8:1

2 January 24

Copenhagen.

Dear Bodil!

Once again: Happy New Year! You write such good words. Thanks for the card to Marie and me.

It’s just as you say: friendship cannot perish once it has taken root, and this it has done with me. You are a wonderful, loyal person, dear Bodil.…

8:2

Copenhagen 7 January 24

Dear Emil!

Happy New Year, dear Emil, and thank you for everything in the old year. We have after all had some experiences together and have worked and talked so much about many good and important things both in art and in life itself in recent times. Now we'll see what comes in 1924. I wish for you and Søs the best fortune…

8:3

On 20 January 1924, Georg Schnéevoigt conducted the first performance of Carl Nielsen's Symphony no. 5 [CNW 29] in Stockholm at The Stockholm Concert Society. The mounting conflict towards the end of the symphony's first movement sent the audience into such a panic that [in Swedish]: 'almost half of the packed hall streamed indignantly towards the exits' (Moses Pergament in his otherwise…

8:4

24 January 24.

Dear Emil!

Søs, Rulle [Júlíana Sveinsdóttir], H.B., Mother and I are with Eggert and Irmelin tonight after Mother and I went to hear Mrs Dalberg's quartet between 8 and 8.45.Nancy Dalberg's String Quartet in G minor was performed at The Private Chamber Music Society both on 22…

8:5

Copenhagen  24 January 24.

Dearest Bror!

Many thanks for your letter, which gave me so much pleasure. – I understand not one jot of the whole thing, but I console myself with the fact that this is not the last word, and it may even be that I will be coming to Stockholm before long to conduct my Symphony no. 5 [CNW 29] and that it will be warmly…

8:6

 24 January 24

Dear Dr Thalbitzer!

It was sweet of you to send me your new work.Thalbitzer's volume on Language and Folklore, part of the large work The Ammassalik Eskimo. Contributions to the Ethnology of the East Greenland Natives (1914-41), which Thalbitzer edited; it was published as volume XL, 2nd…

8:7

 Copenhagen 25 January 24.

Dear Emil!

Thank you for the letter!! It's an age since I've laughed so much as at your description of the papal singer! Oh, that was so funny! You can bet you are much missed here. But it is a comfort that with every day that passes the time is shorter until we see each other again. – Today Hans Børge,…

8:8

Copenhagen 28 January 24.

Mr F. Johannessen!

Herewith the song you asked for,'A fair and lovely land' [CNW 351] arranged for orchestra, manuscript attached to the letter, cf. CNU III/7 p. 97. which I only chose to arrange because it was clear to me from a conversation with Mr A. Brems that people really have a…

8:9

 28 January 24.

Dear friend!

Thank you for the letter!

I should also long since have expressed the thanks I feel for you having sent The Ryslinge Book. It becomes increasingly rich in content as the years go by and I have read it all with pleasure. I best liked the contributions by Alfred Povlsen and…

8:10

[In Swedish:]

Stockholm 1 February 1924.

Dear Carl.

First I must thank you for your letter of 24 January and also for the scores that arrived today. I have handed over the scores you intended to give to the academy, and the others I have kept to myself. Yes, and really many thanks for your kindness. I'm sorry that I…

8:11

4 February 24

Copenhagen

Dear friend!

I'm sure you can imagine that your kindness and the honour you have shown me by dedicating your beautiful and distinctive songsRomantik. Fem Digte af J.P. Jacobsen (Den vilde Jagt; Lad Vaaren komme; Det bødes der for; Solnedgang; Afsted min Baad) …

8:12

Gothenburg 7 February 24

Dear Mr Alfred N.!

You may well be longing to be sent information for the poster. But I am afraid we will have to make another one for the fourth concert. But what I can now say is that on the poster for the 24th we can announce that at the fourth concert on 8 April, there will be the Bax symphony, Delius' two…

8:13

Gothenburg 11 February 24

Dear Knud Jeppesen!

