Carl Nielsen

The Danish composer Carl Nielsen (1865-1931), together with Jean Sibelius from Finland, is a towering figure of twentieth-century Scandinavian music. Both are masters of the modern symphony, but it is arguably Nielsen who was the more progressive in style and technique. In this biography he emerges as an energetic individual, one who was much more dynamic than is suggested by the popular image of him as the dreamy country boy who rose from poverty to become Denmark's most influential composer. He studied as a violinist at the Royal Danish Conservatory in Copenhagen but composed from an early age. Even from his earliest compositions Nielsen was to transcend and challenge the nineteenth-century Romanticism of Grieg and Gade. He instead admired the Classical masters and used as his starting-point the basic foundations of music. His six symphonies were all within a Classical framework, but their musical content advanced beyond the comprehension of his contemporaries to express personal and national turmoil, and above all, the inextinguishable power of music. The biography emphasizes Nielsen's versatility, from the dramatic heights of his two operas Saul og David and Maskarade to the poignant simplicity of his popular songs. Nielsen's revitalization of the Danish folk song, setting old Nordic texts to music of a Fresh and direct utterance, was no less of an achievement than his symphonies. The text also offers a subtle analysis of the composer's complex personality, and shows that far from being provincial and naive, Nielsen was well-read, widely travelled and deeply immersed in European culture. In this, the first biography on Nielsen to be published in English, the author reveals much that is new and unpublished about Nielsen's life and times.