II
The early history of Danish music is that of any royal court of post-Renaissance times. Foreign composers and performers were invited to the capital, and when the lower classes had been unusually well drained of their earnings history recorded a 'brilliant musical age.' In the eighteenth century there was a royal opera, performing French and Italian pieces. From time to time various choral or instrumental societies were founded. In the conventional sense the musical life of Copenhagen was flourishing. But in all this there was no trace of national Danish music.
The first composer who may be called truly national began working after a thorough Germanizing of the country's musical taste had taken place. This man was Johann Peter Emilius Hartmann (1805-1900). His extensive work was hardly known outside the limits of his native land. The few examples which were played in Germany were speedily forgotten. But he gradually came to be recognized as the great national composer of Denmark. Though a large part of his student years was spent in his native land, he was at first under the influence of the fashionable composers of the time, such as Marschner, Spontini, Spohr and Auber. But, though not a student of Danish folk-songs, he gradually came to feel the individuality of the national music, and in 1832 made himself a national spokesman with his melodrame 'The Golden Horns,' to Oehlenschlager's text. His opera, 'Little Christine,' to Andersen's story, performed in 1846, was thoroughly national and popular in spirit. His output was astonishingly large and varied. He wrote for nearly every established form, symphonies, overtures, songs, choral pieces, religious and secular, sonatas as well as short romantic pieces for the piano, works for organ and violin, ballets, and picturesque orchestral poems. His nationalism does not appear consistently in his work; he seems to have made it no creed; perhaps he only imitated it from Weber and Chopin. But when he chose to work with national materials he came nearer to the popular spirit than any other composer of the time, barring the two or three great ones of whom Weber is the type. His facility was great, his themes pregnant and arresting. He revealed an energetic structural power, and together with fine polyphonic ability a mastery of romantic suggestion in the style of Mendelssohn. But it is chiefly by his native feeling for the folk-style that he established himself as the first Scandinavian nationalist in music. Grieg wrote of him: 'The dreams of our younger generation of northern men were his from the time he reached maturity. The best and deepest thoughts which moved a later generation of more or less important spirits were spoken first in him, and found their first echo in us.'
But it was Niels W. Gade (1817-1890) who represented the Danish school in the eyes of the outside world. This was due chiefly to his strategic position as friend of Mendelssohn and, after Mendelssohn's death, director of the Gewandhaus orchestra in Leipzig. At bottom he was thoroughly a German of the conservative romantic school. His excellence in the eyes of the time consisted in his ability at writing Mendelssohn's style of music with almost Mendelssohn's charm and finish. But he was also the Dane, and in subtle wise he managed to impregnate his music with Danish musical feeling. His eight symphonies had a high standing in his day, the first and last being typically national in character, serving, in fact, as a sort of propaganda for the national school that was to come. But Gade was more thoroughly national in some of his choral ballads and dramatic cantatas, such as 'Calamus,' 'The Erlking's Daughter,' 'The Stream,' and others; and especially in his orchestral suite, 'A Summer Day in the Country,' and his suite for string orchestra, Holbergiana. His personality was not so vigorous as that of Hartmann; his culture was more conservative and classical; the shadow of Mendelssohn prevented the more aggressive national utterance that might have been desired. But what he did he did well, and his immense influence on the future of Scandinavian music was established through his masterful fusing of the best German classic manner of the time with popular national materials.
Among the Danish composers of the same time we may mention Emil Hartmann (1836-1898), son of the great Hartmann, prolific composer of orchestral pieces, chamber music, and operas of professedly national character; Peter A. Heise (1830-1870), composer of songs to some of the best national lyric poetry of the time; and August Winding (1835-1899), composer of piano, orchestral and chamber music in which national color and folk humor were discreetly brought to the foreground.
In recent times the Danish school, of the four Scandinavian branches, has been least national in intent. Foreign gods have exercised their sway in one fashion or another. Nor can we say that the absolute value of the more recent works is distinguished. Among the half dozen Danish composers who have attained to eminence there is none who can be considered the equal of either Gade or Hartmann in personal ability. Much of the best efforts of the younger men has gone to larger forms, in which either their creative inspiration or their formal mastery has proved insufficient. Among them there are four of marked ability: August Enna, in opera; Asger Hamerik, in symphonic music; P. E. Lange-Müller, in lyric and piano works; and Carl Nielsen, in chamber music.
