Carl Nielsen

Carl August Nielsen (9 June 1865 – 3 October 1931) was a Danish composer, conductor and violinist. Nielsen is especially noted for his six symphonies, his Wind Quintet and his concertos for violin, flute and clarinet. In Denmark, his opera Maskarade and many of his songs have become an integral part of the national heritage.

About Carl Nielsen in brief

Carl August Nielsen (9 June 1865 – 3 October 1931) was a Danish composer, conductor and violinist. Brought up by poor yet musically talented parents on the island of Funen, he demonstrated his musical abilities at an early age. Nielsen is especially noted for his six symphonies, his Wind Quintet and his concertos for violin, flute and clarinet. In Denmark, his opera Maskarade and many of his songs have become an integral part of the national heritage. Nielsen maintained the reputation of a musical outsider during his lifetime, both in his own country and internationally. In 2006, three of his compositions were listed by the Ministry of Culture amongst the twelve greatest pieces of Danish music. For many years, he appeared on the Danish hundred-kroner banknote. The Carl Nielsen Museum in Odense documents his life and that of his wife. Between 1994 and 2009 the Royal Danish Library, sponsored by the Danish government, completed the Carl Nielsen Edition, freely available online, containing background information and sheet music for all of Nielsen’s works, many of which had not been previously published. He died from a heart attack six years later, and is buried in Vestre Cemetery, Copenhagen. He was the seventh of twelve children in a poor peasant family, at Sortelung near Nørre Lyndelse, south of Odense, Denmark. His father, Niels Jørgensen, was a house painter and traditional musician who, with his abilities as a fiddler and cornet player, was in strong demand for local celebrations.

Nielsen wrote his earliest compositions at the age of eight or nine: a lullaby, now lost, and a polka that he mentions in his autobiography. His mother, whom he recalls singing folk songs during his childhood, came from a well-to-do family of sea captains, while one of his half-uncles, Hans Andersen, was a talented musician. In 1881, Nielsen began to take his violin playing more seriously, studying privately under Larsen, the sexton at Odense Cathedral. In November 1879 he became a bugler and alto trombonist in the 16th Battalion of the Odense Regiment. He played in Giuseppe Verdi’s Falstaff and Otello at their Danish premieres. Nielsen did not give up the violin during his time with the army, continuing to play it when he went home to perform at dances with his father. It is not known how much Nielsen composed, but it is believed that he composed his Op. 1, Suite for Strings, in 1888, at the aged of 23. The following year, he began a 16-year stint as a second violinist in. The Royal Danish Orchestra under the conductor Johan Svendsen. In 1916, he took a post teaching at the Royal. Danish Academy and continued to work there until his death. He composed his sixth and final symphony, Sinfonia semplice, was written in 1924–25.

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