Helios Overture
Encyclopedia
Carl Nielsen
's Helios Overture, Opus 17, was first performed by the Royal Orchestra
, conducted by Johan Svendsen
, on 8 October 1903 in the large hall of the Odd Fellows Mansion
in Copenhagen
.
wrote many short orchestra
l works
, one of the most famous
being Helios Overture
. In 1902, Nielsen signed a contract with the publisher Wilhelm Hansen, which allowed him to go to Athens
, Greece
, to join his wife Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen
, who was one of the first sculptors allowed to make copies of the bas-reliefs and statues in the Acropolis Museum
.
Anne Marie, who had been granted the Ancker Award, was studying Greek art
, while Nielsen, being a man of many interests, was interested in Archaeology
. The local conservatory placed a study room with a piano
at Carl Nielsen’s disposal. Here he could sit and compose when he was not on excursion
s in the surrounding mountain
s with or without Anne Marie.
Nielsen's stay in Athens gave him the inspiration of a work depicting the sun
rising and setting over the Aegean Sea
, an overture which he called Helios
. He began work on it in March 1903, and finished it on April 23 the same year.
The score is written for three flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, and strings.
The work begins as the sun ascends over the Aegean Sea, while strings
, divided horns
and woodwind
sound a melody
. This rises out of the darkness to a full orchestra, where fanfaring
trumpets begin a striding theme
, which returns later in the piece
. From there woodwinds begin a graceful tune, from which brass
sound. Strings begin to play, which draws the orchestra into a reprise
of the striding theme and its fanfare. In the final measures
, the music
subsides as the sun sinks over the horizon of the sea
. The average playing time is between ten and twelve minutes.
On the score, Nielsen wrote:
"Silence and darkness,
The sun rises with a joyous song of praise,
It wanders its golden way
and sinks quietly into the sea."
After a trip to Turkey
, Carl and Anne Marie Nielsen traveled through Italy
and reached Copenhagen
by the end of July. The Helios Overture was successfully performed
in Copenhagen on October 8, 1903, with Johan Svendsen
conducting, though the reviews were mixed. Carl Nielsen performed Helios several times. The first was an evening concert dedicated to his compositions at the Odd Fellow Mansion on 11 November 1905 and the last performance was on 12 February 1930 in Gothenburg
, Sweden. He also played the overture in Helsinki
, Stockholm
and Berlin
.
Being a great showpiece
for orchestra, it has been one of Nielsen's most famous works ever since.
Carl Nielsen
Carl August Nielsen , , widely recognised as Denmark's greatest composer, was also a conductor and a violinist. Brought up by poor but musically talented parents on the island of Funen, he demonstrated his musical abilities at an early age...
's Helios Overture, Opus 17, was first performed by the Royal Orchestra
Royal Danish Orchestra
The Royal Danish Orchestra is a Danish orchestra based in Copenhagen. The Danish name for the orchestra indicates its original function as an ensemble geared to supplying the music for court events...
, conducted by Johan Svendsen
Johan Svendsen
Johan Severin Svendsen was a Norwegian composer, conductor and violinist. Born in Christiania , Norway, he lived most his life in Copenhagen, Denmark....
, on 8 October 1903 in the large hall of the Odd Fellows Mansion
Odd Fellows Mansion, Copenhagen
The Odd Fellows Mansion is a Rococo town mansion in Copenhagen, Denmark, named after the local branch of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows which acquired the building in 1900...
in Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
.
Overview
Besides his well-known six symphonies, the Danish composer Carl NielsenCarl Nielsen
Carl August Nielsen , , widely recognised as Denmark's greatest composer, was also a conductor and a violinist. Brought up by poor but musically talented parents on the island of Funen, he demonstrated his musical abilities at an early age...
wrote many short orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
l works
Work of art
A work of art, artwork, art piece, or art object is an aesthetic item or artistic creation.The term "a work of art" can apply to:*an example of fine art, such as a painting or sculpture*a fine work of architecture or landscape design...
, one of the most famous
Celebrity
A celebrity, also referred to as a celeb in popular culture, is a person who has a prominent profile and commands a great degree of public fascination and influence in day-to-day media...
being Helios Overture
Overture
Overture in music is the term originally applied to the instrumental introduction to an opera...
. In 1902, Nielsen signed a contract with the publisher Wilhelm Hansen, which allowed him to go to Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
, Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
, to join his wife Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen
Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen
Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen was a Danish sculptor. Her preferred themes were domestic animals and people, with an intense, naturalistic portrayal of movements and sentiments. She also depicted themes from Nordic mythology...
, who was one of the first sculptors allowed to make copies of the bas-reliefs and statues in the Acropolis Museum
Acropolis Museum
The Old Acropolis Museum was an archaeological museum located in Athens, Greece on the archeological site of Acropolis. It is built in a niche at the eastern edge of the rock and most of it lies beneath the level of the hilltop, making it largely invisible. It was considered one of the major...
.
Anne Marie, who had been granted the Ancker Award, was studying Greek art
Greek art
Greek art began in the Cycladic and Minoan prehistorical civilization, and gave birth to Western classical art in the ancient period...
