Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen
Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen
Person from Denmark
Genres: contemporary classical, composer, vocal, Classical, danish
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About Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen
Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (21 November 1932 – 27 June 2016) was a Danish composer. Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, and was the son of the sculptor Jørgen Gudmundsen-Holmgreen. He studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen, with Finn Høffding, Svend Westergaard, Bjørn Hjelmborg, and Vagn Holmboe (instrumentation), graduating in 1958. Amongst other works, he composed fourteen string quartets and a Concerto Grosso for string quartet and orchestra, written for the Kronos Quartet, which he referred to as "Vivaldi on Safari". He won the Nordic Council Music Prize in 1980 for his Symfoni/Antifoni. His compositional debut took place in 1955 at the Music Festival of the Scandinavian Conservatories with Variationer for cello solo (1954). In this work, as well as in his other early compositions like the first two string quartets, there is an obvious influence of neo-classicism and, more particularly, of Bartók. Gudmundsen-Holmgreen would become influenced by serialism, being particularly interested in the problems concerning time and rhythm. An example of works from this period is Chronos (1962). Already in this early work we can see the composer's intersect in geometric organization of frozen modules. Just a few years later Gudmundsen-Holmgreen abandoned serialism and his new works - such as Collegium Musicum Konsert (1964) and Mester Jakob (1964) - became defiantly anti-romantic. Absurdism and grotesque humour enter his works, influenced by Beckett; Jamais (1966) is an example of this style. In the mid sixties he turned to what is called 'New Simplicity', being a reaction to the 'New Complexity' movement as well as a means of getting away from the laws of serialism. The result in his music was an insertion of 'everyday elements', repetitions and banalities. His music became more ritualistic, opening itself and disclosing underlying possibilities. Compositions like Tricolore I (1966), Tricolore IV (1969) and Plateaux pour deux (1970) are good examples of this technique. In Tricolore IV we hear only 3 chords throughout the whole piece, while in Plateaux pour deux it is the instrumentation that draws attention: cello and car-horns. At the same time Gudmundsen-Holmgreen still used sophisticated constructions. Several works are based on a mirror scale, symmetrically dividing the composition around a central tone, like in his Spejl pieces. In the mid-seventies he started to insert quotations and fragments of older music, filtered through his 'tone-sieve' system. Works from this period are Genbrug (1975) and Symfony, Antiphony (1977). Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen has won several prizes such as the Lange-Müller Stipend in 1965, the Herman Sandby Prize in 1971, the Carl Nielsen Prize in 1973, the Music Prize of the Nordic Council for his Symphony, Antiphony in 1980 and the Wilhelm Hansen Prize in 1996.
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