Per Nørgård

Per Nørgård was born in Gentofte, Denmark in 1932. He studied with Vagn Holmboe privately at age 17, and then formally at Royal Danish Academy of Music, Copenhagen, with Holmboe, Harald Høffding and Herman David Koppel. From 1956 to 1957, he subsequently studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger, who had taught many leading composers of the time. Nørgård soon gained his own teaching positions, first at the Odense Conservatory in 1958, and then at the Royal Danish Conservatory of Music in 1960.[2][3] His students at the latter included the composer Carl Davis.[4] Between 1958 and 1962, Nørgård had a stint as a music critic for the newspaper Politiken.[3] He left these positions to teach composition at the Royal Academy of Music, Aarhus/Aalborg in 1965.[2] Here he taught many composers who would go on to have major careers, including Hans Abrahamsen,[2] Hans Gefors,[5] Karl Aage Rasmussen,[2] Bent Sørensen,[2]

To begin with, he was strongly influenced by the Nordic styles of Jean Sibelius, Carl Nielsen and Vagn Holmboe. In the 1960s, Nørgård began exploring the modernist techniques of central Europe, eventually developing a serial compositional system based on the "infinity series",[6] which he used in his Voyage into the Golden Screen, the Second and Third Symphonies, I Ching, and other works of the late 1960s and 70s.[7] Later he became interested in the Swiss artist Adolf Wölfli, who inspired many of Nørgård's works,[8] including the Fourth Symphony, the opera Det Guddommelige Tivoli and Papalagi for solo guitar.

Nørgård has composed works in all major genres: six operas, two ballets, eight symphonies and other pieces for orchestra, several concertos, choral and vocal works, a very large number of chamber works (among them ten string quartets) and several solo instrumental works. These include a number of works for the guitar, mostly written for the Danish guitarist Erling Møldrup: In Memory Of... (1978), Papalagi (1981), a series of suites called Tales from a Hand (1985–2001), Early Morn (1997–98) and Rondino Amorino (1999). One of his most important works for percussion solo is I Ching (1982) for the Danish percussionist Gert Mortensen. He has also composed music for several films, including The Red Cloak (1966), Babette's Feast (1987), and Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (1993).

His eighth symphony was premiered on 19 September 2012 in the Helsinki Music Centre, Finland, by the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by John Storgårds. Heikki Valska from the Finnish radio described the symphony as "very bright and lyrical" and "approachable". It was well received by the audience at the premiere.[9] It was later recorded by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sakari Oramo.

Nørgård is also a prolific writer. He has written many articles dealing with music not only from a technical but also a philosophical viewpoint.

with numbers=scale steps and 0=A

Nørgård's music often features the use of the infinity series (Danish Uendelighedsrækken) for serializing melody, harmony, and rhythm in musical composition. The method takes its name from the endlessly self-similar nature of the resulting musical material,[10] comparable to fractal geometry. Mathematically, the infinity series is an integer sequence. "Invented in an attempt to unify in a perfect way repetition and variation,"[11] the first few terms of its simplest form are 0, 1, −1, 2, 1, 0, 0, 1, −2, 3, ….[11]

Nørgård discovered the melodic infinity series in 1959 and it proved an inspiration for many of his works during the 1960s. However, it was not until his Voyage into the Golden Screen for small ensemble (1968)—which has been identified as the first "properly instrumental piece of spectral composition"[12] —and Symphony No. 2 (1970) that it provided the structure for an entire work.[13] The harmonic and rhythmic infinity series were developed in the early 1970s and the three series were first integrated in Nørgård's Symphony No. 3.

• Nørgård, Per (1973–1974). "Gilgamesh – en 5000-årig aktualitet" [Gilgamesh - A 5000-year-old Topicality]. Nutida musik (in Danish). 17 (1): 5–7.
• —— (1975) [1974]. Inside a Symphony (PDF). Translated by L. K. Christensen. Numus-West 2, no. 2: 4–16
• —— (1982). Hansen, Ivan (ed.). Per Nørgård artikler 1962–1982 [Per Nørgård articles 1962–1982] (in Danish). Copenhagen: København. OCLC 465831476.
• —— (1985–1986). "Hastighed og acceleration" [Speed and acceleration]. Dansk Musiktidsskrift (in Danish). 60: 179–186.
• —— (1986–1987). "Flerdimensionaler agogik" [Multidimensional agogics]. Dansk Musiktidsskrift (in Danish). 61: 19–25.

• Lili Boulanger Prize (1957)[3]
• Nordic Council Music Prize (1974) for his opera Gilgamesh[3]
• Léonie Sonning Music Prize (1996; Denmark)
• Wihuri Sibelius Prize (2006)
• Marie-Josée Kravis Prize for New Music (2014)[14]
• Ernst von Siemens Music Prize (2016)

• Anderson, Julian (October 1997). "The Many Patterns of Per Nørgård". Tempo (202): 3–7. JSTOR 945758.
• Anderson, Julian (2004) [2001]. "Nørgård, Per". Grove Music Online. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.20066. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
• Jensen, Jørgen I. (January–March 1995). "At the Boundary Between Music and Science: From per Nørgård to Carl Nielsen". Fontes Artis Musicae. 42 (1): 55–61. JSTOR 23508392.
• Reynolds, William H. (2002) [1992]. "Nørgård, Per (opera)". Grove Music Online. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.O009621. (subscription or UK public library membership required)

• Bjørnum, Birgit (1983). Per Nørgårds Kompositioner: En Kronologisk-Tematisk Fortegnelse Over Værkerne 1949-1982 [Per Nørgård's Compositions: A Chronological-Thematic List of Works 1949-1982] (in Danish). Copenhagen: Wilhelm Hansen. OCLC 894559488.
• Beyer, Anders, ed. (1996). The Music of Per Nørgård: Fourteen Interpretative Essays. Aldershot: Scolar. ISBN 978-1-85928-313-4.
• Christensen, Jean (1989). "Per Nørgård – Widening the Framework". Musical Denmark. Danish Cultural Institute (1): 3–5.
• Rasmussen, Karl Åage; Høm, Jesper (1991). Noteworthy Danes: Portraits of 11 Danish Composers. Copenhagen: Wilhelm Hansen. pp. 29–40. OCLC 464055360.

• The infinity series – composer's website
• Per Nørgård at IMDb
• Per Nørgård kompositioner @ www.kb.dk (Danish)