, while Nielsen, being a man of many interests, was interested in Archaeology
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
. The local conservatory placed a study room with a piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
at Carl Nielsen’s disposal. Here he could sit and compose when he was not on excursion
Excursion
An excursion is a trip by a group of people, usually made for leisure, education, or physical purposes. It is often an adjunct to a longer journey or visit to a place, sometimes for other purposes....
s in the surrounding mountain
Mountain
Image:Himalaya_annotated.jpg|thumb|right|The Himalayan mountain range with Mount Everestrect 58 14 160 49 Chomo Lonzorect 200 28 335 52 Makalurect 378 24 566 45 Mount Everestrect 188 581 920 656 Tibetan Plateaurect 250 406 340 427 Rong River...
s with or without Anne Marie.
Nielsen's stay in Athens gave him the inspiration of a work depicting the sun
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
rising and setting over the Aegean Sea
Aegean Sea
The Aegean Sea[p] is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus...
, an overture which he called Helios
Helios
Helios was the personification of the Sun in Greek mythology. Homer often calls him simply Titan or Hyperion, while Hesiod and the Homeric Hymn separate him as a son of the Titans Hyperion and Theia or Euryphaessa and brother of the goddesses Selene, the moon, and Eos, the dawn...
. He began work on it in March 1903, and finished it on April 23 the same year.
The score is written for three flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, and strings.
The work begins as the sun ascends over the Aegean Sea, while strings
String section
The string section is the largest body of the standard orchestra and consists of bowed string instruments of the violin family.It normally comprises five sections: the first violins, the second violins, the violas, the cellos, and the double basses...
, divided horns
Horn (instrument)
The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....
and woodwind
Woodwind instrument
A woodwind instrument is a musical instrument which produces sound when the player blows air against a sharp edge or through a reed, causing the air within its resonator to vibrate...
sound a melody
Melody
A melody , also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones which is perceived as a single entity...
. This rises out of the darkness to a full orchestra, where fanfaring
Fanfare
A Fanfare is a relatively short piece of music that is typically played by trumpets and other brass instruments often accompanied by percussion...
trumpets begin a striding theme
Theme (music)
In music, a theme is the material, usually a recognizable melody, upon which part or all of a composition is based.-Characteristics:A theme may be perceivable as a complete musical expression in itself, separate from the work in which it is found . In contrast to an idea or motif, a theme is...
, which returns later in the piece
Musical composition
Musical composition can refer to an original piece of music, the structure of a musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece of music. People who practice composition are called composers.- Musical compositions :...
. From there woodwinds begin a graceful tune, from which brass
Brass instrument
A brass instrument is a musical instrument whose sound is produced by sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the player's lips...
sound. Strings begin to play, which draws the orchestra into a reprise
Reprise
Reprise is a fundamental device in the history of art. In literature, a reprise consists of the rewriting of another work; in music, a reprise is the repetition or reiteration of the opening material later in a composition as occurs in the recapitulation of sonata form, though—originally in the...
of the striding theme and its fanfare. In the final measures
Bar (music)
In musical notation, a bar is a segment of time defined by a given number of beats of a given duration. Typically, a piece consists of several bars of the same length, and in modern musical notation the number of beats in each bar is specified at the beginning of the score by the top number of a...
, the music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
subsides as the sun sinks over the horizon of the sea
Sea
A sea generally refers to a large body of salt water, but the term is used in other contexts as well. Most commonly, it means a large expanse of saline water connected with an ocean, and is commonly used as a synonym for ocean...
. The average playing time is between ten and twelve minutes.
On the score, Nielsen wrote:
"Silence and darkness,
The sun rises with a joyous song of praise,
It wanders its golden way
and sinks quietly into the sea."
After a trip to Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
, Carl and Anne Marie Nielsen traveled through Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
and reached Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
by the end of July. The Helios Overture was successfully performed
Performance
A performance, in performing arts, generally comprises an event in which a performer or group of performers behave in a particular way for another group of people, the audience. Choral music and ballet are examples. Usually the performers participate in rehearsals beforehand. Afterwards audience...
in Copenhagen on October 8, 1903, with Johan Svendsen
Johan Svendsen
Johan Severin Svendsen was a Norwegian composer, conductor and violinist. Born in Christiania , Norway, he lived most his life in Copenhagen, Denmark....
conducting, though the reviews were mixed. Carl Nielsen performed Helios several times. The first was an evening concert dedicated to his compositions at the Odd Fellow Mansion on 11 November 1905 and the last performance was on 12 February 1930 in Gothenburg
Gothenburg
Gothenburg is the second-largest city in Sweden and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated on the west coast of Sweden, the city proper has a population of 519,399, with 549,839 in the urban area and total of 937,015 inhabitants in the metropolitan area...
, Sweden. He also played the overture in Helsinki
Helsinki
Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...
, Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
and Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
.
Being a great showpiece
Showpiece
A showpiece is:* An accomplishment which is worthy of display and admiration:* English Wikipedia's 1,000,000th qualified article, Jordanhill railway station, was called a "showpiece of parallel collaboration."* An outstanding example of a type:...
for orchestra, it has been one of Nielsen's most famous works ever since.