Emil Hartmann
1. “Hærmændene på Helgeland”, overture for Ibsens play, op. 25 (1878)
J. P. E. Hartmann
2. “Hakon Jarl”, overture op. 40 (1844)
3. “En efterårsjagt” Concert overture, op. 40 (1863)
Emil Hartmann
4. “Hakon Jarl”, symphonic poem, op. 40 (1859-98)
Concert for Cello and Orchestra, D-minor, op. 26 (1879)
5. Allegro Moderato
6. Canzonetta
7. Rondo Pastorale
Kim Bak Dinitzen – cello
The Danish Philharmonic Orchestra, South Jutland
Jean-Pierre Wallez – conductor
Fathers and Sons in Danish music! ©
Whole families of composers are no rarity in the history of music. The Bach family yielded an almost unlimited number of composers. The Mozarts had a composer father and a composer son. Puccini was the last of a complex family tree of composers. But it is nerertheless remarkable that a country as diminutive as Denmark can boast of seven or eight braces of fathers and sons among its most important composers. We find them in music today (the Koppels and the Bentzons, for example), in the 19th century, and at the beginning of the 20th century, too.
It is fascinating to compare father and son, to follow the way their styles developed, listen out for any family resemblances, judge whether talent was inherited, or whether only a modest portion of it reappeared in the next generation.
The Hartmann family is an old one, also as regards music: in time and style alike there is a long way from Johann Ernst Hartmann ( 1726-93) to his great-great-grandson Niels Viggo Bentzon (b. 1919).
We do not find so many generations in the Gade, Hamerik, Helsted or Langgaard families, but we see that celebrated fathers have overshadowed perhaps less talented sons, just as the obverse is also true and perhaps the talent of the overlooked father or son was not as small as all that!
In this series with the Danish Philharmonic Orchestra, South Jutland, we will be able to compare the Hakon Jarl compositions by Harlmann junior and senior, piano concertos by Langgaard father and son, and concert works by Hamerik père et fils. There is also orchestra music by Helsted the older and Helsted the younger. There is considerable hidden treasurein these father and son relationships.
Father and son:
Johann Peter Emilius Hartmann (1805-1900)
Emil Hartmann (1836-1898)
The Hartmanns are one of the great musical families of Denmark. Johann Ernst Hartmann (1726-1193) came to Denmark from Germany, and was one of the most impoftant composers of his time; he is still remembered for his music for Johann Ewald’s two dramas, The Fishermen (where the tune for what was to become the Danish national anthem “King Christian Before the Mast” was used for the first time), and Balder’s Death. But he also wrote a number of symphonies, chamber works, and cantatas. His son, August Wilhelm Hartmann (1775-1850) was a violinist with the Royal Danish Orchestra, and organist and cantor at Garnisons Kirke (Garnison Church). August Wilhelm Hartmann sired “Old Hartmann”, Johann Peter Emilius Hartmann, who was bom in the same year as Hans Christian Andersen, and who was active until the end of that century: he was four years old when Haydn died, and Gershwin was two years old when Hartmann died. Hartmann’s life thus bracketed those of such giants as Mendelssohn, Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, Brahms, and Wagner.
Old Hartmann’s son Emil died two years before his father. Emil’s daughter was the composer Niels Viggo Bentzon’s mother, and his son Nikolaj (b. 1964) is a pianist and composer.
