Nabokov, Nicolas [Nikolay]

Nielsen, Tage

(b Copenhagen, 16 Jan 1929). Danish composer. He had early instruction from Langgaard and took the MA in music and French at the University of Copenhagen (1953). He worked for Danish radio (1951–63), and in 1964 was appointed professor and principal at the Jutland Conservatory. As deputy chief of the music department of Danish Radio (1957–63) and in Jutland he has sought to make Danish musical life more open to modern music, and to displace the provincialism which threatened during the years after World War II. He was the director of the Danish Academy in Rome from 1983 to 1989, since when he has lived in Copenhagen.

He began his career as a composer in a traditional style (works of this period include the neo-classical Piano Sonata and Toccata for organ), but with the Two Nocturnes for piano (1960) he turned in a more adventurous direction determined especially by timbre. From this he developed a free avant-garde style, containing significant popular elements in such works as Bariolage for orchestra (1965) or the organ divertimento Marker og enge (‘Fields and Meadows’, 1971), and Passacaglia for orchestra (1981) which varies the Baroque lamento bass.

When in Rome he wrote a number of chamber music works, including Paesaggi for two pianos (1985), in which the sound element is exposed to the detriment of the thematic, and 5 operafragmenter for 13 instruments, a preliminary study for his opera Latter i mørket (‘Laughter in the Darkness’) to a text by Nabokov, first performed in Århus in 1995 and later in Berlin, Innsbruck and Copenhagen. In this work, Nielsen creates a synthesis of the neo-classical and modernist aspects in his earlier works and brings in stylistic quotations as characteristic elements. This gives the music an ironic feature at the same time as underpinning the text’s critique of civilization in its character depictions. He has written works involving Expressionist and neo-romantic elements such as the organ work Lamento (1993); this formed the basis for Konzertstück for klaver og 11 instrumenter (1998) in which a soloist and chamber ensemble contrast in tempo and character in a contemporary commentary on the slow movement of Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto.

WORKS

(selective list)

Stage: Latter i mørket [Laughter in the Darkness] (op, 3, V. Nabokov), Århus, 1995

Orch: Intermezzo gaio, 1952; 4 miniaturer, str, 1963; Bariolage, 1965; Il giardino magico, 1967–8; Passacaglia, 1981

Inst: Pf Sonata, 1949–50; Toccata, org, 1951; 2 Nocturnes, pf, 1960–61; Varianter, a fl, 1964; 2 Impromptus, va, org, 1967; Marker og enge [Fields and Meadows], org, 1971; Epistel, pf, 1972; 3 karakterstykker og en epilog, pf, 1972–4; Recitative and Elegy, gui, 1975; Arrangement and Landscape, fl, 1981; Improvisation and Fugue, cl, vc, pf, 1983; Salon, fl, va, hp, 1984; Ballade, perc, 1984; Paesaggi, 2 pf, 1985; 5 operafragmenter, 13 insts, 1986–; Lamento, org, 1993; Konzertstück, pf, 13 insts, 1998

Vocal: 3 sange, 1950; 2 franske kaerlighedssange, 1961, 1970; Attisk sommer [Attic Summer], S, gui, perc, 1974; 8 Choral Songs for 1, 2, 3 and 4 vv, 1974; 3 Shakespeare Fragments, S, ob, vc, pf, 1977–8; 3 Black Madrigals (S. Plath), mixed chorus, 1978; 5 Poems by William Blake, S, vib, 1979; 3 Mexican Poems, S, A, T, B, pf, 1982; 2 Choral Songs (H. Nordbrandt), mixed chorus, 1984; Motet: in tribulatione mea, mixed chorus, 1985

JENS BRINCKER

Niemann, Albert

(b Erxleben, nr Magdeburg, 15 Jan 1831; d Berlin, 13 Jan 1917). German tenor. He made his début in 1849 at Dessau, singing small roles and chorus parts. After studying with Friedrich Schneider and Albert Nusch, in 1852 he was engaged at Halle. Two years later he moved to Hanover, where the king paid for him to study further with Gilbert Duprez in Paris. Having first sung Tannhäuser (at Insterburg) in 1854, Lohengrin in 1855 and Rienzi in 1859, he was chosen by Wagner to sing in the first Paris performance of Tannhäuser. He was granted a year’s leave of absence from Hanover, his contract with the Paris Opéra running from 1 September 1860 to 31 May 1861 at a salary of 6000 francs a month. After the fiasco of the first (13 March 1861) and two subsequent performances, Wagner withdrew his score and Niemann returned to Hanover.

In 1864 Niemann made a very successful guest appearance in Munich, singing Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, Faust and Manrico (Il trovatore). From 1866 until his retirement in 1889, he was engaged in Berlin, where he sang in the first local performances of Die Meistersinger (1870), Aida (1874) and Tristan und Isolde (1876), also taking part in a gala performance of Spontini’s Olympie (1879). He sang Siegmund in Die Walküre during the first complete Ring cycle at Bayreuth (1876) and in the first cycle given in London, at Her Majesty’s Theatre (1882). It was also as Siegmund that he made his New York début at the Metropolitan (1886). During his two seasons there he sang in the first New York performances of Tristan und Isolde (1886), Spontini’s Fernand Cortez (1888), and Götterdämmerung (1888). His last appearance in Berlin was as Florestan (Fidelio) in 1888.

Of immense physical stature, Niemann was unrivalled as Siegmund and Tristan during his lifetime. His powerful, heroic tenor voice could express, according to a contemporary, not only ‘love and hate, sorrow and joy, pain and delight, but also anger, despair, scorn, derision and contempt’.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

R. Sternfeld: Albert Niemann (Berlin, 1904)

A. Neumann: Erinnerungen an Richard Wagner (Leipzig, 1907; Eng. trans., 1908/R)

W. Altmann, ed.: Richard Wagner und Albert Niemann (Berlin, 1924)

ELIZABETH FORBES