$Unique_ID{bob00158} $Pretitle{} $Title{Denmark Danish Music After 1945} $Subtitle{} $Author{Knud Ketting} $Affiliation{Press and Cultural Relations} $Subject{music danish musical works composer opera composers new first copenhagen} $Date{1988} $Log{} Title: Denmark Book: Fact Sheets on Denmark Author: Knud Ketting Affiliation: Press and Cultural Relations Date: 1988 Danish Music After 1945 When Denmark in May 1945 again flung open her doors to the free world, music educator and later professor Gunnar Heerup took stock in the journal Levende Musik (Living Music): "For a good many years now we have in Denmark both voluntarily, smugly, and involuntarily, impatiently been living on our national heritage; but necessary as the national genius may be as the origin of all things it is equally inadequate in the further progress of culture. We are facing the danger that the cultures of Russia and the United States will embrace each other across the Pacific and leave a vacuum above Central and Northern Europe. We must counter that danger by attracting the cultural upheavals from East and West to our country; we believe that they will not crush us but only enhance our national life in a long and rich future." With these words Heerup, consciously or subconsciously, struck out against the mighty shadow of Carl Nielsen. It had loomed large over Danish musical life since the composer's death in 1931 and it would be several years before the national genius would pick up some truly fresh impulses. When they did arrive it was from neither East nor West but, as in the past, from the South. The first postwar years were dominated by composers who in the 1930s had found their individual ways of self-expression in music, although all had that unmistakeably Danish sound: Jens Bjerre (b. 1903); Svend Erik Tarp (b. 1908); Jorgen Jersild (b. 1913); Svend S. Schultz (b. 1913); and Knudage Riisager (1897-1974). And all were to some degree inspired by France in style and instrumentation. Bernhard Christensen (b.1906) had devoted himself particularly to jazz while Finn Hoffding (b. 1899) together with Jorgen Bentzon (1897-1951) had done much for popular music education. Vagn Holmboe (b. 1909) drew on folk music by way of B*ela Bart*ok while Herman D. Koppel (b. 1908), a superb pianist as well, most clearly of all took Carl Nielsen as his point of departure and was the last to rehearse the Nielsen piano works under the direction of the composer himself. In Flemming Weis (1898-1981) neoclassicistic expressions were joined with a pronounced musicianly temperament. Both Hoffding and Holmboe have moreover been important teachers of composition at the Copenhagen Conservatory. Among the major works written during these years are Riisager's spirited Czerny paraphrase, Les Etudes, which together with Harald Lander's choreography conquered the great stages of the world; Bentzon's Racconti for varying chamber orchestrations with a strongly personal polyphonic style; Hoffding's The Arsenal at Springfield for soloists, chorus and orchestra to the lyrics of Longfellow (1953); Schult'z beautifully sombre opera Harvest (1950); and among the symphonic literature Tarp's Symphony in E flat (1949), and Holmboe's Fifth Symphony which was first performed at the International Music Festival in Copenhagen in 1947 and contains obvious elements of the musical metamorphosis technique that would later become this composer's hallmark. Koppel's light, lyrical Fifth Symphony might symbolically be called the coping stone of this period. It won the contest for a symphonic work for the inauguration of the newly erected concert hall in Tivoli Gardens in 1956. The former concert hall had been blown up during the German occupation. Two individualists A few composers do not fit neatly into the overall picture of Danish music life at the time. This is true above all of Rued Langgaard (1893-1952) who throughout his life remained loyal to the late Romantic School which Carl Nielsen and his contemporaries had roundly denounced. From 1940 he served as an organist at Ribe Cathedral where he had reason to feel isolated from the musical circles who wanted nothing of his compositions, often written in feverish haste. In our time renewed interest in the late Romantic period has led to first performances of a number of unplayed Langgaard scores, most recently the Biblical opera Antichrist. But even today it is difficult to get a complete overview of his production, in terms of neither quality nor quantity despite the dedicated efforts of the young musicologist Bendt Viinholt Nielsen. Ebbe Hamerik (1898-1951) demonstrated his strong