Fynsk Foraar or Springtime on Funen (Nielsen) Copenhagen 2023 Fabio Luisi, Jacob Skov Andersen, Jens Søndergaard, Clara Cecilie Thomsen
Information on the Performance
- Work Title: Fynsk Foraar or Springtime on Funen
- Composer: Nielsen Carl
- Libretto: Aage Berntsen
- Venue & Opera Company: DR Koncerthuset, Copenhagen, Denmark
- Recorded: April 20, 2023
- Type: Concert Live
- Singers: Jacob Skov Andersen, Jens Søndergaard, Clara Cecilie Thomsen
- Conductor: Fabio Luisi
- Orchestra: Danish National Symphony Orchestra,
- Chorus: Danish National Concert Choir, Danish National Junior Choir
- Chorus Master: Susanne Wendt, Poul Embirg
- Stage Director:
- Costume Designer:
Information about the Recording
- Published by: Stage+
- Date Published: 2023
- Format: Streaming
- Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
- Subtitles: nosubs
- Video Recording from: Stage+ FULL VIDEO
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE
Fynsk Foraar (Springtime on Funen), for soloists, chorus and orchestra, Opus 42, is Carl Nielsen’s last major choral work. Written to accompany a prizewinning text by Aage Berntsen, it was first performed in Odense’s Kvæghal (Cattle Hall) on 8 July 1922 where it was conducted by Georg Høeberg.
Aage Berntsen, a medical doctor and a writer, was the winner of a competition arranged around 1917 by the Dansk Korforening (Danish Choral Society) for a text on Danish history or landscape which would subsequently be set to music by Carl Nielsen. Several years went by before the composer could find the time or inclination to work on the piece, especially as he was in the middle of composing his Fifth Symphony. Indeed, on 19 August 1921, he wrote: “For some time I have not felt very comfortable because I could not get started on the choral work which I must have done by 1 September, and every day I considered throwing it away and informing the board of all these combined societies that I had to beg off… But then one day I found the tone and the style, which will be a light mixture of lyricism and humour, and now it is well in hand and will soon be finished.
Only with the help of his pupil Nancy Dalberg, who had helped with fair-copying the large score for Aladdin, was he able to meet his deadline. On 3 September 1921, he wrote to his wife: “My new choral piece has turned out to be a really big piece of work (42 pages in the piano arrangement) and has now actually been delivered on time. But I have also worked a lot and with a certain lightness. The poet has called it Springtime on Funen but I also give it a subtitle, Lyrical Humoresque, which suggests that the style is light and lively… Now I will continue with my interrupted symphony.”
Quoted from Wikipedia