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 ...

's ''Suite for String Orchestra'' was one of the composer's earliest works and was first performed at the

Tivoli Hall Tivoli may refer to: * Tivoli, Lazio, a town in Lazio, Italy, known for historic sites; the inspiration for other places named Tivoli Buildings * Tivoli (Baltimore, Maryland), a mansion built about 1855 * Tivoli Building (Cheyenne, Wyoming) ...

on 8 September 1888.

Background

Nielsen composed the ''Suite for String Orchestra'' when he was only 22 and was still studying composition with

Orla Rosenhoff Orla Albert Vilhelm Rosenhoff (1 October 1844 – 4 June 1905) was a Danish musician, the son of , an influential teacher of Danish musicians. Born in Copenhagen, Rosenhoff was a student of Adolph Lund and later of Niels Gade. When the music acade ...

, his former teacher at the Conservatory. It was first performed on 8 September 1888 at the Tivoli Hall 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 a ...

where the Tivoli Orchestra was conducted by

Balduin Dahl Christian Florus Balduin Dahl (October 6, 1834 – June 3, 1891) was a Danish composer and conductor. He spent a portion of his career with Den Kongelige Livgarde. He was the son of a musician at Tivoli Gardens Tivoli Gardens, also kno ...

, a recognised supporter of young talent. It was a great success. Nielsen, who played in the orchestra, was called back several times and the middle movement was played as an encore. Press reviews were mixed, but ''Avisen'' was very positive: "The young man obviously has a great deal on his musical mind that he wants to say, and what he told us on Saturday was presented in a beautiful, concise form, modestly and attractively, with excellent part-writing and an appealing fullness of sound that reveals an excellent eye for the string material." The work marked an important milestone in Nielsen's career as it was not only his first real success but it was also the first of his pieces he conducted himself when it was played in

Odense Odense ( , , ) is the third largest city in Denmark (behind Copenhagen and Aarhus) and the largest city on the island of Funen. As of 1 January 2022, the city proper had a population of 180,863 while Odense Municipality had a population of 20 ...

a month later."Preface: Suite for String Orchestra, Opus 1"
Carl Nielsen Udgaven CN 00009, Royal Danish Library. Retrieved 17 October 2010. In an interview with ''Pressens Magasin'' in 1918, Nielsen said that the movements had subtitles: "The Danaids", "The Dance of the Charites" and "The Bacchus Procession". The ''Suite for String Orchestra'' was published by Wilhelm Hansen in 1890 with alterations by Nielsen, especially in the third movement.

Music

The suite's rather short elegiac first movement is reminiscent of Scandinavian Romanticism as expressed by Grieg and Svendsen. The Intermezzo, a waltz, gives a hint of the composer's love of triple time, and features the occasional flat seventh grace notes that would later become so characteristic of Nielsen's music. The comparatively expansive Finale opens solemnly with the elegy theme but soon breaks loose into an animated sonata form in which Nielsen reintroduces the opening theme.

Performances today

On the basis of information from the Carl Nielsen Society, the Suite for Strings is currently one of Nielsen's most widely performed works, both in Scandinavia and the rest of the world."Performances"
, Carl Nielsen Society. Retrieved 30 October 2010.

References

{{Authority control Compositions by Carl Nielsen 1888 compositions Orchestral suites Compositions for string orchestra