Johann Peter Emilius Hartmann’s early works, including his Opus 1 (a sonata in B major for flute and piano, 1825) is in the popular style of the day, reminiscent of the late Vienna school and budding romantic music, particularly as represented by Spohr and Cherubini. But in 1832 an actor, N. P. Nielsen, urged him to write melodramatic music for The Golden Horns, Oehlenschläger’s poem, and in doing so he arrived for the first time at the “Old Nordic” tone so characteristic of many of his later works. Concurrently with this highly personal, very Nordic style, he also wrote in a more lyrical Danish fashion, as we hear in his opera Liden Kirsten (1846), for example, and his Symphony No. 2 (1848). In his great mythological ballets, choreographed by Bournonville, his Old Nordic tone came into its own in its portrayal of the word of the Norse gods (Valkyrien, 1861, Thrymskviden, 1868). The Old Nordic sound returns in the overture to Oehlenschläger’s Hakon Jarl 1844, “composed and dedicated to the immortal writer of Hakon Jarl, signed J. P. E. Hartmann”. The overture was composed for the normal romantic symphony orchestra, with the exception of the harp (a frequent instrument in Hartmann’s orchestral music) and the gong. The idiom is dark and almost menacing in the subdued introduction, but gradually the mood changes, the key shifts from C minor to the heroic, triumphant C major of the finale. Hakon Jarl is one of the masterpieces of Danish romantic music for orchestra, and as early as 1844 Hartmann was able to conduct it at a concert at the Leipzig Gewandhaus, where it was also performed in 1876, conducted by Carl Reissiger.
Hartmann was the great overture composer of his day. As well as the overtures to his three operas and a number of plays (those by Oehlenschläger also include Corregio, Axel and Valborg and Yrsa) he wrote four concert overtures, including the C major Koncert ouverture and En efterårsjagt (An Autumn Hunt, 1863). The latter is one of Hartmann’s “Danish” works, a merry orchestral piece without the problemati. sharp edges that sometimes bothered Copenhagen audiences, a piece inspired by nature expressed in brilliant orchestration. The overture remained one of his most popular works for a long time. It was dedicated to Niels Wilhelm Gade, who was then conductor of the Music Societv. and Hartmann’s son-in-law.
Emil Hartmann studied music theory and organ with his father, and as a boy he began writing songs, later published under the title of “Smaasange for Ungdommen” (Little Songs for Youth). He made his debut as a composer with a “Passionssalme” (Ingemann, 1858), and the following year enjoyed his first success with his ballet Fjeldstuen (The Mountain Hut), which he wrote with August Winding. In 1860 he studied in Leipzig, and the following year he was appointed organist of Johanneskirken (St John’s Church) in Copenhagen. From 1871 until his death he was organist of Christiansborg Slotskirke (Christiansborg Palace Church). Hartmann was a prolific composer for the stage; his works include operas, of which Ragnhild was successfully performed in Germany under the title Runenzauber. Generally Emil Hartman enjoyed greater esteem as a composer in Germany where he also worked as a conductor than in Denmark. In Copenhagen he was inevitably overshadowed by his father, who feared accusations of nepotism and thus went to the opposite extreme, and never did anything to support his son. The seven symphonies (of which three have been published) were performed in Gerrnany, often conducted by the composer and in parlicular the overture to Hærmændene på Helgeland (Ibsen) was very much admired south of the border.
Emil Hartman wrote three concertos, for violin, cello, and piano. The cello concerto is a short, concentrated work, with pronounced thematic material, melodically inspired and immensely well-written for the solo instrument. It may remind one of Saint -Saëns’ 1st cello concerto, though it does not possess the archaistic features of the latter. Emil Hartmann’s concerto is a highly romantic work in which the singing characteristics of the cello emerge in full, not least in the short, slow second movement.
With Hakon Jarl Emil Hartmann encroached on his father’s preserves. But he did not write an overture rather, he wrote what is probably the first symphonic poem ever written by a Danish composer. He worked on it from 1859 until his death, and created an orchestral work which is more international than Danish in tone. It is a long work of symphonic proportions.
The overture to Ibsen’s drama Hæmændene på Helgeland (1878) is Emil Hartmann’s orchestral masterpiece. In it a Danish composer approaches the orchestral style of Tchaikovsky for the first time and Emil Hartmann, whose style is otherwise more Mendelssohn-like Geman romantic in flavour, also approached his father’s Old Nordic idiom. It is powerful music, and tells of tales of battles and valour in short, concise themes which now and then unfurl into romantically inspired melodiousness. The orchestration is parlicularly superb, and Emil Hartman demonstrates that he has learned from his father’s frequent use of the harp as an orchestral instrument.
Mogens Wenzel Andreasen
RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 1999
CATALOGUE NUMBER: DACOCD 508
EAN: 5709499508008
