Preface to Volume 8

About this volume (8)

The Scandal in Stockholm

In 1924, Carl Nielsen joined the ranks of modern composers whose music caused a scandal. Just as Igor Stravinsky had his scandal with the premiere of The Rite of Spring in Paris in 1913, so did Carl Nielsen have his with the first performance of Symphony no. 5 [CNW 29] in Stockholm on 20 January 1924. Stockholm's Concert Society celebrated its 10th anniversary with four gala concerts, each dedicated to the best music from the four Scandinavian countries. Georg Schnéevoigt was the conductor; already the year before, he had asked whether he might be allowed to perform the symphony  for this occasion. The idea was that Carl Nielsen himself should be present, but the date had been moved [7:530] [7:592] and the performance ended up clashing with the rehearsal for the Music Society concert that Carl Nielsen was to conduct in Copenhagen on Tuesday 22 January.

A lengthy programme with gentler and more romantic music by such as Lange-Müller, Hakon Børresen, Rued Langgaard and Louis Glass, concluded with Carl Nielsen's symphony. When they reached the second part of the first movement with its escalating conflict and insistent snare drum, a quarter of the audience streamed towards the doors while others shushed and the conductor compensated by turning up the dynamics a notch further. Berlingske Tidende newspaper got a hold of a telegram sent to Sydsvenska Dagbladet, and on the 22nd – the day on which Carl Nielsen was conducting a concert including Sibelius' Symphony no. 2 in Copenhagen – the newspaper printed an excerpt with Carl Nielsen's comment: 'It is not such a big leap between my earlier works and this symphony [CNW 29]. It shows a certain development – and nor should we keep doing the same thing – but that it could offend, as apparently occurred yesterday, is incomprehensible to me.' Samtid nr. 82

The next day, Politiken took the matter up. Among other things, the question was asked whether the symphony is 'especially revolutionarily Modern?' '"Modern" is a peculiar concept,' replied the composer, 'There is no break with tradition in my output but rather a development of certain principles. My music is perhaps to a certain extent "radical", for what does "radical" mean other than this: that a person goes against the opinion of the day? If my 5th symphony is bad, so are my other works –- and I certainly hope that isn't true.' Samtid nr. 83.

From Sweden, his old friend Bror Beckman, who had attended the concert, writes: 'It is magnificent, indeed overwhelming, and I have to express my endless admiration that you have been able to create something like this. Words really fail me to express my feelings. In any case, it made one of the most powerful impressions of my life. {...} For those who know all your previous works, this symphony is only the culmination of a development driven by a steely logic all the way from opus 2 (or 1?). You have given future generations a work of eternal value; that is the sum total of my thoughts on this.' [8:3]

A few days later in New York, Emil Telmányi hears about the brouhaha and writes to his father-in-law: 'Well, you've finally got your first scandal in Stockholm. Now I'm no longer afraid for you. Now you'll soon become world famous. That was what you were lacking – you hadn't yet caused a scandal. And if you can write music that makes the public come to blows, and claw out each other's eyes, and tear clumps of hair from each other's heads so that it flies all over the place, then your works will be played everywhere, and your sweet, little face will fill all the columns of the world's magazines – Well, that is a sign of the times" [8:18]

Unlike the concert in Stockholm, Carl Nielsen's own concert in Copenhagen, even with the Sibelius symphony on the programme, was almost boring. Axel Kjerulf writes: 'When Carl Nielsen shows himself as a composer abroad, he signals conflict – in the autumn in Paris [8:43], and now most recently in Stockholm – and everywhere he causes life and movement, from which new life is born.' At the concert at The Music Society 'one sat down and longed to hear the true Carl Nielsen, strident and sharp... instead of having to give the conductor all the recognition that is so annoyingly related to indifference. {...} How much better it would have been to meet the true Carl Nielsen {...} The man with the big fiasco and even bigger talent! We call upon him – in the midst of The Music Society! In the name of eternal unrest and living art." Politiken, 23.01.1924.

Health

Carl Nielsen does not yet have a new symphony or other major composition on the stocks. His time is mostly spent on minor pieces, not least Melodies for the Songbook 'Denmark' [CNW Coll. 19], which he edits together with Hakon Andersen. How he feels about his heart and his health is not easy to determine. He does not seem particularly communicative about his health to his loved ones; his letters are characterised more by concern for Anne Marie's health, which in these years seems to be afflicted by bronchitis and constant coughing, and by sympathy for the health problems of the depressed William Behrend. To Behrend he writes: 'I have a little too much to deal with at times, and my blood already feels restless. – The worst thing is that it is not big pieces that take up my time – I mean major works, but it will probably come once I can get the worst of that world out of the way.' [8:45] Or: 'It’s really strange what we gradually discover. With me, for instance: that if I don’t soon start to comply with a certain dry egoism, then in certain respects the powers I still have run into the sand, and no one, neither I myself nor others, gets any pleasure from it.'  [8:93]

Behrend's wife clearly finds it hard to tolerate her husband and his suffering and this triggers the following observation from Carl Nielsen: 'I don't suppose it's any use my giving you the kind of advice I would try to follow in your position, which is – to decide from early morning, each day, not to think about your sufferings or to talk about them with your wife, and then gradually go a step further and refuse to believe that there’s anything wrong with you. Finally – another step – deny that there is such a thing as illness, which you could actually say in a way, as all physical and psychological sufferings are a sign of life rather than of the opposite.' [8:183]

Laub gives in again

On 13 March 1924, Anders Brems performed an evening of songs in Copenhagen [8:23]. Here, he premiered two songs by Carl Nielsen: The Ballad of the Bear [CNW 315] [7:42] [7:43], and Mother's Spinning Wheel, that is, Jeppe Aakjær's poem, better known from its first line: 'Sparrows hushed behind the bough'.[CNW 265] What had happened was that Albert Jørgensen, the publisher of the books of texts for The Songbook 'Denmark', had asked Carl Nielsen to remove a poem and replace it with one by Aakjær, and Carl Nielsen had immediately composed a melody to this and in his haste forgot that Thorvald Aagaard had already written a perfectly good melody to the same text. This triggered a new discussion of principle with Thomas Laub, who sent Nielsen 'an uncomfortable letter, to put it mildly, in which he bluntly accuses me [Nielsen] of wanting to "shove" your "melody aside",' as Nielsen writes in a letter to Aagaard [8:30], in which he encloses Laub's letter. That has not been preserved although Carl Nielsen explicitly asked Aagaard to return it.

Nielsen explains to Aagaard that he has represented Laub with his own view. He finds Laub's entire way of looking at it impossible and, moreover, insists he clarify several of his comments. He would not have written his melody to 'Sparrows hushed'  if he had remembered that there already was a melody, not because he considers that improper or disloyal in any way, but because Aagaard's melody is good enough and was the first setting of this recent poem.

'We all should and must have complete freedom to work on our art,' he declares to Aagaard, 'when, and where, and as best we can. Two of my students have composed songs by [J.P.] Jacobsen that I've already set to music. Should [I] be cross about that? I would be ashamed of myself. The matter is serious to me as I know that I have never placed obstacles in the way of others or caused hurt to anyone who showed himself to be genuinely striving.'[8:30] In Melodies for the Songbook 'Denmark', Nielsen's and Aagaard's melodies appear side by side and there is no evidence that the episode damaged their collaboration or their friendship. But we have to ask: Was Laub's letter to Nielsen so compromising that Aagaard may have chosen to let it vanish without trace? With one exception, Nielsen's many letters to Laub do not appear to have outlived Laub himself. The upright Laub was also known for keeping his emotion under wraps.

This time, too, Laub ends up interpreting the matter as an expression of 'two different philosophies, both of which, each in its own arena, has merit; but if they meet, there may be a conflict that could lead to injustice.' He needs to give it some thought but begins by asking Nielsen to take an oath: 'You'll probably take it good-naturedly, even if you're not completely reconciled to it. It's so lovely when people wish to understand each other, even when they don't approve of each other's actions. I believe we're both predisposed to doing that.' [8:31]

While Laub thinks over the principles, Nielsen writes again to Aagaard, because he fears that he expressed himself too harshly about Laub so that Aagaard will think their friendship is in jeopardy. Both his wife and Irmelin also feel it was wrong of him to send Laub's letter to Aagaard, and he at least wants to make sure Aagaard understands that Laub and he 'haven't become adversaries, and I haven't forgotten what he has meant to me.' Yet Nielsen does not omit the rhetorical question: 'But what should I do when I'm accused of wrongdoing? Why has L. asked me to write songs, and you others encouraged me, if I'm no longer allowed to?' [8:32]

Three days later, Laub has sorted out the new principles which go a step further than restricting hymn composition to composers who are born to it – 'children of the house.' [5:546] Now the distinction involves a contradiction between absolute music, which is Carl Nielsen's real domain (according to Laub), and the music used more generally by the public, that is, both sacred song and popular song, which is Laub's territory and whose bounds he never oversteps. In opposition to this, Carl Nielsen argues for 'personal freedom' and 'free competition'; he feels he is even allowed to write a new Don Juan or to set texts from the Koran to music, and Laub knows perfectly well that for Nielsen and his type boundaries do not exist at all., and even the old psalms and church music are 'a glorious classical music, rich in impulses, which can give rise to a new and different kind of glorious music.' [8:35]

But when it comes to the edification of the public, Laub argues, there is no place for free competition; here one work is enough while 20 different bids will simply stand in each other's way and confuse the poor recipients. Here, the important thing is collaboration; the one contributor must know the other's work and adjust accordingly. Only 'rivals in principle' are allowed to compete in an open and honest battle.

According to Laub, one would have to look long and hard to find two more distinct representatives of the two philosophies. 'You were born and raised to produce absolute music; I am set to fight for music for a purpose.' [8:35]

Well, what do you do with categories and principles that are only valid for one of the protagonists? 

Bergen

In April, Carl Nielsen is in Bergen as representative of absolute music. He conducts two concerts of his own works for the music society 'The Harmony', including the Symphony no. 2, The Four Temperaments [CNW 26] [8:349]. It is the first time a note of Carl Nielsen's music has been played in Bergen. He also finds time to lay flowers on Grieg's grave. Nina Grieg is at Fuglsang and hears there about both the flowers and Nielsen's success [8:53]. In Bergen, for the first time in many years, he apparently also meets one of the many women who on his first trip abroad in 1890-91 challenged his decision 'not to satisfy my sexual urges' [1:109] during the year he was travelling, namely Borghild Holmsen, with whom he socialised in Leipzig and celebrated, together with others, one evening in Panorama's Weinstube: 'Busoni paid for champagne and it was an amusing evening! Holmsen abgeschmackt [outrageous].' [1:223] Ten days later, he meets her again in Berlin, 'but [she] was like a stone.' [1:234] In The Carl Nielsen Correspondence we have not encountered her since, but now her student Harald Sæverud writes to Carl Nielsen: 'I heard from Borghild Holmsen that you've been sick,' [8:300] – and this shows that, at the very least, she is keeping an eye on how he is doing.

