Niels Gade (1817 – 1890)

Novelettes op. 53 & 58

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N. Gade: Noveletten op. 53 & 58, Stro (Stp) (0)N. Gade: Noveletten op. 53 & 58, Stro (Stp) (1)N. Gade: Noveletten op. 53 & 58, Stro (Stp) (2)N. Gade: Noveletten op. 53 & 58, Stro (Stp) (3)
pourOrchestre à cordes
ÉditionPartition musicale de poche
№ d’article555610
Auteur / CompositeurNiels Gade
Dimensions 64 pages; 16 × 24 cm
Date de parution2007
Éditions / ProducteurHöflich
№ de fabricantMPH678

Description

No small part of Gade’s oeuvre is taken up by music for strings. Besides the two Novelettes, we need only mention his several violin sonatas, piano trios, and string quartets, his single essays in the string quintet, sextet, and octet, and finally his Violin Concerto in D minor op. 56, composed in 1880 between the two Novelettes. Gade himself was an accomplished violinist; indeed, his very name recalls the violin with its G, D, A and E strings. He joined the Royal Orchestra in Copenhagen at the early age of seventeen – a rare distinction considering that the orchestra was regarded as the best in the country. In 1838 he sought his fortune as a violin virtuoso and undertook a concert tour of Norway and Sweden. The tour was a financial and probably an artistic disaster, however, and Gade was forced to ask his parents for money for the homeward journey to Denmark. The experience was so decisive that he finally resolved to pursue his gifts for composition and abandoned his dream of a virtuoso career.

Gade’s published oeuvre contain a total of three compositions entitled Novelettes. The term presumably derives from Schumann, who took it from the name of the famous English soprano Clara Novello (1818-1908) and used it in 1838 for his eight Novelettes for piano, op 21. It refers to a character piece made up of several, frequently unrelated themes. Besides his two works for string orchestra, opp. 53 and 58, Gade also gave the title “Novelettes” to his Piano Trio in A minor op. 29 of 1853, dedicated to Ferdinand Hiller. The Novelettes for String Orchestra op. 53 were written in 1874, some twenty years after the Piano Trio. Unlike its later companion, op. 58, the orchestral writing is in six parts with divided violins and cellos. The première, conducted by the composer, took place on 10 April 1875 in the Copenhagen Musical Society (Musikforeningen). One year later it was published by Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig as Noveletten: Vier Orchesterstücke für Streichinstrumente. In the same year and in 1877 it was arranged for piano four-hands and solo piano, likewise published by Breitkopf.

The op. 53 Novelettes also became very popular outside of Denmark and were frequently heard in the greater and lesser musical capitals of Europe. Gade himself conducted them at the Cologne Festival in November 1880 during a tour of Germany. Other performances, sometimes without his involvement, took place in the 1870s and 1880s in Amsterdam, Augsburg, Basle, Berlin, Breslau, Brussels, Elberfeld, Hirschberg, Leipzig, Lucerne, Mühlhausen, and Sondershausen. The form of the movements is relatively free: there are several themes which, however, are not developed in a symphonic manner. The final movement, with its recurring passages of fugato, reveals the most rigorous compositional texture.

The Novelettes No. 2 in E major op. 58 were composed in 1883 and revised by the composer in 1886. They are dedicated to the Russian pianist and composer Anton Rubinstein, with whom Gade was on friendly terms. Rubinstein had appeared in Copenhagen as a pianist in 1862, and his compositions were frequently heard at the Musical Society of the Danish capital – a clear indication of Gade’s high regard for his music. The Novelettes are among the last instrumental works that Gade wrote before his death. He remained true to “his” instrument, composing his final Violin Sonata No. 3 in B-flat major op. 59 (1885), the Folkedanse (“Folk Dances”) for Violin and Piano op. 62 (1886), and the final String Quartet in D major op. 63 (1888).

The first edition of the E-major Novelettes was issued by Breitkopf & Härtel of Leipzig in the year of Gade’s death, 1890. In that same year Breitkopf also published them in an arrangement for piano four-hands prepared by August Horn. Gade did not live to witness the première, which took place two years after his death at the Copenhagen Musical Society on 27 February 1892. Gade had been the director and conductor of this bourgeois concert organization, the most influential in Copenhagen, for some forty years. The op. 58 Novelettes call for a seven-part fabric in which Gade achieves a richly textured sound by dividing the violins, violas, and cellos.

Yvonne Wasserloos

Translation: Bradford Robinson, 2007

For performance material please contact the publisher Breitkopf und Härtel, Wiesbaden

Contenu

  • Nr. 1 F-Dur op. 53
  • Nr. 2 E-Dur op. 58
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