personality as a composer of operas and symphonies. His opera Marie Grubbe (1940) has joined the ranks of Danish national operas with a lyrical outlook and melodies reminiscent of folk tunes. But it is equally characteristic of his position in Danish musical life that two of his operas received their first performance abroad while his last musical drama, the polytonal The Dreamers (1949), based on a novella by Karen Blixen, lay idle until the Jutland Opera in Arhus produced it for the stage in 1974, 23 years after Hamerik's death. The Comet The occupation was the time when a comet started soaring towards the galaxy of Danish music: Niels Viggo Bentzon (b. 1919), a graduate in music theory, organ and piano playing from the Conservatory in Copenhagen who had his debut as a pianist in 1943. To the public he was already known as a composer. And things have moved fast since then. So far he has turned out nearly 500 compositions, mainly instrumental music but of such variegated nature which defies description in brief. Most characteristic of his early works is his preoccupation with the technique of metamorphosis which also Vagn Holmboe has cultivated. An example of this period in the creative life of Bentzon is his Fourth Symphony (1949) which appropriately is entitled Metamorphoses. Around 1960 Bentzon, together with several other Danish composers, was caught by the potentialities of the twelve-tone technique which already 10 years earlier he had dealt with in the first book in Danish on the subject. From Darmstadt to Denmark In the summer of 1946 the West German town of Darmstadt launched its annual international courses in new music. These courses were to become an important source of inspiration for composers from all over the world and the international breakthrough of Luigi Nono and Karlheinz Stockhausen, among others. Danish composers too, went to Darmstadt. Among the first was Axel Borup-Jorgensen (b. 1924) who had himself intensively studied the twelve-tone technique in the music of Arnold Schonberg and Anton Webern and saw his impulses reaffirmed in studies in Darmstadt in 1959 and 1962. Borup-Jorgensen has not made direct use of the composing styles he became acquainted with in Darmstadt but in his personal style of expression we find several twelve-tone characteristics: an almost aphoristic concentration coupled with a huge richness of detail in rhythm, dynamics and sound. He has written mostly chamber music but internationally he is best known for two orchestral works, Nordic Summer Pastoral (which in 1965 won a composition contest sponsored by Denmark's Radio) and Marin (1970). Poul Rovsing Olsen (b. 1922) has supplemented his inspirations from Darmstadt with studies in Paris with Nadia Boulanger and Olivier Messiaen. His studies of music ethnology have inspired him to borrow traits from Arabian and Indian music. In his later works such as the Lorca opera Belisa (1966) serialism has clearly been supplanted by the Gallic and non-European influence. Jan Maegaard (b. 1926) has won international fame as an expert on Schonberg and has stayed in the United States for several periods. In a limited but exquisite production he has continued his development along the course charted by his Schonberg studies and the Darmstadt School, unaffected by later trends towards the socalled 'new simplicity', and rediscovered major-minor tonality. An avantgardist before avantgardism An isolated figure in Danish music is Gunnar Berg (b. 1909). He was born in Switzerland, the son of a Swedish mother and a Danish father. Not until he was a grown-up man and working as an engineer did he acquire first-hand knowledge of Danish musical life. While taking a private music education he wrote a number of works but the critics had scant sympathy for him when in 1945 he made his official debut in Copenhagen with an evening of his compositions. In 1948 he left for Paris and during the following decade he travelled in Central Europe, practically without any contact with Danish musical life. A turning point came with his introduction to the French composer Olivier Messiaen and his circle, and he also met Karlheinz Stockhausen at the 1952 Darmstadt course. In 1957 he returned to Denmark together with his wife B*eatrice Berg, a pianist, who until her premature death in 1976 would interpret not only her husband's recondite music for the piano but also introduce Danish concertgoers to a number of other avantgardist piano works. In physical circumstances, which have at times been desperately inadequate, Berg has uncompromisingly continued to compose in his characteristic brief, crystalline