Beethoven's 9th

Back home, Nielsen celebrates the 100th anniversary of the first performance of Beethoven's Symphony no. 9 on the day itself, 7 May 1924, with an extra Music Society concert. It is a work he had already added to The Music Society's programme in 1919 and repeated several times since. On the day itself, he turns to the audience before starting the performance; this was surely, if not music for a purpose, nevertheless an example of public edification:

'After telling them the performance in Vienna a hundred years before and the course of that strange, historic evening, he spoke about the symphony's various sections and with a few striking words outlined its underlying content. Then he let the music speak for itself, and like the representative of Classicism in our city that he is, showed in action his deep understanding' Politiken, 08.05.1924.

When the last note had sounded, Nielsen held the baton aloft, while the chair of The Music Society, Professor Angul Hammerich, exclaimed from the balcony: 'Long live the memory of great, departed Ludwig van Beethoven's!' – and was answered by 'hurrays' from the public and flourishes from the orchestra. København, 08.05.1924.

'A fair and lovely land'

In July, Nielsen again turns to writing 'music for a purpose'. He notes himself that he has written a new melody to 'A fair and lovely land' [CNW 351] for the Danish Choral Society's national song convention at The Royal Theatre on 1 June 1924 at their request (Samtid, no. 85). Following a folk festival in Skamlingsbanken in 1844, Oehlenschläger's poem, which was published in Collected PoemsSamlede Digte. in 1823, had reached the status of a national anthem in H.E. Krøyer's musical setting from the 1820s, but professional musicians had never ascribed great musical value to it. Now Carl Nielsen apparently had achieved such status that he was considered the right person to provide the national song with a new and better melody. At the big event, the official premiere of the song took place; Georg Høeberg conducted the orchestra and a choir of 900 singers from all over the country. The next day, the convention continued with concerts in Tivoli and when they ended in the evening with all of the participating choirs gathered on Plænen, the park in Tivoli, Georg Høeberg again conducted 'A fair and lovely land' with Carl Nielsen's new melody. It was greeted with such enthusiastic applause that it had to be repeated (Politiken 3.6.1924).

In fact, before the national convention took place, a lot had been done to try out the song and to sing it in several different arrangements; both Anders Brems and Thøger Rasmussen sang it at concerts all over the country (cf. [8:8] [8:17] [8:17] also CNU III/7, pp. 97-100). Carl Nielsen also included it in Melodies for the Songbook 'Denmark',[CNW Coll. 19] where it appears side by side with Krøyer's old and Laub's new melody,  first published in 1919 (Højskolebladet 14.11.1919), and also included in The Folk High School Melody BookFolkehøjskolens Melodibog. in 1922.

It is odd to note that in his new attack on Nielsen for writing a melody to Sparrows hushed behind the bough [CNW 265] for which Thorvald Aagaard had already composed a melody, Laub notes in parentheses: 'I am happy you cannot suspect me of being huffy here – so far as I know that hasn't happened when I myself have been in the wrong.' [8:35] Might Laub have heard that Nielsen's melody for 'A fair and lovely land' is on its way? There must, in any case, have been many people with connections to Laub who had participated in the rehearsals taking place around the country. In that case, it is tempting to see Nielsen's placement of his own melody and Laub's side by side in Melodies for the Songbook 'Denmark' as a demonstration in practice of the artistic freedom that he stands for.

It is easy to see that neither Laub nor Nielsen succeeded in displacing Krøyer's old melody. Nor Carl Nielsen had had high hopes; the day before the performance at the convention in The Royal Theatre, he said:

'It is difficult since the power of habit is great and, in reality, we have to accept that those people are right who say that it is not really a musical question but something completely different. The people grab hold of a song and turn it into a national anthem without any power being able to prevent them and when that happens, the decisive factor is the spirit of the times far more than any literary or musical taste. I admit that such a melody is more of a symbol – like the flag, the cross, and the like – and need not be "good" in its own right, but ... yes, now I am trying anyway – that is human logic for you!" Samtid, no. 85.

Three months later, when Melodies for the Songbook 'Denmark'  comes out, Hugo Seligmann asks him again in Politiken about 'A fair and lovely land' and then all illusions are gone:

'Oh, I understand you. Well, as to that one I just beat my chest with pride. Because I can truthfully say it was not written in vain. It has made love for the old melody flare up with a new flame. So even if with nothing else I have written, I do know that with my melody to "A fair and lovely land", I managed to engage the people!' (Politiken, 09.09.1924, Samtid, no. 85) 

Danes still sing 'A fair and lovely land' to Krøyer's old melody – when it is sung, for example before major sporting events, in arranged and performed in ways that the old song reformers would no doubt have preferred not to have their melodies subjected to.

The Zealand People's Choirs had also commissioned a choral composition from Carl Nielsen, Zealand Singers [CNW 352], with lyrics by the editorial secretary of Sorø Folketidende, Karl Elnegaard. The choral piece was first performed in Næstved on 22 June 1924. Carl Nielsen had come to the city and 700-800 singers walked together through the city to the magnificent new Ridehus at the state barracks where the large choir started the concert with Carl Nielsen's new choral work. It was 'greeted with vigorous applause. The audience and the singers, led by the chief conductor, now offered the composer, who was in attendance, a warm tribute, which concluded with a brief speech in which Mr Carl Rudolf Kofod thanked Carl Nielsen for what he has given the Danish singing population, both in the past and with this latest composition. The speech ended with three cheers for C.N. He stood and bowed in gratitude.' Næstved Tidende, 23.06.1924.

There were no drumrolls for this work. Carl Nielsen published it himself and tried to sell it on his own [8:65], which is evidence of friction in the composer's relationship with his publisher.

Heidelberg

A Scandinavian music festival takes place in Heidelberg from 12 to 16 June 1924. Carl Nielsen travels from Copenhagen on the 10th even though, that same day, Anne Marie writes to Frederikke Møller, the mother of her son-in-law, who is staying at a spa in Karlsbad, Czechoslovakia, to say that Carl 'is not at all well at the moment, and I'm really not at all happy that he's travelling.' [8:78] There is talk of Frederikke Møller coming to Heidelberg to accompany Carl home, but that is not what happens. They do however meet in Berlin and go home together from there. 

At the final orchestral concert, Carl Nielsen and Sibelius are the main attractions. Sibelius is not in attendance but Robert Kajanus is there to conduct his Symphony no. 5. The concert begins with Carl Nielsen himself conducting his Aladdin Suite [CNW 17] and finishes with the local conductor, Hermann Poppen, performing Hymnus Amoris.[CNW 100] It is a tremendous success. Carl Nielsen sends a postcard about it to friends and acquaintances, and his exclamation to Telmányi: 'Too bad that Mother wasn't with me!!', must, of course, be seen in light of their past marital conflicts and his remembering that the inspiration for Hymnus Amoris [CNW 100] goes all the way back to the happy time in Italy immediately after their wedding in Florence.

On the day of his arrival, he attends a chamber concert. The Amar Quartet performs, and Carl Nielsen speaks with the quartet's principal violinist, Licco Amar, who is good friends with Emil Telmányi, and he surely also takes this opportunity to speak with the quartet's famous violist, Paul Hindemith. On Sunday the 15th, they all go on an excursion to Wolfsbrunnen, and there Robert Kajanus and Carl Nielsen make speeches [8:82]-[8:86].

An odd little episode is linked to Carl Nielsen's participation in Heidelberg. On the trip home, he writes a recommendation [8:88] for an oboist, Gustav Baum, who had presumably played previously under Carl Nielsen in the Blüthner Orchestra in Berlin, and who now has been one of the assistants enlisted to help at the Scandinavian music festival in Heidelberg. Many years later, in 2001, shortly before work on The Carl Nielsen Correspondence began, Gustav Baum's daughter appears in San Francisco and presents Herbert Blomstedt with this recommendation, which has now ended up in this edition. The daughter remembers that her father described the dinners he had attended with Carl Nielsen at their centre and that he often talked about going to Denmark and playing under him again.

Rudolf Steiner and Hans Børge

Since 1918, Hans Børge Nielsen has been living at Bavnhøjgaard, near Damgaard, with Christiane and Johannes Østergaard. Carl Nielsen and Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen's lifelong friend Margrete Rosenberg, who lives with Miss Thygesen at Damgaard, partly as her helper on the farm, partly as a music teacher in Fredericia, has also been taking care of Hans Børge's instruction and development. Margrete Rosenberg is intensely interested in Rudolf Steiner; for three years now, she has supported the Waldorf School in Stuttgart, which is closely linked to Steiner and his teachings. Her most ambitious plan for Hans Børge is that she wants him to have a short stay at the Waldorf School so that some of the teachers can observe him and offer advice for her continued work with him. Of course, it is her greatest wish to have Rudolf Steiner himself meet Hans Børge, to make a diagnosis and discuss treatment options.

Both Carl and Anne Marie had earlier refused to contribute to the Waldorf School, and when Carl is at Damgaard, he and Miss Thygesen often join forces against Rose and Steiner. Nonetheless, Margrete Rosenberg succeeds in winning Carl and Anne Marie's approval for her taking charge of Hans Børge herself and, in the end, Anne Marie also sends a considerable sum for the trip. Once Hans Børge has got his passport – and there was difficulty in obtaining the necessary medical proof that Hans Børge is unsuitable for military service – they begin the journey on 27 July 1924. It can be followed with many lively details in Margrete's and Hans Børge's own letters home. This leads both to a meeting with Rudolf Steiner in Dornach, Switzerland, and to a diagnosis, to which Margrete refers in a letter [8:116], and finally to a stay at the Waldorf School in Stuttgart.

Skagen

During the same period, Carl Nielsen and varying combinations of the family are living in Skagen. The editing of Melodies for the Songbook 'Denmark' is finished and it goes to press but the cover design has not yet been decided. That is, at least, the view of Wilhelm Hansen who wants a national motif, a ploughman, on the cover, while Carl Nielsen has already embarked upon a more artistic design, which his daughter Søs will create because Niels Skovgaard does not have time. Carl Nielsen grows angry and threatens to withdraw his melodies so that the book can certainly not come out in time for the beginning of the new school year [8:106].

There have been several conflicts with Wilhelm Hansen this year. On 6 June, he signed the contract with the publisher for the release of the Aladdin Suite [CNW 17], Pan and Syrinx [CNW 38] and the overture to Masquerade [CNW 2], but the very next day he cancelled it again [8:72]. A few days later, when he sends back his copy of the annulled contract, he encloses an account of his views on the issue in question and adds general reflections on the publisher's relationship to art. He expresses himself diplomatically, but what annoys him is that the publisher creates scholarships that benefit young musicians but does not pay composers decently when they submit their works [8:74].

