Jørgen Jersild
1913 - 2004
Danish
Summary
Jørgen Jersild’s music is always marked by a timbral refinement with a certain inspiration from Cesar Franck and a persistently seamless musical timing. His early works sit in the intersection between the Danish and French traditions,whose inspirations the mature Jersild synthesized into his own personal style, as can be heard in his Three Romantic Songs for Chorus (1971), for example.
His output is limited to a small handful of works: chamber music, choral music, piano music and not least a number of works for harp.
Jersild’s prizes include the title of Choral Composer of the Year in 1995 and the Carl Nielsen and Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen Honorary Grant in 1999.
Critical Acclaim
...Jersild's music is marked by the elegant and sometimes the virtuosic, based on a mastery of the craft - Erling KullbergBiography
"Music should shine by itself"
Jørgen Jersild was active both as a composer and a music teacher. He was a pupil of the Danish composer Poul Schierbeck and the Frenchman Albert Roussel. His point of departure in tonality and French inspiration can be heard clearly in his breakthrough work Trois Pièces en Concert, and the very often-performed wind quintet Serenade – Playing in the Forest.
His work with choirs and perhaps especially the harp later took Jørgen Jersild’s musical idiom in a more modal direction. This can be heard for example in the quartet Fantasia E Canto Affetuoso or Fantasia for harp.
From the 1970s on Jersild developed a particularly original personal style. This is perhaps most evident in the choral work Il Canto Delle Creature, 15 Piano Pieces for Julie, or the rarely played string quartet.
Both as a teacher and as a cultural figure Jørgen Jersild went to work with curiosity and an open mind. Entrenched positions and fixed opinions had no inherent justification for him. By rethinking and renewing the classic disciplines of sol-fa and ear training Jørgen Jersild thus situated himself centrally in modern music teaching internationally. His textbooks in the two subjects are still widely used today.
On the issue of his attitude to Arnold Schoenberg and atonal music Jersild answered in a interview in 1999: "...I think it’s rather putting the cart before the horse to begin with the theoretical and then make the music. Music should shine by itself. And then maybe sometimes it’s given to a later generation to extract some technical. theoretical ideas from it. I have difficulty following atonal music because I think that the results don’t suggest that it’s a good approach.”
Jersild’s statement – and a number of incisive debate articles against the more experimental part of music in the 1960s – are not to be understood as exclusively reactionary. They are rather a view that personality and originality interested him far more than dogma and trends.
Jersild did not only work with choral and chamber music;there was also room for background music for stage and radio plays, films and even a winning song in the Danish Eurovision Song Contest in 1965 in a small but always exclusive and sophisticated musical output.
Hjarne Fessel 2014
Jørgen Jersild was active both as a composer and a music teacher. He was a pupil of the Danish composer Poul Schierbeck and the Frenchman Albert Roussel. His point of departure in tonality and French inspiration can be heard clearly in his breakthrough work Trois Pièces en Concert, and the very often-performed wind quintet Serenade – Playing in the Forest.
His work with choirs and perhaps especially the harp later took Jørgen Jersild’s musical idiom in a more modal direction. This can be heard for example in the quartet Fantasia E Canto Affetuoso or Fantasia for harp.
From the 1970s on Jersild developed a particularly original personal style. This is perhaps most evident in the choral work Il Canto Delle Creature, 15 Piano Pieces for Julie, or the rarely played string quartet.
Both as a teacher and as a cultural figure Jørgen Jersild went to work with curiosity and an open mind. Entrenched positions and fixed opinions had no inherent justification for him. By rethinking and renewing the classic disciplines of sol-fa and ear training Jørgen Jersild thus situated himself centrally in modern music teaching internationally. His textbooks in the two subjects are still widely used today.
On the issue of his attitude to Arnold Schoenberg and atonal music Jersild answered in a interview in 1999: "...I think it’s rather putting the cart before the horse to begin with the theoretical and then make the music. Music should shine by itself. And then maybe sometimes it’s given to a later generation to extract some technical. theoretical ideas from it. I have difficulty following atonal music because I think that the results don’t suggest that it’s a good approach.”
Jersild’s statement – and a number of incisive debate articles against the more experimental part of music in the 1960s – are not to be understood as exclusively reactionary. They are rather a view that personality and originality interested him far more than dogma and trends.
Jersild did not only work with choral and chamber music;there was also room for background music for stage and radio plays, films and even a winning song in the Danish Eurovision Song Contest in 1965 in a small but always exclusive and sophisticated musical output.
Hjarne Fessel 2014
Performances
29th April 2024
- PERFORMERS
- Students from the Royal Danish Academy of Music
- LOCATION
- Royal Danish Academy of Music, Frederiksberg, Denmark