Hans Christian Lumbye (1810-1874) was a Danish composer inspired by Johann Strauss I. He found a congenial spot as head of an orchestra that performed at Copenhagen's Tivoli Garden amusement park and turned out tremendously crowd-pleasing music for several decades. Perhaps he is less well known than the members of the Strauss family because his name is nearly unpronounceable for non-Danes. (LOOM-buy is not even close; if you're determined to try, shorten the first syllable, say a "b," add the German ü sound, and tack an unaccented short e onto the end of that). At any rate, give a listen to the Copenhagen Steam Railway Galop, track 4, and try to resist its train rhythms and conductor's calls. His music is brash, brassy (literally -- the Tivoli performing forces included a group of brasses), and colorful. This recording, made in the early '90s, may perplex the browser with its combination of an aging Russian conductor and a Danish radio orchestra, but however it came about, it's delightful.
Rozhdestvensky (and after you've pronounced Lumbye, that should be a breeze) keeps things moving and lets us hear Lumbye's nicely finished triangle and other percussion parts. He catches the twinkling humor of squarish pieces like the Britta Polka, track 9, something that eludes the players of the
Tivoli Symphony Orchestra in their competent but rather dry Lumbye performances on the Naxos-label series of Lumbye discs. This single disc offers a well-chosen selection of Lumbye's works, and it's a superior light music release -- a fine pick for a winter party or as a gift for a Strauss waltz lover looking for something new.