Carl August Nielsen (June 9,
1865 – October 3,
1931) was a conductor,
violinist,
and the most internationally known composer
from Denmark.
He is especially admired for his six symphonies.
Nielsen was born one of twelve children in a poor
peasant family. His father was a housepainter and amateur musician. Carl first
discovered music by experimenting with the different sounds and pitches he
heard when striking the logs in a pile of firewood behind his home. His family
was relatively poor, but he was still able to learn the violin and piano as a child.
He also learned how to play brass
instruments, which led to a job as a bugler. He later studied violin and music theory
at the Copenhagen
Conservatory, but never took formal lessons in composition. Nonetheless, he
began to compose. At first, he did not gain enough recognition for his works to
support himself. During the concert which premiered his first symphony,
Nielsen played in the second violin section. He continued to play the violin at the Royal
Theatre in
On April 10, 1891 Nielsen married the Danish
sculptress Anne Marie Brodersen. They had met just a month before in
He suffered a serious heart attack in 1925 and
from that time on he was forced to curtail much of his activity, although he
continued to compose until his death.
Nielsen is best known for his six symphonies.
He also wrote operas,
the concerti
for flute,
violin
and for clarinet,
the wind quintet,
and the Helios Overture, which depicts the passage of the sun in the sky
from dawn to nightfall. In
Wind Quintet
A wind
quintet, also sometimes known as a woodwind quintet, is a group of five wind players (most commonly flute, oboe, clarinet,
horn
and bassoon).
The term also applies to a composition for such a group.
1. Allegro ben moderato
Most people will have experienced the irritation of
receiving a phone call in the middle of doing something else, but when
Christian Christiansen, the Danish pianist was called to the phone in the
middle of rehearsing Mozart with four members of the Copenhagen Wind Quintet he
could little have thought that this minor inconvenience would result in the
composition of a major work for wind ensemble and two of the finest wind
concertos of the twentieth century. The caller was Carl Nielsen, who, hearing
that they were playing music by his favourite composer asked if he could attend
the rehearsal.
As a result of that evening, on April 22 of the
following year (1922) the Copenhagen Wind Quintet gave the first performance of
Nielsen’s Wind Quintet in