August Enna (born 1860) is the most prolific and successful of Denmark's opera composers. Chiefly self-taught, but mainly German in his influences, he has written some ten operas in which one influence or style after another is evident. 'Cleopatra,' after Rider Haggard's story, is ambitious and theatric, but it reveals, alongside of frank Wagnerism, the ghost of Meyerbeer and of Italian opera of the 'transition period' of the 'eighties. 'Aucassin and Nicolette' attempts the quaint and naïve style which is supposed to comport with the late Middle Ages; it has a distinction of its own, but too often it is mere conventional romantic opera. The fairy operas after Andersen—'The Little Match Girl' and 'The Princess of the Peapod'—are in more congenial style, but lack the necessary consistent manner of light fantasy. The truth is that Enna, with marked abilities, is limited to the expression of tender sentiment, gentle melancholy, and personal, intimate moods. His invention is happy, though uneven; his use of the orchestra colorful but not always in taste. He lacks the ability to conceive and carry out a large work in a consistent and elevated manner. He fails in that ultimate test of the thorough workman—the ability to execute a whole work in a consistent and homogeneous style. The trouble is not with his operatic instinct, which is sufficiently vivid; nor with his melodic invention as such, for this is often fresh and charming. But his musicianship and his inspiration have not proven equal to the task he has set himself.
Asger Hamerik (born 1843) has undertaken an equally big task in the field of symphonic music. He plans on a large scale, but it can hardly be said that he thinks likewise. We may note a 'Poetic' symphony, a 'Tragic' symphony, a 'Lyric' symphony, a 'Majestic' symphony, and a choral symphony, among several others. Of his two operas, one, 'The Vendetta,' received a performance in Milan. There is considerable choral and chamber music, and in particular a 'Northern' orchestral suite by which his artistic personality may be best known. But he has at bottom little of the national feeling. He is facilely eclectic, but with no individual or consistent binding principle. He has a romanticism that recalls Dvořák's—graceful, mildly sensuous, pleasing rather than inspiring; he has further a marked gift as an instrumental colorist. But his harmony is conventional, and his thematic ideas are usually undistinguished. Finally, his structural power is not sufficient to raise his musical material to a high artistic plane. Hamerik is out of the main line of Scandinavian national music, but has not been able to make a place for himself in music universal.
Much more to the purpose in intent and achievement is P. E. Lange-Müller (born 1850). He reveals a graceful sense of form and a sincere emotional feeling in his smaller works for piano and voice. His harmony is conservative and sometimes disappointing; but whenever he strikes the tender mood of folk-music he saves himself with a touch of poetry. But he is rather a follower of the old school of German romanticism than of Scandinavian nationalism. The four-act opera, Frau Jeanna, is content with an unobtrusive lyric style, but the lyricism is not exalted enough to sustain such a large-scale work. The melodrama Middelalderlig, of more recent date, shows much poetic color but a fundamental lack of invention. In the larger works he is at his best in the fairy-comedy, 'Once upon a Time.' His symphony 'In Autumn,' his orchestral suite, 'Alhambra,' and 'Niels Ebbesen' for chorus, have met with indifferent success. Lange-Müller is primarily a lyric composer for voice and piano, and in this field he shows a sort of grace and tenderness which we shall meet with frequently in recent Swedish music.
A sincere and able, yet austere, composer is Carl Nielsen (born 1865). His music is, with that of the Swede Alfvén, less programmistic and more 'absolute' than we shall meet with in any other distinguished Scandinavian musician of modern times. The national element in his work is almost nil. A master of counterpoint, and a vigorous innovator in the modern Russian style, he commands respect rather than love. His output includes more than half a dozen symphonies, a number of works for string quartet and violin, some large compositions for chorus and orchestra, and a four-act opera, 'Saul and David.' It is by this that he is best known. This is a work to command respectful attention from musicians, but hardly enthusiastic applause from ordinary audiences. The writing shows great musical knowledge, careful and ample ability in counterpoint and in modulation of the complex modern sort, a certain unity of style, and a command of special emotional color. But the work is perhaps rather that of the symphonist than of the operatic poet. His instrumentation, unlike his harmony, is conservative. His workmanship is thorough, and his musicianship wide and soundly based.
Among the minor names there are several who deserve mention for one reason or another. Ludolf Nielsen (born 1876) is a thorough classicist at heart, though he has become known in Germany through his symphonic poems 'In Memoriam,' Fra Bjaergene, and 'Summer Night Moods.' He is more than usually talented, but very conservative in his style. His themes are interesting though not striking, and his product is sufficiently inspired with human feeling to be preserved from pedantry. Hakon Börresen (born 1876) has distinguished himself with many songs which preserve the national tradition established for Norway by Grieg and Sinding. His chamber music has revealed harmonic invention and tender coloring which show him to be one of the chosen of the younger Danish composers. Finally, we may mention Otto Malling (born 1848), an able writer for organ and string quartet; Victor Bendix (born 1851), well known in Denmark for a number of symphonies which combine delicate poetry with structural beauty; Ludvig Schytte (born 1848), prolific writer of piano pieces, and Cornelius Rübner, who commands respect for solidly classic workmanship. These latter men are of the old school. Of the younger generation in Denmark we are hardly justified in hoping for works of great distinction, unless a possible exception may be made in the case of Börresen. For, speaking broadly, the national impulse has departed from Danish composition.