About this Piece

At the turn of the 20th century, Nordic countries had major composers to be proud of: Edvard Grieg in Norway, born in 1843; Carl Nielsen in Denmark, born in 1865; Jean Sibelius in Finland, also born in 1865; and Wilhelm Stenhammar in Sweden, born in 1871. They all felt deeply attached to their homelands even though they knew they had much to learn from the Viennese classics and the latest German music. Without the blatant nationalism espoused by Russian and Czech composers, they all respected the folklore of their countries and acknowledged its influence in their work. 

Nielsen was a country boy, familiar from childhood with Danish rustic life, but his early gift for music led him to the Copenhagen conservatory, where he studied the violin and the piano. Throughout his life he reached out for new ideas, new experiences, and a greater understanding of the world of feeling and expression. He rose steadily to a supreme position in Danish musical life.  

Playing string quartets as a student gave him a special attachment to Haydn and Mozart, and he composed a number of quartets of his own, all betraying his devotion to classical principles. He wrote the quartet in G minor in 1887–88 at the age of 22, after he had graduated from the conservatory and was trying to build a career. It was first performed on March 26, 1889, by Copenhagen’s Private Chamber Music Society.  

From 1889 to 1905 Nielsen played second violin in the Royal Danish Orchestra under Johan Svendsen, the Norwegian composer and conductor, an ideal position for absorbing a huge repertoire of symphonic music and opera, and also for developing an active career as a composer on the side. He managed to travel to Germany, Italy, and Paris, where he enjoyed seeing the art as much as hearing the music. With Wagner played in the opera house and Strauss tone poems in the concert hall during those years, you would expect the young Nielsen to have emulated their supercharged style, but his preference was for a more severe and classical manner, expressed in songs and chamber music and in his successful First Symphony of 1892. The five symphonies that followed display more distinctive, even eccentric, qualities and are today his best-known legacy. Along with Sibelius’ symphonies, they provide a bracing counterweight to the deeply expressive Mahlerian model.  

More than a decade after it was composed, the G-minor quartet reappeared in a revised form, and was published in 1900 as Op. 13 with a dedication to Svendsen. The quartet’s four movements are laid out after the classical model. After the opening statement the cello introduces a lovely cantilena as second subject, and the conflict between major and minor persists throughout the movement, which is orthodox in form and enthralling in detail.  

The “amoroso” instruction for the slow movement applies only to its outer sections and not to the disturbingly agitated central section. The scherzo is naturally lively while its Trio section employs a drone effect hinting at Nielsen’s peasant roots. 

The finale has rustic overtones, too, like some of Haydn’s finales. But this is highly sophisticated music, not peasant music at all. For a composer who later traveled all over Europe and became the leading composer of his nation, this was an important stride forward on the path to fame. 

Grieg and Sibelius wrote a single mature string quartet each, both fine works. Stenhammar wrote six, the first four of which may well have been the stimulus that made his friend Nielsen revise and publish his own string quartet in G minor. —Hugh Macdonald