If you would care to do a rehearsal for me and maybe for your family – we spoke about that – I am at your disposal anytime after Tuesday.

I will be coming to Copenhagen tomorrow evening at 10.50 Central Station.

Regards to your wife and thank her for the…

8:14

 Gothenburg 11 February 24.

Composer Mr Sverre Jordan!

Herewith my best thanks for your esteemed invitation to come to Bergen and conduct a concert with my works on 28 April this year and apologies that some time has passed before I could reply, but there was, among other things, a promise to Duisburg on 23 April and I very much wanted to go to…

8:15

Dear Marie!

Thank you so much for the box. Miss Th. took it from me right away and now keeps it in her room. But I know where to find it. I have started up with H.B. again and that's all good and delightful. However, I should like a statement from you about how you would like us to get started. I think we should use this…

8:16

 20 February 24.

Dear Balslev!

Thank you for the songsFor Melodies for the Songbook 'Denmark' [CNW Coll. 19]. 'Now shines the sun' ['Nu skinner Sol'] with text by Johannes Jørgensen and music by Harald Balslev became no. 55 in the collection. which I…

8:17

Frederiksholms Kanal 28 A.

20 February 24.

Mr Alderman Johannessen!

Thank you for your letter. I am owed nothing for the melody [8:8], but my wife – the sculptress Mrs Carl-Nielsen – today received a delightful letter in which she was offered goods in exchange for artworks and, as both she and I…

8:18

Great Northern Hotel, New York

24 February

Dear Father!

Thank you for the letter – I was already prepared for you to have forgotten me and, as a person with good resonance  ([in English:] I am a violinist and have two ”Resonanzkörper” [resonance bodies]) I was just about to forget you, but as I said, your letter…

8:19

Copenhagen 25 February 24.

Mrs Birkeland!

On account of your brother's [Thøger Rasmussen] [8:32] work in the service of art, especially for the folk song, I am sending you this transcript of the melody,'A fair and lovely land' [CNW 351], cf. CNU III/7 MS 32 3072. but it goes without saying that you will not give this…

8:20

A Danish singing teacher, Christen Juul, who had settled in London and had also been trying to get an English-Danish musical exchange going, wrote to Carl Nielsen on 3 January 1923 (CNA Iab), wanting to help him make a name for himself in England. As an example of English music of quality he names Arnold Bax, 'whose most recent symphony really is a significant work, which…

8:21

A song planning committee formed by Copenhagen's Municipal Schools published a new song plan in the summer of 1923, and one member of the committee, Hans I. Larsen, along with the teacher Valdemar Jensen were the editors of the new songbook based on the song plan: The Songbook [Sangbogen]. Gjellerups Forlag, Copenhagen 1923. In this songbook, they had…

8:22

11 February[!] 24.

Dear Emil!

Thanks for your delightful and witty letter. But I’m afraid there might have been a touch of earnest in your joke…

8:23

At Anders Brems’ song evening on 13 March 1924 in the small hall at the Odd Fellow Palace, he and the pianist Christian Christiansen gave the first performance of two songs by Carl Nielsen: Ballad of the Bear [CNW 315] and Mother's Spinning Wheel [Mors Rok], better known as 'Sparrows hushed behind the bough' [CNW 265], composed for Melodies for the…

8:24

The main work at the latest Music Society concert on 26 February 1924, Handel's pastoral for soloists, choir and orchestra Acis and Galatea, was repeated as an extra concert on 24 March 1924, cf. postscript of 8:12. According to Politiken, Carl Nielsen said of this work: '"This is in my opinion the most complete musical work that exists", said the composer with whom we…

8:25

Damgaard 16 March 24.

Dear Søs!

Don't say that I never write to you, my own Søs. I have thought of you every day when there's been something in the papers about the adjudication and I also sent you various cuttings that Emil must have given you by way of consolation.Politiken published several critical articles…