Lunchtime Concert in The Winter Garden, University of Southern Denmark at Odense 12:00 noon - 1:00 p.m. Thursday, October 29, 2015. Admission is free. MORTEN HEIDE piano

PROGRAM Carl Nielsen (1865-1931)

Fem klaverstykker / Five Piano Pieces, op. 3 (1890) Festpræludium / Festival Prelude (1900) Tempo giusto 1. Folketone / Folk Melody. Andante 2. Humoreske / Humoresque. Allegretto giocoso Drømmen om ”Glade Jul” / The Dream of ”Silent Night” (1905) 3. Arabeske / Arabesque. Moderato Poco adagio 4. Mignon. Moderato grazioso 5. Alfedans / Elf Dance. Tempo di valse Tema med Variationer / Theme and Variations, op. 40 (1917) 6. Andante Humoreske-Bagateller / Humoresque Bagatelles, op. 11 (1894-97) 1. Goddag! Goddag! / Good Morning! Good Morning! Allegretto Tre Klaverstykker / Three Piano Pieces op. Posth. 59 (1927-28) 2. Snurretoppen / The Spinning Top. Presto 1. Impromptu. Allegro fluente 3. En lille langsom vals / A Little Slow Waltz. Valse lento 2. Molto adagio 4. Sprællemanden / The Jumping Jack. Poco allegretto 3. Allegro non troppo 5. Dukke-Marsch / Doll's March. Allegro moderato 6. Spilleværket / The Musical Clock. Allegretto Scherzando

PROGRAM NOTES

The goal of this program is to give you – the listener – a chronological listening experience of the compositional development in the works for piano by the Danish national composer Carl Nielsen, whose 150 th anniversary is widely celebrated in 2015. Carl Nielsen (1865-1931) was born in Sortelung in the countryside south of Odense. His father was a well-known folk musician. Early on Carl went along with his dad to play at weddings and other celebrations. Improvisation and counterpoint were important in the folk music of the time, and little Carl's talent in improvising and performing in counterpoint to the playing of the musicians was a skill he made good use of later on as a professional composer. The five short character pieces of Nielsen's op. 3 are uncomplicated in melodic, harmonic and tonal structure, and are marked by a clarity of linear movement within homophonic textures. In Five Piano Pieces, op. 3 the first piece, Folk Melody , stands as a melancholic remembrance of Nielsen's childhood spent playing folk music on Funen. The third piece, Arabesque , was the one of the five that Nielsen was most proud of, mainly due to its originality. It stands in notable contrast to the general song-without-words and lyric character of the other pieces. Arabesque was composed with the poem of that name by Jens Peter Jacobsen in mind. The poem's title refers to its free versification rather than to the content. Jacobsen's lines “Have you got lost in the dark forest? / Do you know Pan?” appear as a motto in the published score. The piece contains the sudden sforzandi (i.e. accents) and the melisma-like figurations, with five tones encircling a single note, which later became prominent in Nielsen's compositions. Nielsen's manipulation of tonal ambiguity to create dramatic effects, typical in his later compositions, is foreshadowed in the Arabesque by a delay until the final calming measure in stating the piece's tonic D Major chord. The Five Piano Pieces do not only contain a number of stylistic characteristics which were to appear more frequently in later works, but also provide evidence of some of the ways in which Nielsen was influenced by the musical and intellectual climate of late nineteenth-century Denmark. Nielsen had three children, and it is generally assumed that the six Humoresque Bagatelles, op. 11 were written as a dedication to the young members of his family. The pieces are light and humorously innocent in character; much of this humor is achieved through figurations and articulations imitating childrens' subjects. The jumping jack is depicted, for example, through a loud, rapid five-note figure in the right hand, which seems to leap unexpectedly from a decelerating and dynamically receding phrase. The element of surprise is heightened by the sforzando [i.e. accentuated) articulation at each entrance of the five-note figure. Figurations calling for a similar five-note hand position, without finger passing, occur elsewhere in the Humoresque Bagatelles, and are frequently used by Nielsen in his later piano works, often with sforzandi for dramatic or humorous emphasis. The short and stately Festival Prelude was dedicated to his friend, the famous painter Jens Ferdinand Willumsen, and was first published on the front page of Denmark's main daily newspaper, Politiken , on New Year's Day 1901. The work, which Nielsen composed to mark the beginning of the new century, is characterized by massive chordal textures and its sustained forte dynamic levels. A Dream on “Silent Night” is a delicately poetic paraphrase of the famous Franz Gruber carol. The composition, which can be heard as a parody on “Silent Night”, chromatically embellishes a setting of the melody in the tenor and bass voices. Characteristic in Nielsen's compositional technic is the harmonically dualistic ambiguity between minor and major. This is clearly heard in this piece. On 22 March 1917 Nielsen wrote to his daughter Irmelin: “I have had a lot to do, and I've also begun a new piano work, a Theme and Variations, which interests me enormously. The theme begins in B minor and ends in G minor. It follows that every time a new variation begins we are refreshed again by the new [tonality]. I've often thought that variation works can be tonally monotonous, and this is a way round the problem.” The Theme and Variations, op. 40 is modeled after the nineteenth-century character variation form and contains an original theme followed by fifteen variations. The composition showed a new path in Nielsen's development going astray from tonality. The piece was a tough nut to crack by the critics at the time, but Nielsen himself drew attention to the 'psycho-physical' aspect of the design as well as its technical construction. In a letter to his friend, the Dutch composer Julius Röntgen, Nielsen defended himself from a sympathetic criticism of the ending: “It would have been easy enough to make a wild, effective conclusion; but I came to the result you see because the architectonic plan of the whole work is best served by an ordinary ending. Looking back for a moment over the whole piece and recalling the theme and its simple structure, then it must be as it is; or if we consider Variation 15 [with sharp dotted rhythms and starkly opposed registers] as a wild defence of a man who is fighting with his back to a mountain of ice and who finally, as if drunk and deafened by the battle, stumbles away, then it's right that the entire conclusion should be 'uninteresting' [i.e. undemonstrative], just like a character in a play who, having fought to the end and gone his way, no longer has to attract the main interest to himself and has no wish to do so.” Carl Nielsen was born in the late-Romantic era but during his lifetime the stylistic trends in art and music changed drastically and Nielsen partly followed some of these trends. Free tonality and even serialism had manifested strongly among composers towards the end of Carl Nielsen's life which you'll hear in his last major piano work: Three Piano Pieces, op. posth. 59 . This opus is the most progressive of Nielsen's piano works in its treatment of tonality; the composition combines impressionistic, polytonal and atonal techniques within each of the pieces, and contains the only instances in Nielsen's keyboard writing of twelve-tone composition and pitch indeterminacy such as that heard in the third piece's first section, where cluster harmonies in the left hand at the bottom of the instrument imitates a bass drum. All these varying twentieth-century techniques are set in contrast with the more traditional tonal and modal structures employed in each piece. –compiled by Morten Heide from text written by Mina F. Miller and David Fanning , October 2015

