	Home > Lifestyle > Meet the Danes > Great Danes > Musicians & Dramatists > Niels W. Gade

LIFESTYLE

Musicians & Dramatists

Johan Peter Emilius Hartmann

Johanne Luise Heiberg

Niels W. Gade

Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen

Per Nørgård

Vagn Holmboe

Victor Borge

Send

Niels W. Gade

Niels W. Gade, 1817-90, received his first real training as a violin pupil from the violinist Friderich Wexschall. In 1840 he won the Music Association prize for his Ossian Overture, which together with the First Symphony (1842) filled Mendelssohn in Leipzig with enthusiasm.

Gade went to Leipzig and worked there partly as a conductor at the Gewandhaus concerts until returning to Copenhagen in 1848. Here, from 1850, he became the leader of the Music Association chorus and orchestra, which gave him a dominant position in the musical life of the city.

He performed a large number of modern German and Danish works at the Association's concerts, including many of his own compositions, both symphonies, chamber music and what was known as concert pieces, e.g. Elverskud (1851-54, The Elfin Shot).

He made use of his many international contacts in planning the concerts. In addition, he worked as an organist and in his everyday life was head of the Academy of Music that was established in Copenhagen in 1867.

Anne Ørbæk Jensen, Gyldendal Leksikon

Edited February 13, 2008

Follow denmark on:

Contact Disclaimer