Vagn Gylding Holmboe (; 20 December 1909 – 1 September 1996) was a Danish composer and teacher.

Early life and education

Vagn Holmboe was born in Horsens, Jutland, into a merchant family of dedicated amateur musicians. Both parents played the piano. His father earned his living as a maker of colours and lacquers at Horsens. The Danish journalist Knud Holmboe was his elder brother.

From the age of 14 Vagn Holmboe took violin lessons. In 1926, at the age of 16, he began formal music training at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen on the recommendation of Carl Nielsen. He studied under Knud Jeppesen (theory) and Finn Høffding (composition).

Career

After finishing his studies in 1929 he moved to Berlin where for a short period Ernst Toch became his teacher. During his time in the German capital he met the Romanian-born pianist and visual artist Meta May Graf (1910–2003) from Sibiu/Hermannstadt. She had studied at the Musikhochschule Berlin since 1929, with Paul Hindemith as one of her teachers. The couple married in 1933 and left Berlin for Romania, where they visited obscure and remote villages and studied Transylvanian folk-song.

Vagn Holmboe's students included Per Nørgård, Ib Nørholm, Bent Lorentzen, Arne Nordheim, Egil Hovland and Alan Stout.

Vagn and his wife Meta had bought a piece of land at Lake Arresø in Ramløse/Zealand in 1940, where they set up a farm, "Arre Boreale" (Latin for Northern Arresø), in the 1950s and spent the rest of their lives together there. Vagn Holmboe was a keen nature-lover who lived in the countryside until his death in 1996 and over the years personally planted 3000 trees on his land.

Major works

(M.—Meta number—for Metamorphosis. Might also be said to be named after his wife, Meta May Holmboe... numbering system assembled by Prof.

Symphonies:

  • Symphony No. 1, 1935, for chamber orchestra, M. 85
  • Symphony No. 2, 1938–9, M. 107
  • Symphony No. 3, 1941, Sinfonia rustica, M. 126
  • Symphony No. 4, 1941, Sinfonia sacra for chorus and orchestra, M. 132
  • Symphony No. 5, 1944, M. 145
  • Symphony No. 6, 1947, M. 155
  • Symphony No. 7, 1950, M. 167
  • Symphony No. 8, 1952, Sinfonia boreale, M. 175
  • Symphony No. 9, 1967–9, M. 235
  • Symphony No. 10, 1970–2, M. 250 (premiered by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra under Sixten Ehrling)
  • Symphony No. 11, 1980–1, M. 304
  • Symphony No. 12, 1988, M. 338
  • Symphony No. 13, 1993–4, M. 362
  • Chamber Symphony No. 1, 1951, M. 171
  • Chamber Symphony No. 2, 1968, M. 240
  • Chamber Symphony No. 3, 1969–70, M. 246
  • Sinfonia in memoriam, 1954–5, M. 185
  • Sinfonia I for strings, M. 194
  • Sinfonia II for strings, M. 196
  • Sinfonia III for strings, M. 200
  • Sinfonia IV for strings, M. 215 (Kairos)
  • Symphonic metamorphoses for orchestra:
  • Epitaph, 1956, M. 189 (premiered by the BBC Symphony Orchestra)
  • Monolith, 1960, M. 207
  • Epilog, 1961–2, M. 213
  • Tempo variabile (Changeable weather), 1971–2, M. 254

Ten Preludes for Sinfonietta

  • No. 1: To a Pine Tree, Op 164, No 1 (1986)
  • No. 2: To a Dolphin (1986)
  • No. 3: To a Maple Tree (1986)
  • No. 4: To a Willow Tree, Op 170, No 4 (1987)
  • No. 5: To a Living Stone (1987)
  • No. 6: To the Seagulls and the Cormorants, Op 174, No 6 (1987)
  • No. 7: To the Pollution of Nature, Op 180, No 7 (1989)
  • No. 8: To the Victoria Embankment (1990)
  • No. 9: To the Calm Sea, Op 187, No 9 (1991)
  • No. 10: To the Unsettled Weather (1991)

Concertos: (about twenty, including especially):

  • Concerto for Trumpet and Chamber Orchestra, 1948, M. 157. Eleventh of a series of 13 concertos with chamber orchestra originally called "chamber concertos"
  • Cello Concerto, 1974–9, M. 273
  • Recorder Concerto, 1974, M. 275
  • Flute Concerto No. 1, 1975–6, M. 279
  • Tuba Concerto, 1976, M. 280
  • Flute Concerto No. 2, 1981–2, M. 307

Choral

  • Liber Canticorum, motet series (1951–1984): 34 movements, contained in 17 opus numbers and five volumes
  • Requiem for Nietzsche for tenor, baritone, chorus, and orchestra, 1963–4, M. 219

Chamber:

  • String Quartets: 21 written, excluding numerous un-numbered student works
  • From No. 1, 1948–9, M. 159 to No. 20, 1985, M. 322 (this the last of four works representing the times of the day) (also a twenty-first, Quartetto sereno, completed by Per Nørgård)
  • Notturno for wind quintet, 1940, M. 118
  • Brass Quintets No. 1, 1961–2, M. 212, and No. 2, 1978, M.293
  • Two Sonatas for guitar, Opp. 141–2
  • Music with Horn, Op 148 (1981)
  • Five Intermezzi for guitar, Op. 149
  • Sonata for Trombone and Piano, Op 172a (1987)

Commercial recordings of his symphonies by Owain Arwel Hughes are still available, as are recordings of his Ten Preludes for Sinfonietta (1986–1991), string quartets, chamber concertos, and some other works. His choral or brass music, or his wind Notturno from 1940 may be performed more often than his works for full or chamber orchestra.

Private tapes exist of performances of Holmboe's music; these were made by Fritz Mahler, Nikolai Malko, among others.

Bibliography

  • Holmboe wrote several books, including Danish Street Cries: A Study of Their Musical Structure and a Complete Edition of Tunes with Words Collected before 1960, translated by Anne Lockhart for Kragen, , published 1988.
  • Another is Experiencing Music. An English translation of this by Professor Paul Rapoport, formerly of McMaster University, published by Toccata Press in 1991 has in its paperback release.

References

Further reading

  • Edition Wilhelm Hansen's Holmboe Page at Wise Music Classical
  • Brief biography with a review
  • Vagn Gylding Holmboe. A short biography of the composer (in Danish).
  • [//www.youtube.com/watch?v=618aW0q3no4 Portræt af komponisten Vagn Holmboe (1991)]. A portrait of the composer from 1991 (in Danish).