TY - CHAP

T1 - Alternative Neo-Rimannian Approaches to Carl Nielsen

AU - Nielsen, Svend Hvidtfelt

PY - 2012

Y1 - 2012

N2 - Abstract On the basis of songs or songlike Themes from three periods of Nielsen’s career I try to show how Nielsen’s harmonic progressions become simpler and yet displaying a more refined complexity. I do this on the basis of theories of the Danish scholar/composers Jörgen Jersild and Jan Maegaard, whose theories in various degree is based on Riemannian analysis. The two Danes thus represent an alternative Neo-Riemannian approach to harmonic analysis. This approach has been developed from 1970 to 1989, the very same years in which Ernö Lendvai, David Lewin, Deborah Stein and Harald Krebs wrote their respective groundbreaking works. Even though Jersild’s and Maegaard’s theories are developed independent of these writers, their content communicates with the content of these writer’s theories. And even though a theory of foreground harmonic progressions like Jersild’s is seemingly as opposed as possible to a Schenkerian middleground based harmonic approach they actually in some regards do have something in common, just as they in other regards supplement each other perfectly. I try through the analyses of Nielsen’s music – plus a few other examples (Schumann, Liszt and Wolf) – to show how the theories of these above mentioned many writers, plus others, may be integrated into the two Danish theories.In discussing analytical theories the text is especially conversant with two recent books on Nielsen, Anne-Marie Reynolds’ The Voice of Carl Nielsen (2010) and Daniel Grimley’s Carl Nielsen and the Idea of Modernism (2011), as the two main analyses refer to analyses in Reynolds and Grimley respectively.

AB - Abstract On the basis of songs or songlike Themes from three periods of Nielsen’s career I try to show how Nielsen’s harmonic progressions become simpler and yet displaying a more refined complexity. I do this on the basis of theories of the Danish scholar/composers Jörgen Jersild and Jan Maegaard, whose theories in various degree is based on Riemannian analysis. The two Danes thus represent an alternative Neo-Riemannian approach to harmonic analysis. This approach has been developed from 1970 to 1989, the very same years in which Ernö Lendvai, David Lewin, Deborah Stein and Harald Krebs wrote their respective groundbreaking works. Even though Jersild’s and Maegaard’s theories are developed independent of these writers, their content communicates with the content of these writer’s theories. And even though a theory of foreground harmonic progressions like Jersild’s is seemingly as opposed as possible to a Schenkerian middleground based harmonic approach they actually in some regards do have something in common, just as they in other regards supplement each other perfectly. I try through the analyses of Nielsen’s music – plus a few other examples (Schumann, Liszt and Wolf) – to show how the theories of these above mentioned many writers, plus others, may be integrated into the two Danish theories.In discussing analytical theories the text is especially conversant with two recent books on Nielsen, Anne-Marie Reynolds’ The Voice of Carl Nielsen (2010) and Daniel Grimley’s Carl Nielsen and the Idea of Modernism (2011), as the two main analyses refer to analyses in Reynolds and Grimley respectively.

KW - Faculty of Humanities

KW - Harmony,

KW - Schenker

KW - Jersild

KW - Jan Maegaard

KW - transformation theory

KW - neapolitanisation

KW - functional harmony

M3 - Book chapter

VL - V

T3 - Carl Nielsen Studies

SP - 196

EP - 235

BT - Carl Nielsen Studies

A2 - Krabbe, Niels

CY - Det Kongelige Bibliotek

ER -