Morten Heide is a professional Danish choral conductor, concert pianist and piano teacher living in Stockholm, Sweden, where he recently graduated (June 2015) with a Master in Choral Conducting from the Royal College of Music with prof. Fredrik Malmberg as his principal teacher. Morten Heide completed his bachelor and master’s studies in piano at the Carl Nielsen Academy of Music in Odense, Denmark, under the guidance of Christina Bjørkøe, Rosalind Bevan, Erik Kaltoft and John Damgaard. He often performed as soloist, e.g. in Simon Holt’s Era Madrugada and in György Ligeti’s Chamber Concerto as appointed pianist in the annual Music Harvest Festival Sinfonietta in Odense. He has performed as soloist and ensemble musician under the baton of e.g. Stefan Asbury, Paul Hoskins, Christopher Austin and Mei-Ann Chen. Morten Heide studied piano for one year at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg with Volker Banfield and Mirian Migdal with whom he prepared for his final master’s exam from the Carl Nielsen Academy of Music in 2006. In 2010 Morten Heide finished his post graduate performance studies (Soloist Class) in piano at the Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts in Odense, focusing on the interpretation of contemporary music. His debut concerts where highly praised in the press and broadcast by the Danish Broadcasting Corporation on radio channel P2. In the spring of 2011 Morten Heide completed his first master’s in choral conducting at the Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts in Odense, studying with Alice Granum. In the same period Morten Heide toured Latvia together with Kolding Chamber Choir, leading the choir in well-received church concerts. Heide was conductor and musical director of Kolding Chamber Choir from September 2007 until moving to Sweden. In addition to leading Kolding Chamber Choir, he was also the conductor of Vestsjællands Chamber Choir from august 2011, and Jysk Akademisk Kor from 2012. Morten Heide has furthermore conducted such prominent professional choirs as The Danish National Vocal Ensemble, The Swedish Radio Choir and Eric Ericson Chamber Choir. Many grants have given Morten Heide the opportunity to participate in masterclasses with, among others, the pianists Mirta Herrera, Alan Sternfeld, Roger Muraro, Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen. His work together with Muraro, Aimard and Loriod-Messiaen focused mainly on the interpretation of contemporary piano music, especially that of the French composer Olivier Messiaen. Morten Heide has also participated in a series of master classes as choral conductor with the renowned Finnish choral conductor Timo Nouranne, the Swedish conductor Cecilia Rydinger Alin and the British conductor Paul Hillier. Morten Heide has performed as soloist, chamber musician and vocal accompanist in concerts in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Germany, France, Italy, Iceland and Mexico. His pianistic focus is on forgotten gems of the great masters such as Bach’s Italian Variations, the music of Alkan, as well as on the music of the 20th and 21st centuries. In August 2006 Morten Heide performed the Danish premiere of Manuel Ponce’s Concierto Romántico for piano and orchestra with Odense Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Mei-Ann Chen. In 2008 Morten Heide participated in the celebration of the centenary of French composer Olivier Messiaen performing among other pieces Messiaen's Quartet for the end of time and the vast piano cycle Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant- Jésus in several concerts. Morten Heide was the first Danish pianist to record the complete Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus in the spring of 2011. Morten Heide is interested in exploring the ways in which the process of preparing and interpreting a musical work for performance may be compared and contrasted with more traditionally recognized forms of academic research. He is a member of NNIMIPA: Nordic Network for the Integration of Music Informatics, Performance and Aesthetics http://www.nnimipa.org in order to pursue this area of inquiry together with other researchers from conservatories and universities in the five Nordic countries. He is also affiliated with the University of Southern Denmark research program The Performances of Everyday Living - The Aesthetics of Music and Sound http://www.soundmusicresearch.org . For more information please visit www.mortenheide.dk .