style which only in recent years has attracted the attention of a wider circle. Bypassing Darmstadt Among the composers who consciously avoided the influence from the South is Svend Westergaard (b. 1922). He studied in Italy but his compositions are clearly rooted in the Nordic tradition, perhaps with a shade of Bartok. His production is modest in volume but of exquisite quality. Peder Holm (b. 1926) too stayed away from the avantgardist camp. His contribution to Danish musical life lies mainly in the educational aspect and most of his compositions were commissioned. Ole Schmidt (b. 1928) is equally well known as a composer and conductor. He is responsible for a widely acclaimed complete recording of the Carl Nielsen Symphonies with the London Symphony Orchestra. To some extent his compositions betray his past as a jazz pianist and are all pervaded by the fascination with rhythm found in a performing musician. Henning Wellejus (b. 1919) has become Denmark's most durable representative of neoclassicism. With great craftsmanship he devotes himself to a style designated to please the audience, and in the public debate he has often come out against the less accessible music forms. Leif Kayser (b. 1919) not only has a music education but following studies in Rome of philosophy and theology he was ordained. As a symphonist he builds on Carl Nielsen and in his orchestral works he has demonstrated his mastery of instrumentation which since 1964 he has been passing on to his students at the Conservatory in Copenhagen. Church musicians Bernhard Lewkovitch (b. 1927) who was raised in the tradition of the Catholic faith has developed into the major composer of contemporary Danish church music. Organ music aside, purely instrumental music occupies only a minor role in his production which in addition to large works also features choral movements and chorals for organ all of which are widely used in the Danish national liturgy. For Leif Thybo (b. 1922), an organist and composer, Stravinsky has been the principal inspiration. Among his works is the opera The Immortal Story (1971) based on the text of Karen Blixen, but he is known chiefly as a composer of church music. He has performed his own works on extensive tours of Europe and the United States. Norgard and Norholm Per Norgard (b. 1932) began his career as a composer as an eager champion of Nordic unity in music. His encounter with the international avantgardist movement at festivals for new music in Rome in 1955 and Cologne in 1956 resulted in a radical reorientation and in recent years Norgard has won international acclaim with works whose tonal basis derives from a so-called infinite series and has rhythmic and time proportions which are rooted in the Golden Section, known from ancient times but so far never practised in music. For his opera Gilgamesh (1973) Norgard was the first Dane to be awarded the Nordic Council Music Prize in 1974. His most recent major work is his Third Symphony for chorus and orchestra (1976) which plays for more than one hour and was one of Denmark's contributions to the concerts of the European Broadcasting Union. Already in his school days Ib Norholm (b. 1931) wrote his first opera, The Snail and the Rose Hedge, from a fairytale by Hans Christian Andersen. For his musical point of departure he drew on the Carl Nielsen tradition but his encounter in the late 1950s with the Central European avantgardism caused a radical shift in style to serial music which in turn in the mid-1960s was superseded by a pluralistic style equating traditional and innovative elements. Today Norholm is one of the few Danish composers who has successfully combined the lyrical melodious tradition with significant new experience. His musical drama in particular, e.g. The Young Park (1970) and The Garden Wall (1976), has impressed the Danish music audience. Both Norgard and Norholm have also been greatly important as mentors for the young generation of Danish composers. After teaching for some years at the Conservatory in Copenhagen Norgard, together with a large group of his students in composition, in 1963 left for the Jutland Conservatory of Music in Arhus where jointly with the Director of the Conservatory, the composer Tage Nielsen (b. 1929) he became the centre of an unusually fertile environment for new musical compositions. After teaching at the Funen Conservatory of Music in Odense for some years Norholm has since 1973 (together with Niels Viggo Bentzon) been teaching composition theory at the Conservatory in Copenhagen. Norholm has also been a central figure as chairman of the Society of Young