Johan Svendsen
Johan Svendsen was born in Oslo, Norway, on September 30, 1840. The son of a bandmaster, he dabbled in music for many years before receiving formal instruction. When he was twenty-three he embarked for the first time on a comprehensive musical education by attending the Leipzig Conservatory where he was a pupil of Ferdinand David, Reinecke, and others. After that he toured Europe as a concert violinist and lived for a while in Paris where he played in theater orchestras. In 1870 he visited the United States where he married an American woman whom he had originally met in Paris. Following his return to his native land he was the conductor of the Christiana Musical Association from 1872 to 1877 and again from 1880 to 1883. In 1883 he settled in Copenhagen where for sixteen years he was court conductor, and part of that time conductor at the Royal Theater as well. As a composer Svendsen distinguished himself with major works for orchestra in a pronounced Norwegian style, the most famous being four Norwegian Rhapsodies and the Carnaval des artistes norvégiens, in all of which Norwegian folk melodies are used extensively. He also produced many works not of a national identity, among which were symphonies, concertos, chamber-music works, and the highly popular Carnival in Paris, for orchestra. Svendsen died in Copenhagen on June 14, 1911.
The Carnival in Paris (Carnaval à Paris), for orchestra, op. 9 (1873) is one of Svendsen’s best-known works, even though it is not in his characteristic Norwegian style. His early manhood in Paris had been one of the composer’s happiest experiences in life, and some of that joy and feeling of excitement is found in this music describing a Mardi Gras in Paris. The full orchestra enters after a swelling trumpet tone over drum rolls. There is then heard an exchange among the wind instruments and a quickening of the tempo to lead into the first main theme, a delicate subject for flutes and clarinets. This theme is twice repeated after which the music becomes stormy. Divided violins then bring on the second theme, which like the first is quiet and gentle. In the development, in which much is made of the first subject, there are effective frequent alternations of tempo. A rhapsodic section, with a subject for divided strings, followed by extended drum rolls and calls for muted horns, precede the concluding section.