The publisher calls Carl Nielsen's letter 'a form of lecture', in correspondence that may never have been posted, but the quarrel over the cover to Melodies for the Songbook 'Denmark' causes Svend Wilhelm Hansen to conclude a letter to Carl Nielsen in Skagen with these words: 'In recent years we have increasingly received many harsh, critical and hostile letters, and feel compelled to note that a collaboration is unsustainable, if there isn't mutual understanding.' [8:109]

It is also worth noting that Hakon Børresen, not otherwise a member of Carl Nielsen's closest circle, sought out Carl Nielsen in Skagen that same summer. Carl Nielsen writes to Carl Johan Michaelsen that Børresen 'developed in a long conversation (without prompting from me) just how terrible things are with Wilhem Hansen Publishers. He was quite indignant over their views and manner of operation. – More on this when we see each other, unless you'd rather I told you about it in writing.' [8:102] That same spring, Jeppe Aakjær also speaks out as regards the Wilhelm Hansen publishing house. On the occasion of his 25th anniversary as a poet, he said:

'My poem "John the Roadman", which is sung in every cottage in the country, earned me 25 kroner in its original publication. Wilhelm Hansen stole the rest in music lyrics. With the law on its side, that company can steal the goose's golden eggs even before they have grown cold. The face of every Danish poet hardens when that company is mentioned. Can one imagine a law so medieval that it gives a company the right, at its discretion, to suck money from living literature without offering any compensation? But that is how it is and no one makes a serious move to have the policy changed.' Berlingske Tidende, evening edition, 13.03.1924 [8:50].

Motorist

The summer of 1924 on Skagen was also the year that Carl Nielsen – and Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen – learnt to drive a car and got driver's licences. From New York, in a very elaborate letter in his immigrant Danish, Telmányi dreamt and fantasised in a sort of 'automobile fever' that his father-in-law should have a motor car [8:18], but Carl Nielsen rejected the idea with reference to the tax business, which was developing into an economic disaster for them, adding: 'And what joy would we derive from a car when neither of us can afford to keep it? Only loss and irritation, and for just a few hundred kroner we can rent a car if we want to take a summer trip. In this country neither you nor I need the self-promotion that would come from having our own car, and in America – ! there it is likely to attract more attention not to have a car, for there driving is so common that a man who goes down the street on foot is almost regarded as an "oddball" (also self-promotion of a kind!)' [8.22].

Nevertheless, by the end of July, Carl and Anne Marie are both taking driving lessons. Carl has asked at the ironmongers whether there was anyone who offered driving lessons and he received this answer, which shows that the automobile business on Skagen must have been booming and that the advertising must have worked: 'Yes, there are several people. There's Sørensen up next to Knudstrup Photography and then there's Sørrig, but he's not as good. Then there's Hjalmar Møller, who's excellent; he has both a Ford and another car.' I: 'Where does Hjalmar Møller live?' He: 'You can almost always find him in the police station.' I: 'Why is that?' He: 'He's a police officer.' I gave a loud screech of delight, but only to myself. Ha, ha! Even the police give driving lessons, so we can run over Satan himself and it won't matter! That's a good one! –'  [8.98].

Over the next few days, he receives 15 driving lessons in various vehicles and informs Vera Michaelsen that he now can 'take the test and get a licence at any time.' He also encourages the Michaelsens to come to Skagen, 'and bring the little coupé with you.' [8.104] The little coupé is the small Renault with registration number K 3377, which Carl Johan Michaelsen had bought in 1914 as an open motorcar and which was later converted to a coupe, and this will, in fact, become Carl Nielsen's very first motorcar. According to Søs, it happened as follows:

'For Father, equestrian sports were now out of the question, but one day he stood at the window of music conservatory and looked out. Carl Johan Michaelsen hopped out of his little Renault coupé and shortly afterwards came through the door. "Go over to the window, Carl Nielsen", he said, "Look out". "Yes, I see your fine little motorcar". "No, now it's yours", said Carl Johan Michaelsen. You can imagine Father's delight. That is how he got his first car. After that, he became an avid motorist and quickly learnt how to drive.' AMT, p. 133.

Anne Marie Telmányi does not date the incident, but it must have taken place later that year. In any case, we can establish that Carl Nielsen drives his car to Damgaard for the first time on 16 October 1924 and the next day sends a precise report to Vera Michaelsen [8.162]. We also know that the car was still registered in Carl Johan Michaelsen's name and that in 1926 it was re-registered in Carl Nielsen's name, though still with the same number (cf. Carl Nielsen som bilist, Bilhistorisk Tidsskrift 117/1994, pp. 3-10). One may venture a guess that Carl Nielsen could not own a car before the tax matter was resolved with a settlement on 24 October 1925. Moreover, from 1926 on, his annual grant on the budget was raised. In any case, 'Michaelsen's funny, little car', as Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen calls it [8:167], also frequently referred to as 'the Sentry Box', is a new member of the family that gives rise to much attention and many experiences.

On his first trip across Zealand and Funen, Carl Nielsen twice had to 'swerve suddenly around a hen and a dog at a fairly fast clip, but it went well and I didn't run over anything.' At the Great Belt'Storebælt'. The sea between Zealand and Funen. there was also a problem; he had to 'go into reverse . . . and there sat little Nielsen, with one rear wheel stuck in a [train] track because he drove so carefully. But immediately a pair of railway workers appeared, who gave him a little push and sorted it out.' [8:162] – After the next trip across the Little Belt,'Lillebælt'. The sea between Funen and Jutland. he meets his musician colleagues Victor Schiøler and Louis Jensen, who are on their way to Tønder in a little open Opel car but, since it is raining, Schiøler crams into the Sentry Box with Nielsen to stay dry on the way to Damgaard. The Opel speeds away from the old Renault, which has to stop and hide before a turn in the hope that the Opel will notice that it has disappeared and come back for it. The Opel, however, easily races up the hills and gets way ahead before turning back, but Carl Nielsen praises 'the reliable, honest, fine, sensitive, lively, and yet modest little Renault that never bites off more (of a hill) than it can chew.' [8:173]

Probably the first car ever to park in Damgaard's courtyard, The Sentry Box is parked not in the courtyard in front of the main building, because Miss Thygesen would not allow that, but in the yard belonging to the home farm – and there they can look at the beast and be photographed with it. Carl Nielsen hopes to steal Miss Thygesen away for a little ride one day, 'but she has to gaze at it for a few more days first,' he thinks. Already on 25 October, however, he seems to have succeeded in getting her on board [8:165] [8:169].

Meanwhile, there is no problem getting Anne Marie on board; on the contrary, it is hard to get her out of the car again. On this trip, the door handle falls off and, when returning to Damgaard, the aging couple have to stop some way up the avenue so that Anne Marie can crawl out without being seen through the windshield, which fortunately can be opened, and finally, the composer has to get out the same way [8:167]. A year later, he gets his first traffic fine and has to appear at the police station because he has cut the corner turning left onto Strøget from Kongens Nytorv [8:246].The next summer is boiling hot, and the tyres puncture now and again. One day, Nielsen has put on the spare tyre, but it rolls off down the hill, midway between Vejle and Fredericia, for a full kilometre without him noticing! Nor does he succeed in finding the runaway tyre but, a month later, the police in Fredericia report to Damgaard that they have found the tyre, which had rolled a long way into a corn field [8:399] [8:415].

Apart from the fact that the little car takes up a lot of time, the point of Carl Nielsen's stay at Damgaard is, as always, to compose – here, where he has so much more tranquillity than in Copenhagen. Now it is his Symphony no. 6 [CNW 30], which, he tells us from Skagen, he has begun on 14 August [8:134]. After a host of interruptions and many trips back and forth to Copenhagen in the Sentry Box, on 24 November 1924, in a letter to William Behrend, he can report that at least the first movement is finished: 'This very day, when I received your postcard, I've completed a 1st (rather large) movement of a new symphony [CNW 30], and feel relieved that I've got this far. It's hard to tell how good it is just yet, but I hope for the best: it has been a challenging work for me, and I have not shied away from difficult problems, also in terms of purely technical issues.' [8:183]

Menton – Schoenberg and Willumsen

In 1925, Carl Nielsen has his 60th birthday, and it is probably in the back of his mind that the Symphony no. 6 [CNW 30] should be ready to present on that occasion. The work did not progress quickly, however, but finally, on 21 January 1925, he could report that the second movement, the little, dry Humoresque for wind and percussion, was finished [8:212]. A fortnight earlier, Paul von Klenau and The Danish Philharmonic Society had given the first performance in Denmark of an excerpt of Stravinsky's music to Petrushka. Carl Nielsen was present since Emil Telmányi was the soloist in his father-in-law's Violin Concerto [CNW 41] at the same concert. This is what Nielsen notes in his diary alongside a remark about Klenau's inability to accompany [8:197]; not a word about Stravinsky on this occasion.

There have been attempts to make a link between the Humoresque and Stravinsky's Petrushka by pointing at the coincidence between the Stravinsky performance and the creation of Nielsen's movement, but then it should be noted that Irmelin had already discussed Stravinsky, and even Petrushka, with her father in 1916 and 1917 [5:449] [5:477]. On close reading, The Carl Nielsen Correspondence quite often makes it clear that Carl Nielsen knew more new and old music than one might imagine.

In late January, Carl Nielsen and Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen travel to Menton on the French Riviera accompanied by Anne Marie's student Helen Rée. Miss Thygesen from Damgaard is already in Menton on her annual winter break with her travelling companion Margrete Rosenberg. Carl Nielsen frequently writes home that he would really rather have stayed home with his unfinished symphony, and that he agreed to the trip principally because of Anne Marie's bronchitis and cough, but now he himself and his heart also need some rest, and he also notes that 'I can easily walk in the mountains both uphill and – preferably down.' [8:239]

It is on this trip that Carl Nielsen meets Arnold Schoenberg. While Carl and Anne Marie are in Nice visiting Willumsen and his wife on 9 February 1925, Arnold Schoenberg and his wife looked up Carl Nielsen at his hotel. They were not able to call, because the hotel did not have a telephone, but instead left a visiting card after which Carl Nielsen must have called Schoenberg back in nearby Beaulieu to set up a meeting. It also appears that it was Nielsen's friend, the pianist Artur Schnabel, who had played Nielsen's music for Schoenberg privately for an entire evening and piqued his interest in meeting the composer. [8:234]

Subsequently, on 11 February, Carl Nielsen and Anne Marie visit Gertrud and Arnold Schoenberg. This leads to the two couples also meeting the next day in Nice where they also take tea at the Lafayette Galleries.

Carl Nielsen writes to Irmelin: 'Yesterday we took a trip to Beaulieu and visited the Schoenbergs, returning their call. They were very pleased with our visit and today we're getting together again. Mother says that he very much wants to exchange ideas with me. Ah, Nielsen, Nielsen, how big are you now?' [8:239]

And to Emil Telmányi and Søs: 'On Monday we were in Nice with the Willumsens and it was an excellent trip. Unfortunately, Arnold Schoenberg and his wife (who live in Beaulieu) had been here while we were in Nice. So yesterday we went down and visited them, and they were quite delighted with the visit, and we had to agree that now today we'll go to Nice on a particular train. A huge carnival is opening today that has the whole city in uproar. I like Schoenberg, and Mother says that he is extremely keen on speaking to me. It may be that the sympathy is mutual, but in any case it is a great delight to speak with him and he is both intelligent and childlike: an attractive combination. So, we'll see. –' [8:240]

It must have been on this occasion that Schoenberg explained to Nielsen, that now that all notes are equally important, it was no good that some of the names of notes derived from others, C# from C, D# from D, and so on. 'No,' Schoenberg purportedly said, 'I propose that we give them new names, and we do it in this way: that I ask 12 contemporary composers to write an atonal composition, and then we will re-name the notes C, C#, D, D#, etc., after the composers in the order in which I receive the works.' – 'So will one of the tones be called Nielsen?' asked Carl Nielsen meekly, to which Schoenberg answered: 'No, no, Niel will suffice.' MS II, p. 278. 