Musicians, the Danish section of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM), during the period 1973-80 Fluxus In the early 1960s the Fluxus movement, inspired by the American George Maciuna, reached Denmark. Few Danish composers embraced this form of artistic nihilism but the happenings served at the Fluxus Festival of the Society of Young Musicians in Copenhagen in November 1962 created a vehement debate and turned the broad public against all recent progressive music. Poet Klaus Rifbjerg was prompted to make this commentary: I have confidence in you! the inverted graphics of empty note sheets furious orchestras, challenged conductors fuming association members, pregnant critics red-hot soloist - I have confidence in you! Henning Christiansen (b. 1932) was the Danish composer who most eagerly made the Fluxus effects his own. However, his turning point as a composer did not happen until the mid-1960s when he changed his style to almost provocative simplicity. A good example of his deliberately broadly aimed musical message is his music for the movie version of Hans Scherfig's novel The Clerk Who Disappeared. Electronic music In the scanning of the extremes of musical effects electronic music has found adherents in Denmark as well. In this context the Danish town of Holstebro was to put its imprint on developments when in 1967 it hired Jorgen Plaetner (b. 1930) as town composer with own electronic music studio. Plaetner had already before that time been into electronic music. Among his principal taped compositions are Figures in Water (1971). Other Danish composers as well have left the lure of the infinite universe of electronic music. For many years Else Marie Pade (b. 1924) was one of the most active, and after working for at time in Stockholm at the Elektronstudiet Bent Lorentzen (b. 1935) has created a number of works in which he has managed to combine electrophony with traditional musical effects, for instance in the witty chamber opera This Sounds Like Something by Mozart which was first performed by the Kiel Opera in 1974. Jens Wilhelm Pedersen (b. 1939), a musical Jack of all trades who under the name of Fuzzy gained national fame, has also worked with electrophony while Per Norgard was commissioned by Denmark's Radio to write electronic intermission music for television (1970) which aroused strong reactions among the viewers. Recently Gunner Moller Pedersen (b. 1943) has publicised electronic music through the Danish Society for Electronic Music and frequent concerts in the handsome and unique indoor garden of the New Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen. Pluralism of style Around 1970 a pronounced reaction emerged to the thoroughly organised principles of composition of the Darmstadt School and its complex, non-thematic music. The picture still appears so mixed and with the details in such close perspective that a generalisation seems out of place. A few general trends do stand out, however. Stylistically, the frequently used term 'new simplicity' applies to a large number of works which does not imply, though, that they have reached a larger audience than the complex music of the 1960s. At the same time composers have shown a much greater taste for and capability of getting involved in musical life as performers, intermediaries and organisers. Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (b. 1932) has often worked with collage-like forms in which combinations of strongly contrasting elements of style assume a grotesque, dryly humouristic effect. He himself points to Samuel Be@ckett as one of his major sources of inspiration. Yngve Jan Trede (b. 1933) is of German origin and settled in Denmark in 1966 after studying in Hamburg and Rome. Many of his more recent works were first performed by the Musica Danica Ensemble in which he is himself active both as a pianist and harpsichordist. Erik Norby (b. 1936) is the Romanticist among contemporary Danish composers. He has unashamedly espoused the programme music at which others look askance and has won international acclaim for his symphonic poem The Rainbow Snake (1975) which was impressive not least because of its richness of sound and skillful instrumentation. Mogens Winkel Holm (b. 1936) has undertaken important jobs as an organiser and has also worked as a music critic. As a composer he has made a name for himself primarily through his musical dramas, among them the chamber opera Sonata for Four Opera Singers (1969) and several ballets, the latter in collaboration with his brother, choreographer Eske Holm. Sven Erik Werner (b. 1937) was employed by Denmark's