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Carl Nielsen – probably the best composer in the world?
The latest book by Dr Daniel Grimley, a study of the work of Danish composer Carl Nielsen, has just been published by Boydell and Brewer.
Carl Nielsen is one of the most playful, life-affirming and awkward voices in twentieth-century music. His work resists easy stylistic categorisation or containment, yet its melodic richness and harmonic vitality are immediately appealing and engaging. Carl Nielsen and the Idea of Modernism explores Nielsen's relationship with symbolism and fin-de-siècle decadence, vitalism, counterpoint, and the Danish landscape. Running throughout the study is a critical engagement with modernism – a term which, for Nielsen, was fraught with anxiety and yet provided a constant creative stimulus.
Contents: Preface; Introduction – Carl Nielsen at the Edge; Thresholds; Hellenics; Energetics; Funen Dreams; Counterpoints; Cosmic Variations; Conclusion.