It is a pleasure for • the research program The Performances of Everyday Living - The Aesthetics of Music and Sound at the Institute for the Study of Culture (IKV) at SDU https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheAestheticsofMusicandSound/ and www.soundmusicresearch.org • M*U*S*I*C – Music Union for Student Interaction and Creativity http://www.facebook.com/groups/sdu.music and http://music.sdu.dk/ • ResQ-Teknisk Service - SDU’s Service Department to present this Lunchtime Concert with Morten Heide. Today’s Lunchtime Concert is the 47th Lunchtime Concert since the series began in April 2010. It is just one of the many activities related to music research involving practicing musicians from Odense, Esbjerg, Aarhus and Copenhagen - as well as from abroad - and researchers and students from SDU, which have been under the sponsorship of NTSMB: Netværk for Tværvidenskabelige Studier af Musik og Betydning/Network for Cross-Disciplinary Studies of Music and Meaning www.ntsmb.dk or NNIMIPA: Nordic Network for the Integration of Music Informatics, Performance and Aesthetics www.nnimipa.org or the SDU-IKV research initiative The Aesthetics of Music and Sound - currently through its research program The Performances of Everyday Living . We hope that you enjoy today’s concert and that you will watch https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheAestheticsofMusicandSound/ for news, details and updates regarding upcoming concerts and seminars during the rest of 2015. Cynthia M. Grund on behalf of The Performances of Everyday Living and The Aesthetics of Music and Sound Marielouise Klose on behalf of M*U*S*I*C – Music Union for Student Interaction and Creativity. Leif Jensen on behalf of ResQ-Teknisk Service

ALL ARE Seminar Series WELCOME! Audience participation in Topics in the Aesthetics of Music and Sound the seminar via Adobe Connect is also welcome.

Today - October 29, 2015 - you are also very welcome to attend a seminar given by Morten Heide entitled A New Approach to Performing Carl Nielsen’s Three Motets . This seminar will take place in U67 and is part of the series Topics in the Aesthetics of Music and Sound . Please see http://soundmusicresearch.org/Topics_in_the_Aesthetics_of_Music_and_Sound_Fall_2015.pdf . Morten writes: . . . Inspired by the impending celebrations of Nielsen's anniversary, I decided to program his rarely performed Three Motets during the second of the two examination concerts required for my master’s degree in choral conducting from Stockholm’s Royal College of Music. I soon realized that there were issues, questions and challenges that needed to be dealt with beyond the musical ones before I could embark upon interpreting the music. My interest in these matters sprang from a comment made by the Danish composer and conductor Bo Holten regarding the discrepancies between Nielsen's ink fair copy of the Three Motets and the two editions now available. Bo Holten's objection was that the changes which appear in the available editions are helpful neither to the music nor to the dissemination of Nielsen's only sacred choral setting of Latin texts. I decided to investigate the extent of these alleged discrepancies. It became clear that there was more than enough subject matter to warrant devoting a significant part of my thesis to this investigation. As part my first examination concert, I moreover decided to program three Renaissance motets by Clemens non Papa, Orlando di Lasso and Luca Marenzio. Carl Nielsen had copied all three from facsimiles in 1928 as he painstakingly began to study the polyphony of e.g. Palestrina and several old Dutch masters prior to writing his own Three Motets the following year. Wishing to investigate the similarities between these older motets and Nielsen's - but also to reflect upon what approach I should take when conducting Nielsen's Three Motets - I wondered: • should it be an interpretation based on what we know today about how to “authentically” interpret the sacred polyphonic choral music of the Renaissance, • should it be a late-Romantic interpretation based on the knowledge of how choirs sang around the time Nielsen wrote his Three Motets , or • should I consider a new third approach? The goal of my thesis – and of this seminar presentation – is thus that of shedding light upon these issues and to encourage choral conductors to program Nielsen's wonderful Three Motets more often than has been the case. MORTEN HEIDE ♦ klaver ♦ fejrer 150 året for den fynske komponist Carl Nielsens fødselsdag

Torsdag den 29. oktober 2015 kl. 12-13 i The Winter Garden Fri entré

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