Poul Rovsing Olsen (November 4, 1922 – July 2, 1982) was a Danish composer and

ethnomusicologist Ethnomusicology is the study of music from the cultural and social aspects of the people who make it. It encompasses distinct theoretical and methodical approaches that emphasize cultural, social, material, cognitive, biological, and other dim ...

. Olsen was born in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

. He studied with

Knud Jeppesen Knud Jeppesen (15 August 1892 – 14 June 1974) was a Danish musicologist and composer. He was the leading scholar of the composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, about whose life and music he wrote numerous studies. Biography Jeppesen demonst ...

at the Copenhagen Conservatory (1943-6) and with

Nadia Boulanger Juliette Nadia Boulanger (; 16 September 188722 October 1979) was a French music teacher and conductor. She taught many of the leading composers and musicians of the 20th century, and also performed occasionally as a pianist and organist. From a ...

and

Olivier Messiaen Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen (, ; ; 10 December 1908 – 27 April 1992) was a French composer, organist, and ornithologist who was one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex; harmonically ...

in Paris (1948-9), then worked in Copenhagen as a music critic. His early works showed the influences of

Bela Bartók Bela may refer to: Places Asia *Bela Pratapgarh, a town in Pratapgarh District, Uttar Pradesh, India *Bela, a small village near Bhandara, Maharashtra, India *Bela, another name for the biblical city Zoara * Bela, Dang, in Nepal * Bela, Janakpur, ...

Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the ...

and

Carl Nielsen Carl August Nielsen (; 9 June 1865 – 3 October 1931) was a Danish composer, conductor and violinist, widely recognized as his country's most prominent composer. Brought up by poor yet musically talented parents on the island of Funen, he ...

, joined in the 1950s by 12-note serialism, but from the 1960s his music began to reflect his work as a musical ethnologist (''A L′inconnu'' for voice and 13 instruments, 1962): he did fieldwork in

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is t ...

and the

Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf ( fa, خلیج فارس, translit=xalij-e fârs, lit=Gulf of Persis, Fars, ), sometimes called the ( ar, اَلْخَلِيْجُ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Khalīj al-ˁArabī), is a Mediterranean sea (oceanography), me ...

and taught at the universities of

Lund Lund (, , ) is a city in the southern Swedish provinces of Sweden, province of Scania, across the Øresund, Öresund strait from Copenhagen. The town had 91,940 inhabitants out of a municipal total of 121,510 . It is the seat of Lund Municipali ...

(1967-9) and Copenhagen (from 1969). His output includes opera, orchestral and chamber music, piano pieces and songs. His opera ''Belisa'' is based on

The Love of Don Perlimplín and Belisa in the Garden ''The Love of Don Perlimplín and Belisa in the Garden'' (''Amor de Don Perlimplín con Belisa en su jardín'') is a play by the 20th-century Spanish dramatist Federico García Lorca. It was written in 1928 and first performed in 1933. It bears ...

Federico García Lorca Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca (5 June 1898 – 19 August 1936), known as Federico García Lorca ( ), was a Spanish poet, playwright, and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblemat ...

Compositions

Piano: * Piano Sonata No. 1 (1950) * Piano Sonata No. 2 (1952) Orchestral: * Variations Symphoniques, Op. 27 (1953) * Piano Concerto, Op. 31 (1954) * Sinfonia (1958) * Au fond de la nuit, Op. 61 * Lux coelestis (1978) Operas: *'' Belisa'', premiered at the Royal Opera in Copenhagen in 1966 and recorded by

Dacapo Records Dacapo Records is a Danish classical music and new music record label. It was founded in 1989 to promote the classical and new music of Denmark and represents itself as "the Danish National label" ("Danmarks nationale pladeselskab"). The board inc ...

in 2003. *''Usher'', 1980 *''Collected songs (1941-81) for voice and piano'', edited Ulrik Cold, Christen Stubbe Teglbjærg - 1999 ::''To Lagerkvistsange'' (Two Lagerkvist Songs), Op.15 (1949) ::''Two Prophetic Songs,'' Op.16 (1950) ::''Lyse sange'' (Light Songs), Op.19 (1951) ::''To tyske sange'' (Two German Songs), Op.36 (1955) ::''Smâ sange'' (Little Songs), Op.37 (1941) ::''Tre danske sange'' (3 Danish Songs), Op.39 (1957) ::''Deux Melodies,'' Op.84 (1981)

Ethno-musicology

His major contributions to ethnomusicology included his pioneering work in the music of the Persian Gulf, especially

Bahrain Bahrain ( ; ; ar, البحرين, al-Bahrayn, locally ), officially the Kingdom of Bahrain, ' is an island country in Western Asia. It is situated on the Persian Gulf, and comprises a small archipelago made up of 50 natural islands and an ...

