World Premiere:  October 8, 1903
Last HSO Performance: October 25, 2007
Instrumentation: 3 flutes with 3rd doubling piccolo, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, 1 tuba, timpani and strings
Duration: 12 minutes

Carl Nielsen

In 1884, Carl Nielsen left his native village on the Danish island of Funen, and enrolled at the Copenhagen Conservatory, where he majored in violin and also studied composition, theory, piano and, with Niels Gade, music history. He completed the Conservatory’s curriculum in 1886, but continued studying theory at the school while supporting himself as a free-lance violinist in Copenhagen by performing in chamber concerts and with the orchestra at Tivoli Gardens. He turned seriously to composition during that time — two pieces for string orchestra were given at Tivoli in 1887, and a string quartet was played by a local chamber music society the following year. His first major success came with the premiere of the Little Suite for Strings by the Tivoli Orchestra on September 8, 1888, which was published the following year as his Op. 1.

On September 1, 1889, Nielsen joined the second violin section of the Royal Chapel Orchestra, a post he held for the next sixteen years while continuing to foster his reputation as a leading figure in Danish music. He received a leave of absence during the 1890-1891 season to study Wagnerian music drama in Germany under a government grant, and made a swing through Paris in the spring to immerse himself in the artistic treasures of that city. Paris worked its charms on him, and so did a young Danish sculptress, Anne Marie Broderson, who was studying there that year — they were married only a month after they first met, and honeymooned in Italy to indulge their shared interest in art. When they returned to Copenhagen in the summer of 1891, Nielsen was inspired to undertake his first symphony (he dedicated the score to Anne Marie); he completed the work the following year.

Nielsen’s reputation grew with his works of the ensuing decade, most notably the Second Symphony and the opera Saul and David, but he was still financially unable to quit his job with the Chapel Orchestra to devote himself fully to composition. It was therefore with considerable excitement that he signed a contract with the prestigious publishing firm of Wilhelm Hansen early in 1903 that would provide him with a regular income and the chance, two years later, to leave behind his performing chores. Fortune smiled again that year on the Nielsens, when Anne Marie was awarded the Ancker Fellowship. The couple celebrated their flourishing careers with a stay in Greece, where they took rooms overlooking the Aegean Sea and Carl found a studio at the Odeion Conservatory in Athens. His immersion in the ancient Greek culture and the beneficent climate inspired him to begin a concert overture depicting the sun’s traversal of the heavens. “It’s blistering hot here now,” he wrote to a friend at home. “Helios burns the whole day, and I write away at my new solar system; a long introduction with sunrise and morning song is finished, and I’ve begun the allegro.” Nielsen finished his Helios Overture before returning to Copenhagen that summer, and participated among the second violins at the premiere, given by the Royal Chapel Orchestra under the direction of Johan Svendsen on October 8, 1903. Though the work met with mixed responses when it was new, it soon established itself in the Danish concert repertory, and has become a regular part of that country’s New Year’s celebrations. 

Nielsen headed the Helios Overture with the following legend: “Silence and darkness — then the sun climbs in joyous paean of praise — wanders its golden path — sinks tranquilly into the sea.” The work opens with a spacious slow introduction that rises from an anticipatory hum in the deep bass and soft rising calls in the horns to encompass the full orchestra to depict the dawn. Trumpet fanfares lead to the main body of the composition, a quick-tempo, sonata-form construction with a heroic main theme pronounced by the violins and a lyrical subsidiary melody initiated by the cellos. The center of the Overture is occupied by a spirited fugato. The main theme returns in a grand setting before a passage of atmospheric, slow-moving chords suggests the twilight. The work ends with a brief, quiet reference to the music of the introduction to indicate the descent of night