Kayser did, in fact, lead an active musical life as a composer, teacher, and organist. His musical studies began early, and at age 15 he enrolled at the Royal Danish Academy of Music. His First Symphony appeared two years later, just before he moved to Stockholm to study with Hilding Rosenberg. He finished his Second Symphony in 1940, and other works followed. Two years later, Kayser suspended most of his musical activities and traveled to Rome to study for the Catholic priesthood. In 1949, he returned to Denmark and took up the parish of St Ansgar’s Cathedral in Copenhagen. At the same time, he resumed his active life as a composer and completed his Third Symphony, some sacred works, and music for organ. In 1955 he took a leave to work with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Nine years later, he left the priesthood, married a few years after that, and joined the faculty of the Royal Danish Academy of Music. His last major work was the Fourth Symphony, which he completed in 1963. After that, he fell victim to the avant-garde that swept aside many tonal composers. Michael Garnaes’s excellent notes perhaps harshly call Kayser an “elitist reactionary” who “entrenched himself behind a defiant armor”. In any case, he never accepted atonality and serialism. But he never stopped composing, and he went on to write “practical” music (what Hindemith called gebrauchsmusik), as well as organ pieces and piano arrangements of orchestral works.

The imprints most apparent in Kayser’s music are Hindemith, Shostakovich, Bartók, Britten, and similar figures including even William Schuman. His short First Symphony (1936) bristles with the excitement of youthful inspiration, opening slowly with a portentous fanfare figure, then slowly unfolding. The composer described it as “adamant and insistent”. The slow movement is an inspired transformation of the opening figure into a long passage for violins and violas and later solo woodwinds. After it expands into a beautiful tutti, it is picked up by horns and trombones to create a mellow brass sound. The violins take over in Parsifal-like fashion before the movement ends quietly. The finale bursts with such ideas as a vigorous, Brittenesque string passage, a big brass theme that blends Shostakovich and Nielsen, clarion calls, and mocking and grotesque figures.

The much longer and more expansive Fourth Symphony begins with a marching figure in the strings and woodwinds. It is at first treated gently in a fugato, then it becomes more flowing without losing its march character and bits of Shostakovich and of Hindemithian dryness. In a most interesting passage, Kayser puts a touching violin line over a rocking accompaniment in the low woodwinds before adding a brooding theme in the low strings. In time, an insistent brass section picks up the rocking theme; tension builds and backs off before a quiet ending. The Molto Vivace begins with quick fanfares and string figures suggesting Britten before the main melody plays in octaves in the violas and cellos. After a brilliant trumpet solo, the midsection introduces a theme treated as a fugue before the recapitulation.

The 20-minute Lento’s depth, brooding, melodic turns, harmony, affinity for instruments’ low registers, and signature dropping major second are exceptional. The whole thing—particularly the string-drenched first section—reminds me of Shostakovich’s great slow movements without the Russian’s earthiness and tragedy. The Sibelian middle section unfolds with meditative woodwind solos accompanied by soft pacing in the strings. When the strings return and climb in register, the music brightens and turns more urgent, like forces gathering in the snow. Things become agitated with bright brass and string tremolos. The brass jab with repeated staccato accents, then join the strings in pounding out the dropping second. When the battlefield clears, a Shostakovich-like melody mourns in the high strings. After some counterpoint in the low strings and exchanges between oboe and English horn over a steady timpani, the movement ends in resignation.

The tour de force Finale opens with long, melodic woodwind cadenzas in a swaying 9/8, with the harp strumming as if accompanying a recitative. Later, Kayser will cleverly use that strumming as a transition to the cellos’ entrance. Melody spins from different instruments while the strumming passes around the orchestra, eventually evolving into a passage of William Schuman-like wind orchestration, block chords, and brass syncopations. After that, the melody spins out bitonally between flutes and bassoons. A ruminative viola cadenza initiates a transition to a darker atmosphere, greater volume, and more complexity in the 9/8 rhythm. The influence now is Hindemith (perhaps foreshadowed by the cadenza in the viola, Hindemith’s main instrument). When things calm down, a ruminative bassoon solo passes around the orchestra with the violins and harp marking the passing of time.

There are some nice effects here, with Schumanesque woodwind swirls, string chords, and mallet percussion. The celebratory ending alternates the swaying 9/8 melody with the “Schuman” figures and harmony, creating an orchestral sound like bitonal church bells. In July/August 2007, Mark Lehman reviewed Kayser’s Second and Third Symphonies on Dacapo without enthusiasm for the music or the performances. I have not heard it, but I recommend this one wholeheartedly. The performances make a strong case for two exciting, powerful works, and Dacapo’s sound delivers them in fine fashion.