It seems, however, that in the end Carl Nielsen distances himself a little from Schoenberg; he writes to Irmelin a few days later: 'I'd rather tell you in person about our visit with the Willumsens and my meeting with Schoenberg. It turns out that the latter is a self-advertiser, but more about that, and many other things, when we see each other {...}' [8:246]

Birthday preparations

There must have been quite a lot of talk about the celebration of Carl Nielsen's 60th birthday in the lead-up to the event. Since its formation in 1903, The Danish Musicians' Society had organised countless parties and celebrations of people and occasions, and in his birthday greeting [8:293]. J.L. Emborg also believes it would only have been natural to take this on. Carl Nielsen had himself been chair of The Danish Musicians' Society and in this capacity had organised the party for Johan Svendsen in 1907 in celebration of the 25th anniversary of his first performance in Copenhagen (Samtid, no. 20). However, he and his board suffered some setbacks in their attempt to reform the society, whose initiator, Politiken's music critic Charles Kjerulf, had dominated the organisation and turned it into an instrument for his own financial interests. Since then, Carl Nielsen had regularly been critical of the society and, after the Paris concerts in 1923, this had turned to open conflict [8:43].

In 1925, The Danish Musicians' Society had also taken the initiative for the opera week from 3 to 8 May that Emborg also mentions in his letter, and which ended as such a total fiasco that it had to be cancelled by the country's Prime Minister even after invitations had been posted to foreign guests and representatives [8:256]. Whatever the reason and however it came about, it was instead the daily newspaper Politiken that took the initiative in celebrations for Carl Nielsen, and it was the paper's music critic Axel Kjerulf, son of Charles Kjerulf, who ended up organising the major event assisted by an Honorary Ladies Committee, comprised mainly of the wives of well-known and significant men such as Jeppe Aakjær, Kapellmeister Georg Høeberg, the engineer Jens Jarl, Charles Kjerulf, Carl Johan Michaelsen, Knud Arne-Petersen, Kapellmeister Frederik Schnedler-Petersen, Professor Anton Svendsen, Svend Wilhelm Hansen, Asger Wilhelm Hansen, alongside the Chamber Singer Miss Tenna Frederiksen and Nina Grieg.

Against this background, the party was launched and invitations sent out: 

Politiken, Sunday, 24.05.1925:

"Celebrating Carl Nielsen!

Carl Nielsen!

 A name, so simple and Danish, so ordinary and empty of pretention and pomposity – and yet it rings with the greatest and best in Danish music.

Tens of thousands are called Carl!

Thousands are called Nielsen!

Hundreds call themselves Carl Nielsen!

But put the name to music – then there is only one Carl Nielsen – and he has his 60th birthday on Thursday, the 9th of June.

It must be celebrated!

All corners of the Danish music world will acknowledge his achievements, we will all crown him with laurel leaves and our young musicians will light torches in his honour! From Norway, Sweden and Finland people will pay homage to and honour him – from all places in the world that Danish music has reached, his name will be mentioned and his day of honour commemorated.

So widespread and great is his triumph, this little village musician's son, who in his childhood guarded cows in Funen's rich meadows and as a simple youth stood and blowing his alto trumpet as a regiment musician in the main square in Odense. So steadily and constantly has he gained ground in realising his purpose that, met with resistance all the way through though never with indifference, can now see from his pinnacle of his art and his life that the oldest and the youngest flock to celebrate him.

But does he himself want it?

No matter how much noise there was about his artistic work – personally, he was always quiet, reserved, modest. Carl Nielsen tried with shy deference and with the gentlest smile of his affable nature to resist the proposed party and gave in only to the inevitable – and promised to come.

So let us go to the party!

Carl Nielsen is a summer child – so we have to celebrate his birthday in Tivoli.

On 9 June at 7:30, in the concert hall's front section, Kapellmeister Schnedler-Petersen will start with Carl Nielsen's op. 1, the charming little String Suite [CNW 32], and chamber musician Peder Møller will play his Violin Concerto [CNW 41],

At 9:00 in the concert hall, Carl Nielsen himself will conduct first his latest Symphony no. 5 [CNW 29] and afterwards the choral work Springtime on Funen [CNW 102]In fact, at 9.00 on Saturday, 6 June, Schnedler-Petersen began the celebration of Carl Nielsen in Tivoli's concert hall's second half with a performance of Symphony no. 3, Sinfonia Espansiva [CNW 27].

After the concert – at 10.30 – those taking part in the dinner will assemble – festively dressed – in Nimb's rooms on the first floor of Tivoli's Bazaar. Immediately afterwards, they will go into to dinner. Speeches, songs and music.

At around 12.00, the torchlight procession of Young Composers, starting from Christiansborg Palace's riding arena, will arrive in Tivoli.

After the torchlight procession, all of the participants will gather for a punch party in the banquet hall during which various surprises have been prepared. Later, there will be an opportunity to dance.

Lists for participants to apply will be put up starting next Friday the 29th of this month at 10.00 am in Wilhelm Hansen's Publishing House, Gothersgade 9-11, Tivoli's Office, Vesterbrogade, and Politiken's office in the City Hall Square.

The cost for dinner (fish filet, chicken, ice cream and coffee. Served with red wine and Madeira) and the punch party – all inclusive – will be 15 kroner per person.

In view of the limited space and the large numbers expected, application should be made as soon as possible; the lists will close once they are fully subscribed." 

The Birthday

It is striking how few photos have been preserved of the big party, just as it is striking how easily and carelessly it was glossed over both in the first biography (MS, pp. 248-250). and in Anne Marie Telmányi's memoirs of her childhood home (AMT, pp. 139-145). There is also very little on the party itself in The Carl Nielsen Correspondence but a bit about the (predictable) problems with the invitations [8:287]. On the other hand, the edition of the correspondence (Carl Nielsen Brevudgaven) includes the many preserved birthday letters and congratulations that Carl Nielsen received. A surprising number are firsthand testimonies of friendship and stories about relationships between teacher and student. Naturally enough, the most comprehensive account of the course of the official festivities is be found on 10 and 11 June in Politiken's reports, which we give here in full: 

Politiken, Wednesday, 10.06.1925:

'Copenhagen celebrated Carl Nielsen last night with a torchlight procession and cascades of music.

Vesterbro Passage lay in a green shimmering glow, and the under the linden trees, which now form a complete canopy over the pavement, people teemed in the warm June night. The tall electric lampposts cast a bright light over Tivoli's entrance where people flocked to Carl Nielsen's concert, and our lovely summer garden was covered in thousands of multi-coloured lights, mostly in front of Nimb's Bazaar which shone like several of the thousand and one nights.The Nimb was inaugurated in 1909 and can architecturally be described as a Moorish-inspired fairy tale castle. Hence the reference to the Arabian Nights.

Already by 10 in the evening, all music-loving Copenhagen began gathering here. The terrace was filled; every table in the restaurant was occupied; and a stream of men in black tie and women in low-cut gowns the colours of summer – a bouquet of pea flowers with open petals – flowed up the red carpets to the assembly rooms.' 

'I take with a smile my burden' [CNW 212]

Among the first to arrive was the well-known Consul General Claudius, who owns the largest collection of music instruments in the Scandinavia. His face shone as though he himself had tuned them all for the day's occasion. His lapel also sparkled with his many decorations. A line of men with fine decorations followed him. The words of Carl Nielsen's song apply to all of them: 'I take with a smile my burden.'

The White Sea

You could not help but smile when you entered Nimb's large, festively lit hall, which with its white painted walls, its vaulted barrel ceiling with all the lamps, the gilded bandstand and the tall, gilded mirrors has taken its name from the throne room in Stockholm's Castle: the White Sea!

Last night, over Nimb's white sea, on table after table covered in white cloths for 322 guests, red and white marguerites, the Danish wildflower, floated in Kähler pottery, and between the vases lay green beech leaves from the woods of Funen, so that – as the inspector said – Carl Nielsen could instantly grab hold of something of his own. In front of the guest of honour's seat, between the famous Danish-West Indian bronze candelabra, a massive lyre made of violets had been erected. At the back of the hall, green palm trees waved, while 32 waiters with 161 bottles of 1912 Chateau Leoville wine filed in to receive the guests.

They are streaming in now. Consul General Claudius is no longer standing alone. He is surrounded by his entire gathering, which has taken human form – tenors, sopranos and basses, all mixed together. It is time for us to collect a bouquet of ...

Known Names.

The poet Sophus Claussen and his wife, Madame Charles Cahier and her husband, Chamber Singer Peter Cornelius, Office Manager Cordt Trap, Department Head Weis and his wife, the composer Anders Rachlew and his wife, the former Home Secretary, Member of Parliament Ove Rode and his wife, Miss Johanne Stockmarr, the author Helge Rode, High Court Barrister Shaw and his wife, the painter Axel Salto and Mrs Kamma Salto, the architect Thorkild Henningsen and his wife, the stockbroker Erik Heiberg and Mrs Ella Heiberg, the pharmacist Aage Gottschalck, the composer Rudolph Simonsen and his wife, Office Manager Trier and his wife, Professor Daniel Jacobson, and the dancer Mrs Lillebil Ibsen.

University Fellow, Dr Abrahamsen, the composer Jørgen Bentzon and his wife, Chamber Singer Miss Ellen Beck, the violinist Miss Gunna Breuning-Storm, Miss Ella Faber, Mrs Councillor Bentzon, Mrs Dr Blegvad, the poet Aage Berntsen, Mrs Captain Lembcke, Kapellmeister Carl I. Meinung, the actor Adam Poulsen, Director Arne-Petersen and his wife, the violinist Miss Frederikke Philip, the manufacturer Herman N. Petersen, Vilhelm Poulsen, Professor Viggo Bentzon and his wife, the singer Miss Otta Brønnum, the singer Anders Brems and his wife, Royal Chapel Musician Vilhelm Bartholdy and his wife, Consul General Claudius, the librarian Julius Clausen and his wife, Miss Elisabeth Dons, Miss Dr Johanne Feilberg, Professor Karen Fridericia, Chamber Singer Miss Tenna Frederiksen, Holger and Mrs Lili Drucker, Director Benny Dessau and his wife, Mrs Birgit Engell, Mrs Fürstenberg of Gothenburg, Einar and Viggo Forchhammer, Director Gamborg and Mrs Nina Grieg.

Department Head Glahn, the composer Peder Gram, Dr Peter Hertz and his wife, the painter Miss Marie Henriques, Professor Hannover, Chief Physician Hartmann and his wife, Dr Maja Mannheimer of Gothenburg, Sophus Michaëlis and his wife, Editor Henry Hellssen, Professor Angul Hammerich, the ophthalmologist Hertz, Peder Møller and his wife, Mrs Hertha Thode, the composer Alfred Tofft, the composer Roger Henrichsen, Kapellmeister Georg Høeberg and his wife, Kapellmeister Hye-Knudsen and his wife, lecturer Ove Jørgensen (our well-known ballet expert), the composer Olfert Jespersen, Mr Axel Kalckar and his wife, Mrs Suchen Kjerulf, the pianist Miss Else Krieger, Dr Torben Krogh, the architect Kaare Klint and his wife, Director Victor Lemchow and his wife.