Radio 1963-70, and since 1974 he has been serving as Director of the Funen Conservatory of Music in Odense. Several of his works, e.g. the opera The Holy Communion (1973) and the TV opera So Much Has Been Created (1974) reflect a personal confrontation with a Catholic background. Svend Nielsen (b. 1937) achieved a combination of a frequently through-composed serial style with a lyrical timbre polyphony of an almost neoimpressionistic variety. Among his principal works is Nuages (1972), a sort of programme symphony describing several cloud formations. Ingolf Gabold (b. 1942) has during several periods been employed by Denmark's Radio. His production consists almost exclusively of vocal music which is tied to extramusical ideas and concepts, often borrowed from the depth psychology of Jung. In 1971 his TV opera Seven Scenes for Orpheus won him the Salzburger Opernpreis. Youngest generation Early on Ole Buck (b. 1945) who like other important young composers was educated by Per Norgard at the Jutland Conservatory of Music, made a name for himself with a series of works of crystalline clarity. Karl Aage Rasmussen (b. 1947) has made a much valued contribution as organiser and musical director of the Elsinore Players, an ensemble which also internationally has succeeded in asserting themselves as interpreters of contemporary music. His own musical style is clearly marked by speech-song and collage effects. Bo Holten (b. 1948) is a composer, music critic and director of Ars Nova, a vocal ensemble specialising in the performance of medieval and Renaissance music as well as contemporary music. Not surprisingly most of his works contain vocal elements. His interest in modern English music is also reflected in his own works, e.g. in his first opera The Bond (1979) based on a short story by Karen Blixen. Poul Ruders (b. 1949) was educated by Ib Norholm and also works as an organist. His speech-song and montage technique may be heard in the choral work Stabat Mater (1974) which in addition to the ancient sequence uses a crass speech-song collage by the composer himself. Hans Abrahamsen (b. 1952) has been hailed by several critics as the greatest talent among the youngest composers. In 1970 he founded, together with his composer colleague Svend Aaquist Johansen (b. 1948), the Lyngby Young Musicians who are devoted to the performance of contemporary works. Abrahamsen is also an active musician while Aaquist Johansen on several occasions has conducted performances of new music. DUT and AUT While the new orchestral music reaches the Danish music audience primarily through the radio and the concerts of the regional orchestras, much of the new chamber music becomes known through concerts arranged by the Society of Young Musicians in Copenhagen (DUT) and Aarhus Young Musicians in Arhus (AUT). Both DUT and AUT collaborate with Denmark's Radio on some of the concerts. Thus some of the concerts included in Denmark's Radio's January Festival of New Music, Musical New Year, are produced in direct cooperation with DUT while the Danish Radio also reports exhaustively on the greatly concentrated effort made by AUT every spring since 1978 to make the Numus Festival a success. The current directors of DUT and AUT are Svend Aaquist Johansen and Karl Aage Rasmussen, respectively, and a similar organisation is being planned for Odense in order to further the contact between the Funen concert audience and contemporary music. The Music Act and MIC As the first country in the world Denmark in 1976 obtained a special Music Act in which it is stated quite clearly that musical activities must and should become part of everyday life of the Danish people. Among the new initiatives of the Act was the establishment of a Music Information Centre whose explicit purpose is to disseminate knowledge of Danish music and Danish musical life not only in Denmark but also abroad. MIC, the abbreviated title of the Centre, was formally opened in October 1980, and thus Denmark has caught up with the other Nordic countries in endeavours to strengthen the position of its own music, nationally as well as internationally. Bibliography Nearly all composers referred to in article are treated in more detail in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London, 1980). John H. Yoell: The Nordic Sound (Boston, 1974). Musical Denmark. Annual publication containing articles, lists of first performances and gramophone records. Published since 1952 by Det danske Selskab, Kultorvet 2, DK-1175 Copenhagen K. Additional information available from the Music Information Centre DAMIC, Skoubogade 2, DK-1158 Copenhagen K.