One of the most respected symphonic composers of the twentieth century is Carl Nielsen. His six symphonies as well as other orchestral compositions are well represented in the repertoires of orchestras around the world. However, very few of his choral writings are routinely performed. This is due in part to the overshadowing effect that his symphonic material may have on people selecting music to perform. A relatively small number of works composed for chorus and limited publicity and exposure of his music outside Denmark also explains the lack of Nielsen's choral music in the concert hall. His choral music deserves attention and study, because it is a microcosm of forms, styles, techniques, and expression that is diverse and yet very well crafted.
It is apparent from reading Nielsen's essays and other textual material that he dearly loved his native Denmark and was her greatest advocate. This nationalistic pride is forevermore expressed in his choral compositions which describe the Danish countryside or the love of two people, whether romantic or parental. Nielsen's music evokes the emotional sweep of fear of falling to the exceptional bliss of being where one absolutely wants to be. Nielsen is an enigmatic figure and difficult to classify as to what type of composer he was. He was certainly a twentieth century composer, but much of his music was written in the style of the romantic and even classical periods as well. His oeuvre does not include much sacred music, due no doubt to his professed lack of religious affinity, but he composed in most other genres.
Carl August Nielsen was born June 9, 1865, in Sortelung, near Nørre Lyndelse on Funen. Born into a poor family, he was the seventh of twelve children and his father, Niels Jørgensen, was a house painter. Nielsen was a member of a military band while he was a boy and began his studies at the Copenhagen Conservatory in 1884. While at the Conservatory, he studied with Hartmann, Rosenhoff, and Gade. He was an orchestra violinist early in his career, but later focused his interests on composition. He married Anne Marie Broderson, a Danish sculptor, in 1891. From 1908 to 1914 he was the conductor of the Royal Opera and was a teacher and director of the Royal Conservatory from 1915 to 1927. The Danish regarded him as their greatest artisan since Hans Christian Andersen. Nielsen died in Copenhagen on October 3, 1931. In addition to his compositions, he wrote essays and a memoir (Min fynske barndom) that is considered to be a classic example of Danish literature.
Nielsen did not believe that art could be revolutionized. He held that the elements of art that are obvious today were present yesterday, but were just not noticed. This is not to say that influences are not present from one era to the next. Indeed, he was influenced by Heise and Lange-Müller in the romantic tradition of Denmark. Further, we see the evidence of the harmonic and contrapuntal styles of Hartmann and Brahms in his music, and the orchestral inspiration of Svendsen. Nielsen also made his own studies of the polyphony of the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods. One of the hallmarks of his compositional style is the use of chromaticism, no doubt learned from playing Wagner's operas as a violinist.
Nielsen began composing in the Classical style of the 18th and 19th centuries, but developed his own harmonic techniques by the 1890s. He began to work with what has been termed 'extended tonality' in which all 12 semitones are used within a tonally centered scale. He did this as a means to accomplish a broader range of emotions in his music. He used chromaticism, major and minor 3rds and 7ths equally, which has the effect of giving his music a Mixolydian harmonic structure. Melodically, his music is characterized by simplicity and balance of intervals. He stated that 'one must show the sated that the melodic interval of a 3rd should be considered a gift from God, a 4th an experience, and a 5th the supreme happiness. Thoughtless over-indulgence undermines health'. The simplicity of Nielsen's melodies runs true to the advice he gave his students to study counterpoint, not to learn complicated techniques, but simple ones. Nielsen was able to explore new compositional forms and techniques at the same time that he continued to compose in traditional genres.
Nielsen composed both unaccompanied choral works as well as those with orchestra. The vocal scoring for his choral works is varied with some being composed for mixed chorus and others for low voices (TTBB, ATB, and ATTB) or high voices (SSAT). The majority of the unaccompanied works are songs, rounds, and other smaller settings including a set of three motets. The choral works with orchestra are generally scored for mixed chorus and constitute the bulk of his choral oeuvre. Of his accompanied works, over half are cantatas for anniversaries or commemorations of specific events and remain unpublished. In addition to the choral works, Nielsen composed two operas and several settings of incidental music for stage works, some of which use chorus. Although it is beyond the scope of this paper, Nielsen uses the chorus in the opera Saul og David (Saul and David) almost as would be expected in an oratorio.
There are five or six choral works of Nielsen that continue to be performed and recorded. The earliest of his choral compositions, dating from 1896-97, is the Hymnus amoris, Op. 12, a song in the form and character of Brahms' Schicksalslied or Nänie. There are four sections, the first of which tells of the love of children and mothers. This love is developed and transformed in the second section. The third section illustrates the love and tribulations of love in adulthood. The final section is concerned with the love to be found in peace and the after-life. The text was written by Axel Olrik and is Latin, which Nielsen defended as being more singable and more appropriate for repetitive utterances. Nielsen spent a large amount of time preparing to compose Hymnus amoris by working on over 200 exercises of counterpoint from the music of Palestrina, Bach, and Handel.
Related in form to the Hymnus amoris is Nielsen's next significant choral work, The Sleep, Op. 18, which was completed between 1903-04. This work is based on text written at Nielsen's request by Johannes Jørgensen. The Sleep is a single movement work, divided into three sections, the first and last of which describe gentle and restful sleep free of worry. This blissfulness is contrasted in the middle section by the terror of a nightmare that is associated with claustrophobia and other fears of being held captive, or falling down a deep chasm. Nielsen's study of the music of Max Reger greatly influenced this composition, particularly the nightmare section. This work foreshadowed the horrors that Europe was to suffer ten years later. One characteristic of Nielsen's music that is evident in The Sleep is the fact that the voice parts are scored for the middle of their ranges. This is perhaps a reflection of Nielsen's study of the music of Brahms and Handel. The transitions into and out of the second turbulent movement are masterfully written.