Master of the Royal Hunt Marie Møller, Bank Director Mannheimer and his wife, the opera singer Carl Madsen and his wife, the composer Ludolf Nielsen, the guest of honour's brother, the photographer Albert Nielsen from Chicago, Royal Chapel Musician Kristian Sandby and his wife.

The guest of honour's arrival.

Politiken's Mr Axel Kjerulf, has asked everyone to take their seats in the assembly rooms while they wait for the birthday boy to arrive. Some of the distinguished women, however, await the guest of honour on the golden staircase itself. Included here are Mrs Nina Grieg with her silvery hair, Chamber Singer Miss Tenna Frederiksen, regal in her white lace gown, Mrs Lissen Wilhelm-Hansen, pale red like a June rose, Mrs Inger Wilhelm-Hansen, in sea-green with pearl embroidery, Mrs Schnedler-Petersen, Miss Johanne Stockmarr, and among all of these women, the jet-black profile of Head of Department Glahn. Now sounds the cry: – Carl Nielsen is coming!

And true enough, we see the sculptress Mrs Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen step forward with a magnificent bouquet of yellow roses. Carl Nielsen follows after her, small and humble with his captivating smile, a little tired from the concert hall's Turkish temperature, but with that well-known twinkle in his blue eyes and the sparkling new Commander's CrossOf the Order of Dannebrog around his neck. He stops for a moment, and a magnesium bomb explodes...

Mrs Axel Kjerulf hurries forward and hands Carl Nielsen a bouquet of beech foliage, and a signal is sent to the white sea where, as the guest of honour and his wife enter, the musicians play a fragment of Masquerade [CNW 2] and all the guests stand up and clap in time to the music. 

'Politiken' bids everyone welcome.

 So then we all sit in our seats and from now on until the torch procession arrives we are actually tucked away in small, private nooks and crannies, in our own families. Right opposite me sits Miss Johan-Svendsen with her lovely neck and fine tilt of the head. I could write a poem in her honour, if I were not taking notes!

But duty obliges me to report that our colleague Mr Axel Kjerulf is bidding everyone welcome on behalf of Politiken, and that Mr Schnedler-Petersen takes over the position of conductor. And so the calm is over, and The Music Society's representative, Lecturer Wøldike, rises to hold a...

The speech in honour of the composer.

Actually, Mr Wøldike's speech is reminiscent of Peter Nansen's famous tribute to Henrik Ibsen. It has the same playful, rather informal tone. If we set aside the jokes, however, the main content is roughly as follows:

A party should strengthen the heart's memory. Based on the ancients' definition, a party is both a centre and a periphery. There is a dispute among the ancients about whether it is a congregate or a totality. We are a totality by virtue of our common love for Carl Nielsen. Today a wave of love rolls toward you from Skagen to GedserI.e. all of Denmark. Skagen is the northernmost town of Jutland and Gedser the southernmost town of Zealand. and it passes of course over Funen from whence all our famous men come. (Mr Wøldike mentions a number but forgets, unintentionally or intentionally, the most famous of them all).

The speaker now enters into a more detailed discussion of Carl Nielsen's music: A woman is rocking her child and humming John the Roadman [CNW 137]; boy scouts go out in short trousers singing 'Sing, Danish man' [CNW 288]. The Music Society sends you its most heartfelt greetings. Here, the old people sit reminiscing about Gade, Hartmann and Neruda – but thank heavens for Carl Nielsen! We all have a small corner of our hearts where we cultivate Carl Nielsen. Thank you for the unadulterated, golden wine that you gave us and that does not muddle our brains but warms and strengthens us.

Mrs Nina Grieg bestows a laurel wreath on Carl Nielsen.

Now followed a gripping moment. 'The most beautiful and sweetest among our women,' announced Schnedler-Petersen – and small and fine, with her dazzling smile, Mrs Nina Grieg stepped forward and laid the laurel wreath on Carl Nielsen's head.

Led by Anders Brems, the party participants sang Jeppe Aakjær's poem, which our readers already know:

'My country, the ringing songs

of skylark, bluetit and bee'

This was followed by the speech of youth to the master, strongly and enthusiastically delivered by the young composer Poul Schierbeck.

Poul Schierbeck's speech.

'God be praised,' began the speaker, 'that we here in our little country of Denmark have a fellow like Carl Nielsen! The rumour about all the great things that exist out there in the world is certainly not a lie. Great things happen out there, and peaks rise up through the mist in which much is still hidden. Peaks, whose sharp contours are already visible to everyone. But none of these peaks are higher and clearer in outline than the mountain that lifts the classical temple up above the clouds against the eternal blue sky.

Is there perhaps a man with a more powerful sensory life and more sensitive nerves than you...? No one possesses the primitive, powerful force of nature, no one, the nerve that you do.

And is there music that sounds sweeter and more appealing than yours...? No one possesses the sweetness, the enchanting grace of childlike purity that you have. One can almost turn the familiar adage upside down and say:

enough who have the will, but fewer with the strength...

enough who have the brains, but rare the heart...

enough who have the feeling, but few with truth and health.

So it is not the strength, the brains, the truth and the health that are the fundamental elements in the great fermentation process out there, but rather the will, the brains and the senses, and he who is born of this mountainous childbirth is – yes, certainly it is not the little mouse, but neither is it always great music – on the contrary, it is most often musical sensations.

As a composer of sensation, Carl Nielsen, you do not convince. Your boldest blows against the eardrum, your most defiant lines and most rebellious rhythms are not figments of a fermenting brain or of agitated nerves, but are like foam and surf over a rushing, swelling stream of music of the soul, and the surprises with which you have horrified your contemporaries have always had the unfortunate property for sensation music of being more music than sensation.

None of us is a messiah, but Thou art Peter, and on that rock we will build our churches and chapels beneath the proud, classically beautiful temple that crowns its summit.

This is our greeting to you today, Maestro. And when in a little while the torches burn in your honour, we will testify that the purifying fire, which your blazing high beacon has lit in the North, will pass shining from hand to hand and never be extinguished.

God be praised that here in little Denmark we have a fellow like Carl Nielsen. Long live Carl Nielsen!

The torchlight procession arrives.

Poul Schierbeck had only just mentioned the torches when horn music could be heard wafting through the open balcony doors over Tivoli, announcing the arrival of the singing torchlight procession, and soon the torches cast their glow over the garden's green lawns. The guests, who still sat in the middle of their dinner, sprang up from the tables. Many followed Carl Nielsen down to the lectern on the open terrace, others crowded in front of the balcony doors and windows in the assembly rooms. Seen from up here on the first floor, the torchlight procession looked impressive as it marched singing and soon formed a circle around the green lawn in front of the Bazaar building. In the twilight that arose from the torches' glow, mixed with the illumination from the electric lamps in front of the lawn, which lay like a green island in the sea of fire, Carl Nielsen stepped forward to receive the young people's tribute.

A.W. [Andreas Winding]

The singing torchlight procession.

Night was dark across the riding arena. As dark as it can get on a midsummer night. Over the castle's black tower stood the sky, greenish blue, bright, so only the brightest stars could be seen. A lovely and quiet night, mild as a Funen song.

But in the dark, figures rustle about. They come out from all corners of the murky colonnades, secretive and muffled by the soft gravel, as though in a secret conspiracy. Among the figures were police horses, polished buttons that shone faintly in the starlight, brass horns, white frocks and white stockings.

This was the conspiracy of the singing torchlight procession.

Suddenly a candle was lit. Fire flamed up from a bonfire of petrol. Faces emerged from the darkness and bent over the fire. More lights, more fire. Torches were held out and lit. The flames flickered over the hundred-year-old pavilions on the marble bridge.

Captain Lembcke had flung a fireproof covering over his clothing and with gentle authority arranged the whole fire. Young scouts encircled him, led by the steadfast Division Chief Palm Greisen. Every man had his torch, every man his fire and his place and his songbook!

Gradually, as the fire illuminated the crowd, we saw the many nameless faces. Young people, a host of young people, from the art world and especially from the music world. Many young women, so sweet and happy, like we have never before seen in a celebratory procession. If we had not known Carl Nielsen's power before, we would find it in the blue of all of these young eyes illuminated by the glow of the torches. But  it was not just the young. There were also adult men, with grey-haired renown and stature, ennobled by work and bitter experiences, 350 torches, 350 souls, who meet one dark night to light a fire and brighten the sky for a single person.

But now, quick – quick! The fire is blazing, the horses stomping. Outside, the city stands like a creature with a thousand heads and waits for us, and in Tivoli all the fires are ablaze! Let us go! The torches are raised to the stars, and the horns sound like a rallying cry under the summer sky.

The musicians were in front – thirty horns, led by Kapellmeister Reesen and framed by scouts with torches. Right after the musicians, Poul Wiedemann, who sang out with full voice: 'Sing, Danish man! With all your might!' [CNW 288] His tones were picked up by the student singers, who followed the musicians, and were led by Roger Henrichsen. But the whole procession: a mixed bag, composed of many, many people of all ages and from all parts of the art world... but they sang, sang as one: 'Sing, Danish man!' –.

The song sounded over the dark canals whose water sparkled with the reflections of the torches' flames, it sounded through the street with the tall houses, where people stood shoulder to shoulder and listened in such a dense throng that the houses were hidden by heads. The whole street was on fire. As we neared Vestervoldgade and Holger Drachmann's song was over, the drums resounded for a few minutes before the musicians threw a new melody by Carl Nielsen out over the city. It was written to Jeppe Aakjær's text: 'I take with a smile my burden' [CNW 212]. All trams came to a halt, all cars stopped. A couple of torches fell into the ditches between the tram rails, there were a few faint cries. But the procession made its way through traffic and around barriers, steadily and peacefully. Nothing could stop the singing torchlight procession. 

'Say, how can you possibly ponder,

as long as the heavens are blue!

My heart will tremble with wonder

as long as grass gathers dew!' [CNW 212]

In this way, the final lines of Jeppe Aakjær's poem were rang out, rejoicing across the City Hall Square and the procession paused to draw everyone together.

Meanwhile, John the Roadman [CNW 137] was sung. Many people watching the procession sang along. But onward – we are going to Tivoli.

Calmly, gently, the procession of fire and singers swung through the wrought-iron gate and up the cordoned-off aisle toward Nimb's terrace. The torches' yellow light met Tivoli's multi-coloured lights and the Bazaar's radiant façade. They are waving to us from the windows, Tivoli's guests stand still and gaze calmly and devoutly at the singing procession of flames and people. A rare, a remarkable spectacle!

A circle before the terrace. The flower beds frame a bonfire that hisses in the quiet night.

Carl Nielsen is honoured.

A moment later, Carl Nielsen stands at the lectern at the centre of the stairway, surrounded by the party guests. Nina Grieg is close to him, with her beautiful smile and silver hair – his daughter, Mrs Telmányi, and his wife, Mrs Anne Marie.

Cheers and applause for the guest of honour.

When it was quiet, Poul Wiedemann stood up on the steps, held out his hands and spoke. His powerful words rang out over the garden.

Poul Wiedemann's torchlit speech:

 Maestro!

In the warm, bright summer night, we come to you with torches, the symbol of fire, to pay tribute to you, you the greatest in Danish music.

