Classical Summer Concerts
World-class classical music at the Glyptotek
World-class classical music at the Glyptotek
For the 47th time, you are - true to tradition - invited to attend classical concerts in the beautiful surroundings of the Glyptotek.
Experience some of Denmark’s most acclaimed classical musicians.
The summer concerts take place every Sunday in August and September from 12:00 to 13:00.
Behind the star-studded program are Julie Eskær, 1st concertmaster of the Danish Entertainment Orchestra and chamber musician, and Ingemar Brantelid, chamber musician and former solo cellist of the Royal Danish Orchestra.
Please note: The concerts start on time, and entry will not be possible once the performance has begun. We kindly recommend arriving early, as queues may occur.
Thanks for generous support from:
Solistforeningen af 1921, Knud Højgaards Fond, Augustinus Fonden, William Demant Fonden, Dansk Solistforbund and Wilhelm Hansen Fonden.
Concert descriptions by Henrik Engelbrecht.
Sunday August 2 12:00 - 13:00 Andreas Brantelid, Alexandra Conunova, Benjamin Schmid, Michael Germer, André Gaio Pereira, Adrien La Marca, Stine Hasbirk, Ingemar Brantelid Virtuoso Strings in Wild Octets
What is better than a string quartet? Two string quartets, of course! While almost all the great classical composers from Haydn onwards have explored the string quartet genre, a few—among them the Danish composer Niels W. Gade—have also explored the possibilities of doubling the ensemble. For this concert at the Glyptotek, cellist Andreas Brantelid has assembled a group of international soloists from Moldova, Austria, Portugal, and France, along with three Danish colleagues. Together they perform chamber music on a grand scale.
At just 16 years old, Felix Mendelssohn was already an experienced composer when he wrote his octet as a gift for his violin teacher Eduard Rietz. The Romanian composer George Enescu spent a year and a half on his large-scale octet, at times doubting whether its structure would hold: “An engineer building his first suspension bridge over a river could not have felt more anxiety than I did…”
Sunday August 9 12:00 - 13:00. Eskær Trio Mozart and the Unknown Trio by Brahms?
For over 30 years, the Eskær Trio has been a cornerstone of Danish chamber music. With their long-standing collaboration and strong artistic unity, they are now regarded as one of the country’s most refined ensembles.
In 1854, Brahms completed the Piano Trio in B major, which is today regarded as his first. However, he wrote at the same time to his friend Schumann that he had already composed several piano trios earlier - and one of these may be a trio in A major that surfaced in a music collection in 1928… unsigned and handwritten by an unknown copyist.
But is the trio really an early work by Brahms - or was it written, for instance, by his close friend Albert Dietrich, as some musicologists have suggested? We will probably never know for sure. But the music itself - there is nothing wrong with it. Listen for yourself!
Sunday August 16 12:00 - 13:00 Trio con Brio Copenhagen Traces of Shakespeare
Trio con Brio Copenhagen—Jens Elvekjær and sisters Soo-Jin Hong and Soo-Kyung Hong—has for 25 years been Denmark’s leading international piano trio ensemble. Beethoven’s chamber music has always been central to their repertoire, especially the so-called “Ghost Trio,” named for the eerie atmosphere of its slow movement.
Swiss composer Frank Martin similarly explored the full color spectrum of the trio when he wove Irish folk melodies into a vibrant tapestry of dance and Celtic melancholy. The concert concludes with Trio con Brio’s own arrangement of Prokofiev’s ballet music from Shakespeare’s immortal love story Romeo and Juliet.
Sunday August 23 12:00 - 13:00 Christina Bjørkøe Familiar and Unknown Gems
Per Nørgård passed away last year at the age of 92, as the most significant Danish composer of his generation. He not only wrote groundbreaking symphonies, choral works, and chamber music - he also composed the score for Gabriel Axel’s Academy Award-winning film Babette’s Feast and reused much of that music in other works. Although Nørgård wrote the piano piece Peach Blossom, subtitled Far Eastern Blues, back in 1976, it was never performed during his lifetime and was in fact only premiered earlier this year by Christina Bjørkøe.
While Per Nørgård explored a wide range of genres, Frédéric Chopin never wrote a single work in which his own instrument, the piano, was not part of the soundscape. Christina Bjørkøe - who has studied at the Juilliard School of Music in New York and is now one of Denmark’s leading soloists - reveals two sides of Chopin: the intimate, nocturnal atmosphere of his nocturnes and the full virtuoso brilliance of the grand concerto form. Here presented in the composer’s own arrangement, where the soloist must not only perform the usual solo part but also take on the role of an entire orchestra.
