Carl Nielsen

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 Concerto for Violin and orchestra, op. 33 [D.F.61] was written for Hungarian

Hungary

Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

 violin

Violin

The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

ist Dr. Emil Telmányi

Emil Telmányi

Emil Telmányi, b. 22 June 1892 in Arad, then in the Kingdom of Hungary, d. 13 June 1988 in Holte, Denmark was a Hungarian violinist who invented the Bach bow, designed to play and sustain three or four notes on a violin for Bach's sonatas and partitas for solo violin...

, Nielsen's son-in-law, in 1911. The concerto has two movements.

Background

The Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Opus 33, was not an easy assignment for Nielsen. He began writing it in the summer of 1911 in Bergen

Bergen

Bergen is the second largest city in Norway with a population of as of , . Bergen is the administrative centre of Hordaland county. Greater Bergen or Bergen Metropolitan Area as defined by Statistics Norway, has a population of as of , ....

, Norway, where he was spending some time at the invitation of Nina Grieg

Nina Grieg

Nina Grieg, born Hagerup was a Danish-Norwegian lyric soprano. She was the first cousin of composer Edvard Grieg, whom she married....

. It progressed with some difficulty as Nielsen, now back in his native Denmark

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

, commented that the concerto "has to be good music, and yet always make allowances for the activity of the solo instrument in the best light, that is rich in content, popular and dazzling without becoming superficial." In fact, his did not complete it until mid-December.

Reception

The first performance followed on 28 February 1912. Carl Nielsen himself conducted the Royal Orchestra at 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...

 with Peder Møller, Nielsen's preferred virtuoso, as soloist. Nielsen spoke of the "great enthusiasm" with which the concerto was received but in fact the press commented above all on the masterly performance of Møller. Robert Henriques, in his extremely positive review, noted: “The Violin Concerto is a very significant work which will gain every time it is heard, because of course one only gradually becomes aware of all the brilliant details." He saw the concert, which had also included Nielsen's third symphony, as a demonstratiion of the composer's "rare talent", commenting that he was "on the true road towards the great goals he has set himself." It became something of a landmark for Nielsen who wrote of his overwhelming "Erfolg" (success). The concerto continued to be received with enthusiasm as it was performed on several occasions over the following years, not only in Denmark but also 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...

 and 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...

, always with Møller as soloist.

Music

Unlike Nielsen's later works, the concerto has a distinct, melody-oriented Neo-Classical structure. Unusually, there are three movements. The calm "Praeludium" is followed by a catching tune for the orchestra providing opportunities for tricks by the violin. The long, slow Adagio leads to the final Scherzo which, as Nielsen commented, "renounces everything that might dazzle or impress."