Postwar Perspectives in Danish Musical Culture 1945

Few months after the end of the German occupation of Denmark in 1945, Gunnar Heerup in an essay (“Kulturen er udelelig” [Culture is indivisible], in: Levende musik, september 1945) argued, that Danish musical culture after the war had to aim at versatility and multiplicity. The national Danish tradition had been exploited through the years of occupation, and musical life had to open to international signals. This agenda was shared by other key figures in musical life but it was only realised eventually. The first concert under the auspices of the new music society DUT after the liberation took place on October the 30th 1945 in Copenhagen with the Orchestra of the Unge Tonekunstnere conducted by Lavard Friisholm. The programme was exclusively Danish and included works by Claus Schall and J.F. Frølich as well as first performances of two newly composed works: a Concerto for piano and orchestra by Bernhard Christensen and Herman D. Koppel’s Symphony nr. 3, op. 39. Through a case study of those two works and the reception of their first performance in the cultural perspective sketched above some important tendencies in Danish music in the middle of the 20th century can be shown.