Sunday August 30 12:00 - 13:00 Novo Quartet Late Quartets by Haydn and Beethoven
As the name suggests, NOVO Quartet is one of the newer chamber music ensembles in Denmark- founded in 2018 -but they have already made a strong international impression, winning top prizes at competitions in Geneva, Heidelberg, and Trondheim. Most recently, they have been selected as BBC New Generation Artists 2025–27.
Here they perform music by two composers who were absolutely pivotal in shaping the modern idea of the string quartet as four individual musicians collaborating to create a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Both works were written late in the lives of Haydn and Beethoven, at a time when their reputations were firmly established. Yet although only 27 years separate the two quartets, they represent vastly different worlds: the 67-year-old Haydn still inhabits the aesthetic of the 18th century, while the 56-year-old Beethoven points toward the music of an unknown future.
Sunday September 6 12:00 - 13:00 Trio Doré A Bouquet of Beautiful Songs
The combination of soprano, horn, and harp is not a common one in the world of chamber music, but three top-level Danish musicians have formed a trio with precisely this instrumentation. The two instrumentalists are both members of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, serving respectively as principal horn and principal harp. Together with one of the most promising young sopranos in Danish music- already enjoying an international career alongside numerous leading roles at the Royal Danish Theatre- they explore the unique sound world created by the combination of horn, harp, and soprano.
The trio’s repertoire ranges from arrangements of French opera arias and lieder by the German composers Robert Schumann and Richard Strauss to new music by the English composer Judith Weir and the Greek-Swedish composer Athanasia Kotronia. In many cases, the music has been arranged specifically for this ensemble by the trio’s own members.
Sunday September 13 12:00 - 13:00 Jonas Lyskjær Frølund, Jonathan Swensen, Elias Holm Clarinet Trios by Brahms, Fauré and Sørensen
In 1890, Johannes Brahms was 57 years old and believed himself to be creatively exhausted as a composer. But then he heard the clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld perform, and the experience was so profound that his desire to compose returned. Already the following year, he wrote his trio for clarinet, cello, and piano.
Bent Sørensen’s Schattenlinie tells a very different story. The work was not originally conceived for clarinet, viola, and piano, but evolved into this form from a single movement - the present third. Here, the composer plays with the idea of a “shadow line” in the music, which the three musicians continuously move toward. The title arose when Sørensen saw an art installation with the same name in a church ruin in Hanover: a drawn shadow line.
The French composer Gabriel Fauré also never wrote a trio for clarinet, cello, and piano, but the violin part in his Piano Trio in D minor lends itself perfectly to the expressive qualities of the clarinet. Here it is performed by Jonas Frølund, who himself studied at the Paris Conservatoire, where Fauré served as director for several years. Frølund is joined by star cellist Jonathan Swensen and the fast-rising young pianist Elias Holm—a dream team for the clarinet trio repertoire.
Sunday September 20 12:00 - 13:00 Arild Quartet Quartet Art by Beethoven and Debussy
Over the past more than 15 years, the Arild Quartet has established itself as a significant presence in Danish musical life, not least through its work with Beethoven’s complete string quartets. The ensemble has toured extensively in countries including Brazil, Scotland, Germany, Finland, the Czech Republic, Greece, and Sweden.
Another widely travelled figure was Andrey Razumovsky, the Russian ambassador to Vienna in the early 19th century—a count with a great love of music. Razumovsky commissioned three string quartets from Beethoven specifically for the city’s outstanding new quartet, inspiring Beethoven to write for the genre with an unprecedented level of ambition and complexity.
Towards the end of the 19th century, the French composer Claude Debussy wrote his first string quartet—also for one of the leading ensembles of the time, with violinist and composer Eugène Ysaÿe as primarius. The result was a work that, like Beethoven’s, pushed the string quartet genre further toward new frontiers of tonality and expression.
Sunday September 27 12:00 - 13:00 Ettore Causa, Boris Berman Vibrant Viola
What do you do if you play an instrument that does not have the same extensive solo repertoire as, for example, the piano or the violin? You borrow suitable music originally written for other instruments. The Italian-born violist Ettore Causa is an internationally sought-after soloist and chamber musician, and here he performs alongside the Russian-American pianist Boris Berman, who is especially known for his critically acclaimed recordings. Both musicians also teach at the prestigious Yale School of Music in the United States.
In 1824, Schubert wrote a sonata for a brand-new invention, a six-stringed bowed instrument that is hardly played today. It would be a shame if one of Schubert’s most beautiful sonatas were never performed, so fortunately his Sonata for Arpeggione has become a standard work for cellists, flautists—and violists alike. Shostakovich’s Viola Sonata, on the other hand, is an original work written for viola and piano—his very last composition, completed just weeks before his death in 1975.
