Composer Tage Nielsen
Instrumentation 3.2.A-sax, 3.2/4.2.1.1/4 perc/arpa/pno/cemb/14.0.4.4.2
Category Orchestra
Publication year 1974
Catalogue no. A.0225
Score format B4, 33 pages
Il Giardino Magico
(1968)
(1968)
Composer Tage Nielsen
Instrumentation 3.2.A-sax, 3.2/4.2.1.1/4 perc/arpa/pno/cemb/14.0.4.4.2
Category Orchestra
Publication year 1974
Catalogue no. A.0225
Score format B4, 33 pages
Il Giardino Magico was commissioned by Aarhus Symphony Orchestra and composed in 1967-68. Per Dreier conducted the first performance in 1969. This is one of the first Danish orchestral works where quotation- and collage techniques were employed as a means of expression. Apart from a couple of short motives that appear to be quotations without being so, there are easily recognizable fractions from Wagner’s Tristan, and towards the end of the piece there is a quotation from Schönberg’s Verklärte Nacht, which lasts for several bars. Worth noting is also both the instrumentation, where – apart from piano, harpsichord and harp - the percussion section is elaborately scored, and the strings, which have been separated into 24 solo parts.
In the programme for the first performance of Il Giardino Magico in March 1969 the composer considers the aesthetics of the piece and explains the title: ”I started composing the work during a stay in Italy in the Summer of 1967. My starting point was a intense need for a beautiful and refined music in the old-fashioned sense whilst at the same time being sure of the impossibility of such an enterprise. This ambivalence and feeling of helplessness are some of the things dealt with in the work. The title was given to me one day while strolling about the small town of Ravello between Naples and Salerno. I visited Villa Rufolo, which is known mainly for its large and remarkable gardens, and here I felt a strange concordance between the musical ideas I grappled with at the time and this large and somewhat decayed park with its almost blinding variety of colours and its arid and tropical vigour. – At the entrance you could buy postcards with notes: motives from Wagner’s Parsifal. He had once visited the villa during one of his stays in Italy while composing this work. On leaving the garden I saw a marble plaque on the house wall with an inscription which was a quote by Wagner: ”Klingsor’s enchanted garden has been retrieved” – ”Il giardino magico di Klingsor è ritrovato”.
All categories Solo 2-6 Instruments 7+ Instruments Choir Orchestra Music Drama and Stage Music
To nocturner
1961 • Tage Nielsen
Solo
Paesaggi
1985 • Tage Nielsen
2-6 Instruments
A Sentimental Journey
2002 • Tage Nielsen
2-6 Instruments
Retrospekt
2001 • Tage Nielsen
7+ Instruments
In tribulatione mea
1985 • Tage Nielsen
Choir
Nocturne
1996 • Tage Nielsen
Solo
Songs of Sun, Wind, and Darkness
1999 • Tage Nielsen
2-6 Instruments
Tre danske korsange
1998 • Tage Nielsen
Choir
6 Epigrammer
1998 • Tage Nielsen
2-6 Instruments
Trio Semplice
1997 • Tage Nielsen
2-6 Instruments
Konzertstück
1998 • Tage Nielsen
7+ Instruments
Canzone per oboe solo
1997 • Tage Nielsen
Solo
Fantasistykke
1997 • Tage Nielsen
Solo
Improvisation og Fuga
1983 • Tage Nielsen
2-6 Instruments
Ballade
1984 • Tage Nielsen
Solo
Passacaglia
1982 • Tage Nielsen
Orchestra
Lamento og Koralfantasi
1995 • Tage Nielsen
Solo
Diptykon
1996 • Tage Nielsen
2-6 Instruments
Drei Lieder
1995 • Tage Nielsen
7+ Instruments
Uccelli
1992 • Tage Nielsen
Solo
4 Miniaturer
1963 • Tage Nielsen
Orchestra
Pastorale
1990 • Tage Nielsen
2-6 Instruments
Toccata
1951 • Tage Nielsen
Solo
A Winter’s Tale
1994 • Tage Nielsen
2-6 Instruments
Opstilling og landskab
1981 • Tage Nielsen
Solo
5 poems by William Blake
1979 • Tage Nielsen
7+ Instruments
Sonate for piano, op. 3
• Tage Nielsen
Solo
Salon
1984 • Tage Nielsen
2-6 Instruments
Attisk Sommer
1974 • Tage Nielsen
7+ Instruments
Varianter
1963 • Tage Nielsen
Solo
Ritual
1989 • Tage Nielsen
7+ Instruments
Five Romantic Songs
1994 • Tage Nielsen
7+ Instruments
Latter i Mørket (Laughter in the Dark)
1992 • Tage Nielsen
Music Drama and Stage Music
5 Operafragmenter
1986 • Tage Nielsen
7+ Instruments
The Frosty Silence in the Gardens
1990 • Tage Nielsen
Solo
Tre karakterstykker og en epilog
1974 • Tage Nielsen
Solo
Marker og Enge
1971 • Tage Nielsen
Solo
Three Black Madrigals
1978 • Tage Nielsen
Choir