We come here as conveyors of the warm and grateful feelings that today flow toward you from all Danish people.

Thank you because your music language was always so genuinely Danish! When we listened to your music, whether it be the greatest tone poem or the simple little song, we found in it everything we love. Danish nature, with its soft, graceful lines; the Danish language, which has so gentle a timbre; the high-born maiden, the noble bride of the king, became younger and more beautiful to us when you wrapped your music's beautiful gown around her. Also your infectious humour that surrounded us with happiness and sunshine, 'in this dear land, where sunshine comes but once a year, or nearly' [CNW 2]. With your music for Father Holberg, you once again spread liberating laughter throughout the country. You taught us, when we were dispirited, to sing 'Rise up, my soul, be fresh renewed.' You came as David and taught us about 'flowers that fill the green pastures, and songs 0f birds on the wing, you brought us the dayspring's glory and rain at night over meadow grass, you brought us the raiment of heaven, where stars of the twilight pass' [CNW 1] And so Maestro! Still one more thank you should be extended to you, because like a shining torch, you showed us young folk new ways into music's miraculous world. You did not follow the beaten path of tradition, but as a fresh and bold pioneer, you made new pathways yourself into the realm of pure music: the holiest of holies, and we all followed you in with enthusiastic wonder where you showed us eternal music's inextinguishable fire.

Master, we greet you as the guardian of this fire and hope that for many years to come you will keep it shining for us just as these torches this evening, in thanks, shine for you.

The speech was greeted with three jubilant cheers.

Carl Nielsen gives thanks.

In the silence after the shouting died down, the soft hissing of the torches could be heard like a message from the flames, a sizzling bonfire.

Carl Nielsen lifted his head, smiling shyly.

- I thank you, he said, I thank you for your torches that offer warmth and light. I see them as a sign that you think I have some of this inside me. I do not know that myself. But I tell you, there are many, many talents in this country that are not allowed to emerge. All of you have some of these abilities in you. And now, I want to tell you that I have never in my life composed something as beautiful as what I saw here tonight. Should I ever be able to say in music what this is, then you had better listen to me! My dear friends! We are all made of the same substance, we all have life's abilities in us! If only we will use these abilities! I myself am so little, and it is only by chance that I became what I am. But join me in a cheer for the art of music, a cheer for everything that shines in Denmark!

Cheers erupted before the artist with the white hair. Young eyes laughed up at him, and behind the torches stood Tivoli's tightly-packed wall of audience members. They heard everything that was said. Shouts of praise undulated from lawn to lawn.

After this, Sophus Michaëlis' torch song, that ended the little booklet, was sung. The torches would soon burn down but there was still one speech left.

Vilhelm Andersen on people from Funen, Jutland and Zealand.

Professor Vilhelm Andersen stepped up to Carl Nielsen's seat.

– Dear Carl Nielsen, he said, there is something I want to say to you here where many can hear me. The good thing about this party is that it is happening for such a good reason. We have good reason to remember what we have. We lost Kai Nielsen, but we still have Carl Nielsen. You are both from Funen, but I will not compare you.

All good culture grows up out of its own soil. And Danish culture is an interplay of the cultures of Funen, Jutland and Zealand. People from Jutland have the deep memory, those from Funen an easy facility, and those from Zealand have something of both, but also something negative. Zealanders say: I don't have the nerve for that. There is something they do not have the nerve for. They have no nerve for genius. But someone from Funen has both nerve and verve. He can learn everything. He can both play the violin and make it himself. You have shown us this with your book which came out a few days ago.

Vilhelm Andersen continued with a comparison between Hans Christian Andersen, Rasmus Rask and Carl Nielsen, and ended by saying that Carl Nielsen had achieved the greatest of all. He had created what was simple.

– Now we expect you, the mature man, he said, to give us expressions of unending joy and unending pain. Three cheers for Carl Nielsen's maturity and his future!

Once more the garden was filled with cheers. The torches are extinguished, the rockets' fiery streamers rise toward the sky. 

Vidi.

The punch party

After the torchlight procession, the guests went in for the ice cream that still had not melted. A song by Marinus Børup was a huge success. The folk high school principal Poulsen from Ryslinge gave an excellent speech on behalf of the Danish folk high school, thanking Carl Nielsen for his songs because he had collected them and given all of Denmark a treasury of songs. When people got up from the table, everyone retreated to the banquet hall. Carl Nielsen went around kissing all of the women on the cheek, and those women who were not kissed by Carl Nielsen kissed him themselves.

Then began the symposium, which opened with 'The Dance of the Cockerel' [CNW 2] by Carl Nielsen, danced by five young ballet dancers, Tony Madsen, Bente Hørup, Laura Møller and Gertrud Jensen, along with Svend Aage Larsen. The dance was a great success and a da capo was demanded.

But the programme is long; we must continue. Professor Vilhelm Andersen rose and said that during the torchlight procession he had not actually got to say what he had wished to. What should have been the last speech of the party must now be the first of the symposium. He then raised a toast to Mrs Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen. Carl Nielsen's music has such plasticity because he is married to this superb sculptress. Next, the assembly sang Sophus Claussen's comic folk song:

Chicken-breasted, carrot-crested,

we love it as our habit.

Would you sell your fiddle string

to buy an ear of rabbit?

Cheery, cheeky fiddler-folk,

songs they have and many,

there are also wicked men,

but songs – they have not any.Adapted from Sophus Claussen: Skæmtevise til Carl Nielsen, Lolland-Falsters Folketidende, 11.06.1925; reprinted in Titania holdt Bryllup. Digte, Copenhagen, 1927.

At this point, the symposium was nearing its end and about to give way to dancing.'

 

Politiken, Thursday, 11.06.1925:

 'The symposium for Carl Nielsen.

Dawn was breaking before the ca. 500 participants in the symposium for Carl Nielsen left Nimb's assembly rooms. Speeches alternated with song, dance with poetry, and finally, the whole hall danced the summer morning in.

The well-known patron from Gothenburg, Bank Director Mannheimer, brought the Danish composer a greeting from Sweden. Ove Rode jumped out onto the middle of the floor and gave an enthusiastic description of Carl Nielsen as composer. Professor Viggo Bentzon paid tribute to him on behalf of the layman, Dr Torben Krogh on behalf of The Music Society and Olfert Jespersen in the personal, heartfelt words of an old friend. When Carl Nielsen embraced him and kissed him on the cheek, Olfert had tears in his eyes. There was also a moving and cheerful song by the composer Olfert Jespersen.

Dr. Lauritz Melchior proposed a toast for Politiken and the committee that had arranged the beautiful party, and as the day broke and the sun shot its first rays through the hall, a young musician jumped up on a chair and made a tribute to the master from the younger generation, – in what he called the night's last speech.

The highlight musical celebration came after Sophus Claussen's wonderful comic folk song, of which we must cite still another verse:

'Fiddler playing to dance-floor romping

in paper wraps his muses,

Country bumpkin, clogs a-stomping

beats time for romping crews.

Oh, you happy masquerade

for lasses and their doubles,

now you know the music played

is In-extinguish-able-'

With the student singers now standing in the middle of the hall and performing Carl Nielsen's Sing, Danish Man, the mood rose, carried along by the music and the party's poetry, and in the large hall it felt like Music in the Studio.Musik i Atelieret is a painting from 1886 by P.S. Krøyer. When the applause had subsided, Carl Nielsen tapped his glass and, deeply moved, while childhood memories flooded back to him, he talked about growing up in Nørre Lyndelse on Funen as a little shepherd boy. Simply and touchingly, he told about his childhood. It was not a speech; it was a heart that overflowed, full of gratitude for life, a new edition of The Fairy Tale of My Life.Mit Livs Eventyr is an autobiography by Hans Christian Andersen from 1855.

The poet Sophus Michaëlis spoke for the swan from FunenThe swan is a reference to Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale The Ugly Duckling, whose titular character is revealed to have been a beautiful swan all along. It is often used as a metaphor for Andersen himself, who, like Nielsen, became a successful and renowned artist despite coming from a humble background. and recalled when he and Carl Nielsen met as two poor boys in Odense. Throughout this final portion of the party there was a free and affectionate, moving and cheerful tone, where participants gradually all came to feel like members of the same great Danish family.

Now The Warneys band struck up for dancing, and the young people finally got their special part of the party. They were still dancing when the golden morning's rays broke through. The birdsong from Tivoli wafted in through the open balcony doors and mixed its pure trilling with the orchestra's saxophones. It was difficult to stop. A few people even danced on their way home. Our final memory is of a young man, who jazzed through Strøget on the roof of Mrs Lillebil Ibsen's car.

A.W. [Andreas Winding]'

Living Music

Just before Nielsen's birthday, the article collection Living Music was published by Martin's Publishing House. This was something of an achievement since the publisher's proofs arrived as late as 1 June [8:288]. The first printing went in a hurry and a new printing also quickly ran out. In the first days, the newspapers print small notices about and quotations from the book. On 5 August, Ejnar Forchhammer reviews the book in København, and though he is generally positive, he complains over Carl Nielsen's dismissal of Mozart's sacred music. Thomas Laub does the same in a private letter [8:380].

Forchhammer also immediately touches on another point of criticism heard frequently later on: that in the chapter entitled 'Musical Problems','Musikalske Problemer'. see Samtid, no. 71, pp. 264-265. Nielsen distinguishes between good and bad intervals while Forchhammer claims that 'there is both a simplicity and a greatness in even the simplest tonal relationships that one must be careful not to become dulled to,' but also that no rules can be imposed: 'Do the intervals not change their character when they are perceived as belonging to one or another key? Or when they appear in one or another context?' (Ejnar Forchhammer: Carl Nielsen. Levende Musik; chronicle in København, 05.08.1925). The response that Carl Nielsen sends Ejnar Forchhammer [8:409] regarding the relevant question must be described as nearly an admission that the criticism was justified!

Julius Rabe's review is knowledgeable and illuminating as always when Rabe deals with Nielsen. The interval question is connected with the perception of where music begins: 'It is not the mere tone, the sound, that is the beginning of music for Carl Nielsen, without the fixed, clear step from one to the next, the individual tones' natural relationship to each other.' Göteborgs Handels- and Sjöfart-Tidning, 22.06.1925. 

The dissemination of Living Music was helped by the fact that one of the chapters in the book had already been published on 1 July in the Swedish Musicians' Society's magazine Musikern under the author name of Gunnar Norlén! The title was changed to 'Some Thoughts on Programme Music', but was otherwise, with some small changes and abbreviations, really just a translation into Swedish of the chapter 'Word, Music and Programme Music'.'Ord, Musik og Programmusik'.

A few months earlier, Carl Nielsen had been appointed an honorary member of The Swedish Musicians' Society and discovered the deception in the magazine himself. Rabe discovered it too and exposed the plagiarism in an extremely sophisticated manner in his newspaper: only after referring to the article's original thoughts and describing its characteristic style did he reveal its true author [8:387]. (Göteborgs Handels- och Sjöfarts-Tidning, 04.07.1925)

Gunnar Norlén had published the plagiarism already in 1909 after Carl Nielsen's article first appeared in the magazine Tilskueren in Danish without the crime having been revealed at that time, and it is a little tragicomic that he repeated it now on the occasion of Carl Nielsen's birthday, presumably without realising that the publication of Living Music would increase the risk of disclosure quite considerably! Norlén's name has justifiably fallen into obscurity in Swedish music literature.

