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Victor Emanuel Bendix
CD 1
Symphony no. 2 in D major, op.20 (1888)“Sounds of Summer from South Russia”
1. Andante – Presto – Allegro moderato
2. Prestissimo
3. Andante sostenuto
4. Molto vivace

Symphony no. 4 in D minor, op. 30 (1906)
5. Allegro animato
6. Intermezzo: Molto moderato
7. Adagio non troppo

CD 2
Symphony no. 1 in C major, op. 16 (1882) – “Mountain Climbing”
1. Ouverture: Adagio ma non troppo – Allegro moderato
2. Notturno: Allegro vivace
3. Marcia solenne: Andante sostenuto
4. Finale: Allegro animato

Symphony no. 3 in A minor, op. 25 (1895)
5. Fantasie: Adagio molto – moderato cantabile
6. Scherzo appasionato (Bunte Bilder): Molto vivace
7. Elegie: Lento ma non troppo

Symphonies no. 1 – 4 ©
Victor Bendix was born into a Jewish middle-class family in Copenhagen and brought up in a home in which music played an important part. His father, Emanuel Bendix, was a wholesaler and
a skilled and enthusiastic amateur flautist who unfortunately devoted more of his time to music than to his business and consequently went bankrupt, an event which almost put a stop to his son Victor’s musical education.
But music played a central role in the life of the family’s younger generation. The two elder brothers both became musicians: Otto an oboist, playing for a time in the Royal Danish Orchestra,
was also a pianist who emigrated to USA and made a name for himself as a pianist and teacher in Boston. Frits Bendix was a cellist in the Royal Danish Orchestra.
Victor made an early debut as a composer. When only ten years old he had written a quartet for flute, oboe, cello and piano which he was able to perform with his father and two brothers, himself playing the piano. This youthful work ended, inspired by Weber’s “Jubelouverture”, with a fantasia on “God Save the King”. The year after he had composed an octet for wind instruments which was performed by his brother Otto, who had already become a member of the Royal Danish Orchestra at the age of seventeen, and a number of Otto’s colleagues. The composer had taken refuge under the grand piano from where he emerged in order to tweak the musicians’ legs if their playing was not to his satisfaction.
The wholesaler Bendix now introduced his son to the uncrowned king of Danish music at that time, Niels W Gade, who consented to teach the boy, and when the Conservatoire opened in 1867
with Gade as principal, Victor was admitted as a student at the age of fifteen, being among the first to study the piano and composition.
Having completed his education he was from 1870 to 1872 a repetiteur at The Royal Theatre. He then obtained a travelling scholarship and went to Germany where in 1872 he was present at the laying of the foundation stone of Richard Wagner’s Festival Theatre at Bayreuth. On returning home he founded the Choral Society together with Axel Liebmann, which had to close down
when Liebmann died in 1874. Now Bendix became Gade’s assistant at the Conservatoire and taught the piano there from 1880 to 1883. He travelled a great deal, staying with Franz Liszt in
Weimar several times in the early 1880s and taking lessons with him. Liszt took an interest in the young Dane and played the four-handed piano arrangement of one of Bendix’s symphonies,
probably the first. One or two letters from Liszt to Bendix survive, including among other things an invitation to play the piano duets.
Victor Bendix soon became an esteemed and popular composer, whose works were frequently performed, the orchestral ones often with himself conducting. His fame had also spread to foreign
countries and the symphonies were performed in Europe and indeed in USA, although here he did not conduct the works himself. His reputation as a composer was particularly good in Germany.
As a soloist in his own piano concerto (1884) he attracted attention both at home and abroad and he was much in demand as a chamber musician, famous for his beautiful cantabile touch. As a
conductor he was a pioneer of new music and arranged a number of concert performances of Wagner’s hitherto quite unknown works in Copenhagen. He also performed Carl Nielsen’s Symphonic Rhapsody at the folk-concerts, and in order to give the audience a better chance of getting to know this modem music he played the piece twice at the same concert – an initiative
which caused his dismissal. As an opera conductor he also caused a sensation with nine performances of Verdi’s “Don Carlos” in collaboration with his son Kai Bendix at The New Theatre
in Copenhagen, where they gathered musicians from the whole of Copenhagen. Under Bendix’s baton the production was a huge success

RELEASE DATE: MAY 2011

CATALOGUE NUMBER: DACOCD 436-437

EAN: 5709499436707

Product Type

CD, MP3, FLAC