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First prize to Danish musician at this year's Carl Nielsen Competition in Odense
Concluding as usual with a final concert on Nielsen's birthday (9 June) the annual Nielsen Festival and Competition has been held in Odense.
Until now the Odense International Organ Competition was an independant organisation. This year it was for the first time organized under the umbrella of the already existing Nielsen Festival and Competition, which has comprised yearly alternating competions for violin, clarinet and flute, the three instruments for which Nielsen wrote a solo concerto. After three competitions every fourth year meant taking a well-deserved break. That is not the case any moore.
With a crowd of young organ players coming to Odense from all over the world, the secretary general Marianne Granvig was facing a very different challenge this year. Organ players need an organ in order to practice, so during the competition period Granvig and her staff have been carrying the keys of quite a number of churches in Odense and the surrounding smaller communities.
Nielsen's only big organ solo piece Commotio had to be played by all four participants in the final round. In addition, in the first round every participant had to play an brand new organ piece, Trio Transcendentale, commissioned for the Competion from the internationally known Danish composer Poul Ruders.
For the first time since1992, when an 16-year old Nikolaj Znaider won the Violin Competition, a Dane took the first prize: Philip Schmidt-Madsen could not only leave Odense with the first prize, but won also the Jury's prize for the best version of Commotio. A true Nielsen Competition winner, this one!
New book on Nielsen's songs
Carl Nielsen's Voice, published by the Danish publisher Museum Tusculanum Press, is the first study to present an in-depth analysis of Nielsen's nearly 300 songs. In addition to this analysis, the author Anne-Marie Reynolds offers a comprehensive comparative examination of the sonmgs and two of his most important works, the first symphony and the opera Masquerade. With this book it is now possible for Nielsen enthusiasts living beyond the Danish borders to familiarise themselves with the genre that until now - for linguistic reasons - by and large has been reserved for Danes, and which is rightly considered to be one of the composer's most important contributions to the Danish musical heritage.
Anne-Marie Reynolds is an Assistant Professor of Music History at the State University of New York at Geneseo.
Carl Nielsen and the Idea of Modernism
Drawing extensively on contemporary writing and criticism, as well as the research of the newly completed Carl Nielsen Edition, Daniel M. Grimley's new book presents a series of case studies centred on key works in Carl Nielsen's output, particularly the opera Masquerade, the Third and the Sixth Symphony.
Topics include his relationship with symbolism and fin-de-siècle decadence, vitalism, counterpoint, and the Danish landscape. Running through the book is a critical engagement with the idea of musical modernism.
Grimley holds a University Lectureship in Music at Oxford and is the Tutorial Fellow in Music at Merton college and Lecturer in Music at University College.
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Philip Schmidt-Madsen
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