Another bizarre contribution to the debate about Living Music came from Louis Glass, who, however, cannot be accused of taking credit for the writing even though, in two op-eds, he reused Carl Nielsen's title of one of the book's chapters: 'Musical Problems' [8:439].

After the birthday

It was not only on the day that the composer was celebrated; the birthday concerts continued throughout the year. That is to say, they began almost in earnest in November and it looks suspiciously as though it was Politiken's big party that day that got things moving in musical life with a slight delay; we are talking about a time when concerts could still be changed and moved at shorter notice than in today's classical music life.

First, however, came the 25 June premiere of Harald Bergstedt's folksong drama Ebbe Skammelsen at The Open Air Theatre in Dyrehaven; it had been postponed due to bad weather and perhaps also because, just before his birthday, the composer found he had more music to compose than the score which he had written and delivered on time on 1 June. Already on 25 May, Berlingske Tidende published an appetiser written by the composer in advance of a premiere that ultimately only finally took place one month later! (Cf. Samtid, no. 92)

After tooling around Funen with his brother Albert, who came home from the United States for his brother's 60th birthday, Carl Nielsen stays for the rest of the summer with various family members (and his car) mostly at Damgaard. On 5 September 1925, on Hans Børge's 30th birthday, he drives to Copenhagen. Hans Børge accompanies him to Nyborg even though he has birthday guests waiting for him at home in Bavnhøjgaard with Christiane. In a letter to Irmelin, Hans Børge himself tells about the trip and about how he 'drove Father's car 20 kilometres and it went rather well, but the most difficult thing is definitely the brakes.' [8:430]

On 3 October, Carl Nielsen travels to Stockholm with Johan Halvorsen from Norway and Robert Kajanus from Finland to be a judge at a composers' competition which was arranged for the occasion of the newly built, but not yet inaugurated, Stockholm Concert Hall. The three live in princely fashion at the Grand Hotel Royal and study the music manuscripts submitted until, on 13 October, in a report that Carl Nielsen formulates [8:453], they can notify the board of the result of their deliberations. Already on 6 October, he has informed Anne Marie, who is sworn to secrecy, that 'there doesn't appear to be much talent here in Sweden, and that is so disappointing to see.'  [8:447] Every day he reads Danish newspapers; it is at this time that Anne Marie's conflicts with the monument committee come to a head and erupt in full view of the public. Carl gives advice by letter and expresses his opinion in correspondence to the chair of the monument committee, National Bank Director Hans Rosenkrantz [8:452] (see also the following section About the equestrian statue in this volume).

He tinkers from time to time with the new symphony, no. 6 [CNW 30], whose finale is still not finished. In a letter to Emil Telmányi on 18 April 1925 [8:267],  he had announced the completion of the third movement, the short, insistent, persistent, beautiful string movement with the unusual descriptor: Proposta seria ('serious proposal'). A fortnight earlier, on his way across the City Hall Square, he had been hailed by a journalist from Politiken and, in answer to the question about what he is working on at the moment, replied:

'- On a new symphony, the sixth. It is in four movements and I am working on the third, so I hope to have it finished in a month's time.

- Pure music?

- Yes, so-called absolute music. The finale will be a variation movement, a cosmic chaos, whose atoms, based on the theme, find clarity going from dark to light and gather into the Globe.' Politiken, 03.04.1925. Samtid, no. 91.

These words are striking given that his friend Sophus Classen's poem The Revolt of the AtomsAtomernes Oprør. was published for the first time in Politiken three days later: 'All the atoms in the world demand to be set free'!

'Well, sweet little Irme,' writes Carl from Stockholm, 'I was wanting to write to make you happy, and then I sit here being angry on Mother's behalf. But you don't take it too seriously, do you? And in a little while I have forgotten it myself, so with a superficial hop I've leapt to something else, maybe going in to fiddle on the grand piano with a new variation." [8:452]

There was pressure to finish the symphony [CNW 30] by October because it was on the programme for the celebration concert that The Royal Orchestra would perform for Carl Nielsen on 27 November, but which ultimately ended up being postponed to 11 December. And thus, this strangely modern, painfully humorous symphony came to mark the end of the festivities.

The first performance of the symphony's first movement was also the beginning of November's many gala concerts. No sooner had Nielsen returned home from judging the competition in Stockholm than he travelled up there again to conduct The Royal Swedish Orchestra at The Royal Swedish Academy of Music's anniversary on 1 November 1925. The first movement of the new symphony was followed by the prelude to the second act of Saul and David [CNW 1]. After the annual report was read, Hugo Alfvén conducted another section of music [8:448].

Carl Nielsen was not the only one to be celebrating a milestone birthday that year; P.E. Lange-Müller turned 75 on 1 December, and the Music Society concert on 10 November was in honour of both birthday celebrants. Carl Nielsen first conducted his own Symphony no. 3, Sinfonia Espansiva [CNW 27], and then three works by Lange-Müller: the prelude to Holger Drachmann's melodrama Renaissance, Romance for violin and orchestra with Thorvald Nielsen as soloist, and excerpts from the Cantata for the Opening of the Nordic Exhibition of Industry, Agriculture and Art on 18 May 1888, for choir and orchestra.

'And when finally Carl Nielsen called for three cheers for the soon-to-be 75-year-old "The grand old man of our composers", shouts and applause rang out for Lange-Müller, who received this tribute from his place in his loge.' Politiken, 12.11.1925 [8:437].

Just two days later, Carl Nielsen was busy again, as composer, conductor and birthday celebrant. Now it was The Danish Concert Society celebrating him by having him conduct the complete music to Oehlenschläger's Aladdin,[CNW 17] which The Royal Theatre had commissioned for Johannes Poulsen's mammoth staging in 1919 and then managed so badly that Carl Nielsen ended up disavowing any responsibility for it [8:464] [8:474]. 

'The performance in its entirety under the composer's fiery leadership served in itself as a festive tribute to Carl Nielsen. It ended with a laurel wreath and a fanfare from the orchestra and three cheers for the composer raised by Consul General Johan Hansen [Chair of The Danish Concert Society's board of representatives] ' Politiken, 13.11.1925. 

That same evening, Emil Telmányi and Christian Christiansen played chamber music by Carl Nielsen in the Beethoven Hall in Berlin  [8:475].

After Georg Høeberg had revived Masquerade [CNW 2] at The Royal Theatre with a pair of performances in the spring, Carl Nielsen was now permitted to conduct it himself on 17 November, including a day's rehearsal with the whole ensemble the day before. The performance prompted an enthusiastic review by William Behrend in Berlingske Tidende on 18 November and then again triggered the most wonderfully mocking letter from Svend Godske-Nielsen to William Behrend. Godske-Nielsen, one of Carl Nielsen's earliest students and 'fire worshippers' and a long-time friend, whom the composer had to sacrifice in his attempts to be reconciled with his wife after the big breakup in 1915, could unfortunately remember what Behrend had written in the magazine Illustreret Tidende after the premiere in 1906; that, for example, he had compared Carl Nielsen with the insignificant composer of the opera The Barber of Bagdad,Barberen i Bagdad. Peter Cornelius, while he was now comparing him with – Mozart! Godske-Nielsen concluded:

'Even a pessimist, who does not believe in "progress", sometimes finds his lack of faith put to shame as now in this case, for the leap from Cornelius to Mozart is an accomplishment so impressive as to arouse admiration quite apart from the fact that it was not done with only one pair of legs, a reversal of views that beats into a cocked hat the many others that we have to countenance in these Carl Nielsen-times. –

I do not know whether the former Mr W.B. is still alive or whether you know him. If you do, you may wish to show him this little joke, but if he loses his temper, he must not direct his anger at me in person but at my fiendish memory, over which I am not in control.' [8:477]

The Masquerade performance on 17 November was more like a dress rehearsal before the performance on the 25th, which Carl Nielsen also conducted. That evening, Masquerade was performed for the 50th time, an unprecedented number of performances for a Danish opera by a living composer. It was also (approximately) the 50th performance in which Jonna Neiiendam sang Magdelone (Cf. Samtid, no. 106). On the other hand, it was the first time Masquerade, or any other opera, was broadcast live on the radio, though just the first act.

This was also the evening when The Danish Musicians' Society managed to celebrate Carl Nielsen. This took place at a party at the Hotel d'Angleterre after the performance. Here, Carl Nielsen gave a thank-you speech, the theme of which was that it was all too much; there were foreign guests, Carl Nielsen's old friend, the Dutch composer Julius Röntgen, and his new publisher – as long as it lasted – Henry Hinrichsen, from the Peters Publishing House in Leipzig. A lesser-known student of Carl Nielsen, Ludvig Dolleris, ended by giving a speech to him in verse [8:480].

A significant portion of Carl Nielsen's chamber music was also performed during the festivities. The Breuning-Bache Quartet, The New Music Society, and Østerbro's Chamber Music Society had joined forces to give three concerts in the University's banquet hall (the solemnity hall); these took place on 21 November, 28 November and 3 December [8:475]. At the first, Emil Telmányi and Rudolph Simonsen played the first Violin Sonata in A Major [CNW 63]. The performance elicited Carl Nielsen's unqualified enthusiasm:

'It was the greatest joy for me that you and [Rudolph] Simonsen showed interest in my sonata, as you have done, and I thank you with all my heart, dear Emil. I have just spoken with S. and he was delighted with everything you had taught him during the rehearsals. I could hear that at the concert too. –

Yes! We two understand each other, my friend, and if one day I were to die, I will place my spirit in your hands and ask you alone to be the rightful leader and guardian of my work. Well, we shouldn't be solemn, but – I mean it, nonetheless, from the bottom of my heart." [8:479]

In this context, the letter appears to be an appreciation of  an extraordinarily empathetic interpretation. Telmányi reproduces the letter in facsimile in his memoirs writing simply of 'a letter that has affected me deeply.' (Telmányi, pp. 162 and 164-165). Of course the composer and his son-in-law felt they were deeply in harmony with each other, but to regard the letter as Carl Nielsen entrusting the management of his artistic legacy to Emil Telmányi is an over-interpretation.

During these days, Igor Stravinsky performed for the second time in Copenhagen, this time in all of his roles: as composer, pianist and conductor. At the concert with members of The Royal Chapel Orchestra on 2 December 1925, he performed the Pulcinella Suite, Ragtime, the Piano Sonata, The Soldier's Tale, and finally the Dance Suite for small orchestra. Afterwards there was a gathering in the Nimb restaurant, and on that occasion a photo was taken with Igor Stravinsky and Carl Nielsen in the centre – though Stravinsky did not take advantage of the many opportunities to hear Nielsen's music.

Under the headline 'Music's Apocalypse', Louis Glass wrote:

'... here sat our Royal Orchestra playing, with an audience purporting to be connoisseurs squandering their applause in such handfuls that anyone might think it a glorious achievement.

Our music life has never experienced a greater scandal, and a greater fiasco for an elite orchestra and a so-called elite audience cannot be imagined.

