,” “concertino” or “concertante” in its title whether or not a soloist is involved. [However, the emphasis is on orchestral concertos; composer-designated “concertos” for solo instruments or for just a few instruments are not included. Also included is any work in which an instrumental soloist is continually involved whatever its title may be. For every concerto that has them, the opus number, key signature and title are noted and the year of composition (when known) is stated for all. The entries of the concertos that have had multiple recordings are listed alphabetically by soloist’s name. Each listing of a recording consists of the following components (again, if known): (1) Performers – soloist(s), conductor, orchestra, (2) Other works on the recording, (3) Label and catalogue number and year of issue, and (4) If the recording is a reissue, the original LP or CD release, and its year of issue. Please note that the performers listed are for the entry work and not necessarily for the work or works that complete the disc. Also, in most instances when an entry work is included in a large collection (especially if most of the other works are not related to the discography’s subject), the list of couplings is not given but is replaced by the title of the collection. All recordings listed are CDs unless specifically designated as LPs.

Acknowledgements
As noted on the title page, Stephen Ellis has edited this work. However, he was much more than an editor who corrected my errors both inadvertent and egregious, but he also enlightened with me his vast knowledge of composers of the modern era and recordings of their works. His contribution was indispensible and greatly appreciated. Thanks also once again to Len Mullenger for hosting my work on his superb MusicWeb International website and also to David Barker for straightening out the technical problems that I submitted along with the document.

Composer List