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Gade: Novelletter for Strings Niels Wilhelm Gade (1817–1890) was the first great international name in Danish music after Dieterich Buxtehude (1637–1707). He was a contemporary and friend of Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875), and like Andersen and later Carl Nielsen (1865–1931), Gade was a man of humble origin who became one of the undisputed leading lights of Danish cultural society. The story of the 26-year-old musician from Copenhagen who in 1843 started out on a European Bildungsreise with his violin and his scores reads like a fairy tale. All of sudden he found himself at the centre of European musical society, in Leipzig. Mendelssohn, who had presented Gade’s First Symphony with his Gewandhaus Orchestra in 1843, was delighted to offer him a post at his newly opened conservatory. At the same time Gade was appointed assistant conductor of the orchestra, to become its principal conductor on Mendelssohn’s death in 1847. Here, among other things, he conducted the first performance of both Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto and Schumann’s Piano Concerto. Thus Gade seemed to have the musical world of Europe at his feet, but the tension between Germany and Denmark which in 1848 led to open war led him to return to Copenhagen. Meanwhile Denmark was undergoing a series of very important social changes – the revolution of the bourgeoisie was succeeding without bloodshed. Gade now set himself the task, with Mendelssohn as his great example, of putting Copenhagen on the musical map of Europe, of creating a public concert tradition in the modern sense. And in this he succeeded. After the imposing works of genius, distinctly national-romantic in character, which had marked the turning-point in his early career (the Ossian Overture and the First
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Symphony) Gade’s creativity now became subordinated to this task. The composer himself saw most of his music as mere utility music for this education of the cultivated concert public. At the core of the bourgeois philosophy of art was the concept of the Harmonious Man, based on the trinity of the Good, the True and the Beautiful. This ideal of beauty is clearly reflected in Gade’s copious production – eight symphonies, various works for chorus and orchestra, and chamber music – in its lucid simplicity of form, in the drive of its thematic flight, in its flowing melodiousness and clear beauty of harmony. The Romanticism of Mendelssohn, rooted as it was in the simplicity of Classicism, remained Gade’s ideal; but as his friend Schumann pointed out in his Zeitschrift, ‘the lovely beechwoods of Denmark’ were also to be heard in Gade’s music. As an example of this, Gade’s Novelettes for strings must be counted among his finest works. Like several of his piano compositions, they are perfect gems of Romantic Kleinkunst. Jens Rossel Translation: Bent Preisler
Århus Kammerorkester, which consists of strings from the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra, was founded in 1973 on the initiative of leader Ove Vedsten Larsen. The ensemble is dedicated to the performance of the rich repertoire for strings, with or without harpsichord, from the Baroque period to the present day. Cover image: Harald Solberg: Autumn Landscape Photo: O. Vaering/Bergen Art Museum, Norway/The Bridgeman Art Library Recording: 1981, Ellevang Kirke, Aarhus, Denmark Engineers: Leif Ramløv & Karin Jürgensen Licensed from Paula Records 훿 2011 Brilliant Classics
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