But one thing is true: Stravinsky is a child of his time, possessed by its insanity and lack of control, and of its emptiness and helpless confusion." Politiken, 04.12.1925. The newspaper distanced itself in the lead paragraph from Glass' opinions.

A few days later, when a journalist ended an interview with Carl Nielsen about his own new symphony by asking 'what impression Stravinsky made on him, Carl Nielsen answered warmly:

- I enjoyed myself immensely.' Samtid, no. 110.

There was, however, a difference. In the first half of the century, the Symphony no. 6, Sinfonia Semplice,[CNW 30] did not receive the same reception from the 'elite public' as Stravinsky!

Wilhelm Hansen and Carl Nielsen

What aroused the greatest furore this autumn, as far as Carl Nielsen was concerned, were the interviews he gave about the conditions of art and artists. The first came out in Politiken on 11 November under the title The arduous path of art, the second entitled Carl Nielsen on the artist's lot, in Nationaltidende and Dagbladet (here with the title Art and  cash) on 15 November, and finally the third and last, The fruitless ascent of Parnassus, on 10 January 1926, again in Politiken. (Samtid, no. 103, 104 and 113)

The journalist behind the first was Axel Kjerulf, whom Carl Nielsen had himself approached. Axel Kjerulf was Politiken's prime mover behind the birthday arrangements, and in that connection he and Carl Nielsen had grown closer to each other. More than 30 years later, Axel Kjerulf was given the task of writing the music publisher Wilhelm Hansen's story in the publishing house's own anniversary publication, and since Carl Nielsen's statements in 1925 triggered the rift between composer and publisher, which had been smouldering for a long time and which was still a wound discussed 30 years later, this story gained a prominent place in the book, in Kjerulf's and the publisher's version. Carl Nielsen has not left any account but allowed his statements and his deeds to speak for themselves.

However, there is no reason to suspect that Axel Kjerulf is not telling the truth when he says that he tried to soften his statements before they came out in print, but that Carl Nielsen, when he received the transcript, changed them back again and made the statements even more terse. (Axel Kjerulf: Hundrede År mellem Noder, Wilhelm Hansen, Musik-Forlag, 1857-1957, Copenhagen, 27.10.1957, pp. 124-129)

There were two statements, one in the first interview and another in the last, that triggered the latent dispute. In the first he said about the publisher: ' – yes, they would really rather see our heel than our toe.' In the second: 'I advise the youth against becoming artists because it is impossible to make a living from it in this country, if you don't have success with a foxtrot or the like. My biggest success has been John the Roadman and for that I received a once and for all payment of 50 kroner.'

Apparently, the publisher wanted the composer to retract his statements. He refused to do that, but on 4 December he met with Svend Wilhelm Hansen over lunch to discuss the matter. In Carl Nielsen's diary entry, the note about this lunch is crossed out, as are several other notes. That some of the other crossed-out meetings certainly took place means that it cannot be assumed that this lunch meeting did not happen (as is done in: Finn Gravesen, Hansen, Copenhagen, 2007, p. 181), and there is also reason to believe that it is this very lunch which decades later, based on the Wilhelm Hansen brothers' oral account, Kjerulf describes in the following words:

'Carl Nielsen displayed his most endearing human qualities, was in a buoyant mood, boyishly playful and irresistibly charming; nothing was easier for the parties than to come to a complete understanding about a new contract that should apply to Carl Nielsen's works in the future.

One would think that this meant all was well, and that both sides were satisfied with the agreement. But the new contract was never signed. It lay there waiting for Carl Nielsen, who however stayed away and was not heard from again.' Kjerulf, p. 126.

The torn-up draft of the contract still exists. It reads:

'For the 1st year Symphony no. 5 [CNW 29] or 6 [CNW 30] and another work; Chamber music or songs.

For the 2nd year, Aladdin Suite [CNW 17]: 5 to 6 pieces for orchestra and another work: Chamber music, songs or piano pieces.'

A handwritten paragraph (by Svend or Asger Wilhelm Hansen) has been added:

'I [i.e. Carl Nielsen] receive 3,000 kroner for the symphony and 1,000 kroner for the second work, a total of 4,000 kroner, paid out 1,000 kroner every quarter for the first year from 1 December 1925.

I receive 2,000 kroner for the Aladdin Suite and 1,000 kroner for the second work, for a total of 3,000 kroner in the second year, paid out 750 kroner quarterly from 1 December 1926 – 1 December 1927.' (KB, HA wha).

So this contract was never finalised. Carl Nielsen did not sign; he was meanwhile negotiating elsewhere with the newly established Borup's Music Publisher [8:508], in which his friend Carl Johan Michaelsen had shares. There was another interview between them, the last one, with the statement about John the Roadman. About this, Kjerulf writes:

'I doubt whether Carl Nielsen realised just how badly this isolated piece of information went down. He had not said anything other than what he felt to be true – in this case – and it was all the more glaring when it came to a song everyone knew and which must have come out in countless printings. It was the kind of specific example that hit the nail on the head and, without further discussion, skewered the truth about the rich publisher for public shaming.

This time Asger and Svend Wilhelm Hansen reacted much more strongly, viewing Carl Nielsen's statements as an attack on their late father's honour. Indeed, it was Alfred Wilhelm Hansen who many years before – in 1909 – had terminated the contract for John the Roadman, and they found it meaningless and hurtful to pull this individual case out of the whole and at the same time to keep silent about all of the many things that placed the publisher's attitude towards Carl Nielsen in a more favourable light. Incidentally, it was factually incorrect that he received 50 kroner as a one-time fee for John the Roadman since the contract – without the single song being specified – included all seven strophic songs in [CNW Coll. 5], in addition to songs from Tove [CNW 10] and Willemoes [CNW 8] and some other smaller compositions, for which Carl Nielsen had been paid a total of 2,700 kroner.

{...} Carl Nielsen insisted on what he had said and could not deviate from his principled view of the publisher's obligations to him as a composer. There is little doubt that Carl Nielsen had neither anticipated nor wanted to provoke such a decisive conflict with Wilhelm Hansen's, but this time the publisher would not deviate from their condition that, if they were to continue, Carl Nielsen himself needed to make a statement. He could not and would not.' Kjerulf, pp. 127-129. 

In the music publisher's next anniversary publication from 2007, the Nielsen story is still a good story, and here the contract from 1909, in which John the Roadman[CNW 137] was included, was finally published (Finn Gravesen: Hansen, Copenhagen 2007, p.180). The author of the book, Finn Gravesen, no longer a journalist but a music historian, maintains the basic view that it is 'difficult to see where Carl Nielsen gets the "50 kroner" from' (Finn Gravesen: Hansen, Copenhagen 2007, p. 179), and, as an expression of the extent to which the country continues to relate to the composer, the case reappeared in a newspaper in 2008 under the headline: Carl Nielsen lied about John the Roadman (Politiken, 11.09.2008). 

But, in reality, it is very easy to distribute the contract's 2,700 kroner between the individual contract items. In September 1906, Carl Nielsen and Wilhelm Hansen entered into a three-year contract that secured the composer an annual honorarium of 1,500 kroner, which 'may be received in sums of 125 kroner monthly, to be withdrawn from our office on the first of the month.' Moreover, for songs and piano pieces in the future, the contract will give the composer 50 kroner upon delivery of the manuscript. The John the Roadman contract contains a total of 19 songs – so, 950 kroner, exactly the amount that will be left for the songs if we deduct the 'fourth year's composer's salary' of 1,500 kroner and, for example, 250 kroner for the Cantata for the Annual University Commemoration [CNW 105] from the 2,700.

So it is difficult to dispute that Carl Nielsen received exactly 50 kroner for John the Roadman in a single lump sum. On the other hand, one may wonder about the composer's salary since the contract from 1906 only covers three years and this arrangement does not appear to carry over into later contracts. Incidentally, it was of course not the 50 kroner that were decisive, but the underlying story about John the Roadman becoming a national hit after the contract was signed and that it was not the composer who profited from its success.

It was also telling that on 14 June 1926, when Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen is on an errand at Wilhelm Hansen's for her husband, she ends up having a discussion with both Svend and Asger Wilhelm Hansen. They claim that the company over the years has paid out 65-70,000 kroner to Carl Nielsen. In a letter to Carl written the same day, she recounts her response: 'But now let us let the numbers speak for themselves. For diligent and skilled labour, let us say Carl has received a maximum of 70,000 kroner in 38 years. That is not half of what an excavator who lays drain pipes in the street had earned in those 38 years.' [9:231]

Moreover, the three infamous interviews dealt with larger matters than the relationship between composer and publisher, about the artist's place in society and culture, basically about art no longer serving a vital function; had it done so, it would have been rewarded with an appropriate wage like all other meaningful work. Therefore, Nielsen can only dissuade young people from becoming artists; the very conditions for art threaten to undermine it.

Of course his statements are also influenced by the fact that he, with the position he now holds, can make them. He cannot simply be dismissed as a disgruntled artist. They are also made against the background that now, as soon as he appears, he is surrounded by a crowd of followers. Ludvig Dolleris describes a characteristic situation from this time:

'I was not "dus" with him A reference to the distinction between 'Du' and De' common in Danish until the 1970s. Being 'dus' with someone, referring to each other as 'du', meant that you were on familiar terms as opposed to the more formal 'De'. Here, Dolleris explains that Nielsen's use of informal pronouns was a personal preference of his and was not to be understood as an indication that the two of them were close., but he used the "du" form in everyday statements. "Remember that even if you (Du) compose like an angel, no poor devil can live from it!" Or "Whatever they write about you (Du) – never answer back!" He observed this golden rule strictly. Throughout his whole life he sought for understanding. When finally, after a struggle of many years, the great turning point arrived (on his 60th birthday), he became bitter: "So much now and absolutely nothing before," he said – not entirely fairly – to me. Some time after a concert the following winter, I was in his home. "You avoided me the other day?" "Yes, I did not want to be seen in the company of the group of followers who now flock around you – like flies on a piece of sugar. Doesn't all this fuss disgust you?" He got up with a start, walked into the living room with his arms half raised and, grimacing, emitted some inarticulate sounds – something between "ugh" and "boo". What he said next, I regard as a "private statement". The words in question are not to be found in any Danish dictionary.' Dolleris, p. 409.

Bitter? – Not only he who has success, but also he who seldom or never met with true understanding can finally afford to stick to what is important! Carl Nielsen was not a man who found that time gave his talents the opportunity to unfold freely. Both in music and in his statements, he relates to values that are elevated over his contemporaries – and over our own.

But something else had also happened. Ever since he and Alfred Wilhelm Hansen had teamed up in the 90's, they hadn't found themselves to be in conflict with each other in the culture war they were caught up in, but this he was unable to experience with the next generation of Hansens in the 1920's.  Instead of trying to understand the diagnosis of their age, the new generation of his publishers preferred to understand and explain away his (bitter) statements as stemming from the poverty in which he had grown up! The charming buffoon was now revealing the flaws in his upbringing!

One of his own saw it a little differently. On the way back to the United States after taking part in the festivities in Copenhagen, his brother Albert summed up his views in a postcard to their brother Sophus in Michigan:

'A great festival was held in Copenhagen on the 9th of June, Carl's birthday. It was wonderful; he is a great man in Europe, and a good brother' [8:467].