. Also his concern with "authors' rights", being a jurist himself, besides the fact that he also was a pianist and a composer. He considered traditional music as a heritage connected though to the persons who performed it therefore always stated the names of performers as he understood that most music of the Middle East was performed with a certain freedom by the performers, and that a good amount of it was created by the performer in what is usually called

improvisation Improvisation is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. Improvisation in the performing arts is a very spontaneous performance without specific or scripted preparation. The skills of impr ...

, knowing very well that these improvisations were "moments of impromptus compositions" that gave added-value to the original, traditional work. Olsen (or P.R.O. as his name's initials came to symbolize his name) introduced the names of famous performers from

Arab States of the Persian Gulf The Arab states of the Persian Gulf refers to a group of Arab states which border the Persian Gulf. There are seven member states of the Arab League in the region: Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. ...

, such as Salem el'Allan,

Ahmad Bou Tabanja Ahmad ( ar, أحمد, ʾAḥmad) is an Arabic male given name common in most parts of the Muslim world. Other spellings of the name include Ahmed and Ahmet. Etymology The word derives from the root (ḥ-m-d), from the Arabic (), from the ve ...

, Al-'Amiri among others, and Lebanese singer

Dunya Yunis In Islam, ' ( ar, دُنْيا ) refers to the temporal world and its earthly concerns and possessions, as opposed to the hereafter ('' ʾākhirah''). In the Qur'an, ''dunyā'' and ''ākhira'' are sometimes used dichotomously, other times complem ...

, whose tape singing ''Abu Zeluf'' was published on the Tangent 2LP set 'The Human Voice in the World of Islam' which Olsen published with another musicologist Jean Jenkins. (Yunis was sampled in

Brian Eno Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno (; born Brian Peter George Eno, 15 May 1948) is a British musician, composer, record producer and visual artist best known for his contributions to ambient music and work in rock, pop an ...

's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.) Olsen's invitation of Arab-Luth (`

Oud , image=File:oud2.jpg , image_capt=Syrian oud made by Abdo Nahat in 1921 , background= , classification= * String instruments *Necked bowl lutes , hornbostel_sachs=321.321-6 , hornbostel_sachs_desc=Composite chordophone sounded with a plectrum , ...

) player

Munir Bashir Munir Bashir, ( ar, منير بشير, syr, ܡܘܢܝܪ ܒܫܝܪ) (1930 – September 28, 1997) was an Iraqi Assyrian musician and one of the most famous musicians in the Middle East during the 20th century and was considered to be the supreme m ...

to a music festival in Denmark in the early 1970s, brought this instrumentalist together with an Indian performer where they played duos in a hybrid style. This exquisite and new style brought Bashir into fame all over the Arab world and in many European countries. He also specialised in the traditional

music of Greenland The music of Greenland is a mixture of two primary strands, Inuit music, Inuit and Denmark, Danish, mixed with influences from the United States and United Kingdom. Greenland's musical character has been described as "definitely a rock country, bo ...

Publications

* ''An aulos in the Danish National Museum'' 1969 * ''Musiketnologi'' Serie: Berlingske leksikonbibliotek; n.89 1974 * ''Acculturation in the Eskimo songs of the Greenlanders'' 1975 * ''Compte rendu d'un voyage au Moyen-Orient'' 1976 * ''Music and musical instruments in the world of Islam'' Jean L. Jenkins, Poul Rovsing Olsen, Horniman Museum - 1976 * ''Dagbogsblade fra indsamlingsrejse til Angmagssalik'' 1977 * ''Music in Bahrain: traditional music of the Arabian Gulf'' Volume 1 reissued 2002

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Olsen, Poul Rovsing 1922 births 1982 deaths Place of birth missing Male composers Ethnomusicologists 20th-century Danish composers 20th-century musicologists 20th-century Danish male musicians Burials at Hellerup Cemetery