Nancy Dalberg

Nancy Dalberg (born July 6, 1881 in Drøsselbjerg , † September 28, 1949 in Frederiksberg ) was a Danish composer.

Life

The daughter of the manufacturer Christian Hansen grew up on Fyn and had piano lessons as a child. She had known the composer Hilda Sehested, twenty years her senior, since she was a child . She became a piano student of Ove Christensen and made her first public appearance as a pianist at a charity concert in 1907, where she played works by Mozart , Beethoven and Chopin .

After an arm injury she gave up playing the piano and took composition lessons with Fini Valdemar Henriques and, from 1909, with Johan Svendsen , after his death with the famous Carl Nielsen until 1913 . Nielsen introduced her mainly to the instrumentation and entrusted her with the instrumentation of her own compositions such as Aladdin and Fynsk Forår .

Dalberg's own compositional work was created between 1914 and the late 1930s. Her first string quartet was successfully premiered at a private concert in 1914. At a public concert the following year, in addition to the string quartet, a scherzo for string orchestra, an andante serioso and fantasy piece for cello and piano as well as songs were performed.

In 1917 Dalberg was the first woman in Denmark to compose a symphony, the following year a capriccio for orchestra, both works were performed under Nielsen's direction. In the years that followed, mainly chamber music works were created, including two further string quartets, the last of which was dedicated to Nielsen, and two fantasy pieces for violin and piano, the second of which Dalberg dedicated to the violinist Emil Telmányi .

After a trip to North Africa in 1922–23, Dalberg composed Arabic music from the Sahara for oboe, viola and percussion. In addition, songs were created mainly from texts by contemporary Danish poets such as Mads Nielsen , Thor Lange and Hans Hartvig Seedorff Pedersen , who were included in the repertoire and made famous by singers such as Anders Brems , Else Ammentorp and Ingeborg Steffensen .

Web links

• Nancy Dalberg String Quartet No.2 Short biography
• Detailed résumé at Dacapo Records