Nielsen was in love with his homeland, Funen, and this is no more apparent than in his most popular choral work, Springtime in Funen, Op. 42. This composition was written in 1921 and uses text written by Aage Bernsten which in many ways resembles his own memoir My Childhood in Funen which he published in 1927. This pastoral work is a masterpiece of pictorial and programmatic writing (even though Nielsen shunned the idea that he wrote programmatic material). The chorus and soloists describe Danish life and the countryside replete with grass where snow has thawed, water lilies floating on the deep blue lake, and gnarled apple trees blooming on his beloved isle of Funen.
Nielsen composed Springtime in Funen as part of a national competition which the Danish Choral Society sponsored. The text written by Bernsten won the competition and Nielsen, already considered a national treasure, was asked to write the music. He composed this work at a time in his life that was anything but pastoral. He was separated from his wife and was not be reconciled to her for over a year. He was also going through changes of publishers at this time, but was able to successfully shield his music from these negative influences.
Related to his belief that art could not be revolutionized, he also held that art always exists and just waits for us to discover it. His description of Funen best illustrates his philosophy:

Everything in Funen is different
from the rest of the world, and
whoever takes the trouble to listen
will know. The bees hum in a way
of their own with a special Funen
accent, and when the horse
whinnies and the red cows low,
why, anybody can hear that it is
quite different from anywhere else.
The throstle flutes a lilting Funen,
and the laughter of the blackbird as
it slips under the lilac bushes is an
imitation of the starling's whims
which echo the enchanting chuckle
of the Funen girls when they jest
and laugh in the gardens behind
the trimmed hedges. The bells ring
and cocks crow in Funen dialect,
and a joyous symphony issues
from all the birds' nests every time
the mother bird feeds her young.
Delightful that we can hear it all
again when the day dawns -- and
every day if only we will listen,
letting the song come to us its own
sweet way.

The form of this work is like a cantata in reduction and is shorter than his other choral works. Nielsen referred to the form as a "lyric humoresque". There is no major theme that runs through the work, but it consists of several independent sections tied together with orchestral transitions. It consists of several alternating sections of choral and solo passages that show the consuming interest Nielsen had with ballads. For the most part, the choruses are homophonic with the melody carried in the upper voice and frequent use is made of alternations between major and minor thirds, a characteristic of Nielsen's diatonic writing. Springtime in Funen is the most essentially Danish of all Nielsen's works. Of particular influence on his development of the "song" form were J. A. P. Schulz' Peter's Wedding and The Harvest Festival, both of which are Danish "singspiele" compositions. This influence is seen in the opening of the final dance song chorus.
The Springtime in Funen is scored for mixed chorus, and soprano, tenor, and baritone soloists, a children's chorus, and a small orchestra. The moderate resource requirements, coupled with the fact that the work is reasonably accessible, make this work ideal for a well-developed amateur chorus to perform.
The most important choral work that Nielsen composed in the last eight or nine years of his life was the Three Motets. Op. 55. They were written for Mogens Wöldike and his Palestrina Choir. These motets represent the most sophisticated and developmentally advanced of Nielsen's a cappella compositions. The three motets are highly contrapuntal and once again reflect the studies he made of the great composers before him, such as Palestrina and Bach. Simpson maintains that Nielsen's "decisive rejection of religious doctrines prevented him from writing much a cappella music." Nielsen also found it difficult to believe that one could write like Palestrina without the religious devotion that he had. Having said this, Nielsen still quotes Palestrina's Sicut cervus desiderat of 1581 in the third of the motets, Benedictus Dominus.
The diversity in styles represented in the Three Motets could not be much greater. This is especially true when comparing the first with the other two. The first of the motets, Afflictus sum, is the most dissonant and severe, while the second, Dominus regit me in stark contrast, is serene and segues into the last piece, a haunting expression of thanksgiving. The scoring for the three pieces is also different; the first being written for four low voices (ATTB) to express the profound horror and fear of death. Comparisons can be made with the tonal color of the first motet with the middle, nightmare section of The Sleep. The use of dissonances that Nielsen created in the Afflictus is built on whole-tone intervals and is an effect that was new to his compositional style, but one that would be broadly used by generations of composers to come. The other motets are written for a conventional mix of voices (SATB in the second and SSATB in the third) that generate a lighter tone, indicative of the more tranquil message of the text. The third motet expresses praise with long, unbroken melismatic phrases that are elaborate and rich in polyphonic texture. In his later choral compositions, Nielsen began to experiment with new ideas and at the same time delved into the older techniques and forms.
Contrasting and comparing the choral works of Carl Nielsen is a task made difficult because each of his works displays so much diversity within the composition. The two major choral works of Nielsen, Springtime in Funen and the Three Motets represent a chronological span of ten years, yet the styles and techniques used in these works traverse centuries of influence from composers of the Renaissance to Nielsen's own leading edge compositional methods. He constantly worked to develop the concept in his music that art can objectively demonstrate the subjective nature of life. This process allows anyone to participate in the viewing of life through his eyes and ears. Nielsen could be viewed as a classicist because he worked within traditional forms, even meticulously studying them, yet he pushed the envelope with several of his works, redefining the forms in some cases.
Although Nielsen attempted to remain objective in his compositions, it would be impossible to not develop a subjective attitude about his music. If one is looking for variations in style and form, Nielsen's music is a worthy candidate for consideration, as it demonstrates great variety. The obvious solution to obscurity is exposure, and the exposure of Nielsen's choral music would lift it from the depths of the unknown.