Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
Shdhdrazade songs, the first of which is incomplete,<br />
and four songs for voice and piano by Debussy' of<br />
which two are incomplete. These few examples'<br />
however, show her interpretation of French songs to<br />
be of international fomat. In 1950 she was elected<br />
"Honorary Artist" by the students of Copenhagen' and<br />
in his speech on this occasion Professor Nils Schigning<br />
said. "The secret behind the transmission of this art<br />
(...) is, of course, in the first place to comprehend the<br />
psyche out of which it was created; few can do this;<br />
add to this the ability to suPpress one's own feelings<br />
untler a glittering, multi-coloued but often glassily non<br />
committal surface. Then, and not till then will the<br />
artistic fire flare up with brightest flme. Else Brems<br />
masters this. She, like most otherhuman beings, knows<br />
and understands the passions which move the human<br />
heart. At the same time she is reticent, perhaps even<br />
afraid, ofbeing swept along by the cunent of emotions<br />
which threaten to overwhelm. Therefore she finds<br />
herself particulrly at home with an ar1 fom which<br />
demands reticence as a cover for turbulent feelings.<br />
An art fom which will only yield the essence of what<br />
poet and composer conceived when there is a glow of<br />
feeling behind the gla.sy surlace'.<br />
"La fl0te de Pan" from Chansons de Billtls, and "Romance"<br />
ate from a private recording of a radio transmission<br />
from the end of the 40s (II,9&10).<br />
From her ptrents Else Brems lemt to love the fteasury<br />
ofDanish songs, from the great romances to the simple<br />
stmzaic ballad. In this recording re included four songs<br />
by Peter Heise, the most important Danish lied composer.<br />
The first three are from a private recording of a<br />
concert in Tivoli in 1955. "I remember yet that place"<br />
is from a novel by Carsten Harch, Robert Fulton' rn<br />
which the girl Laura thinks with mournful longing of<br />
her home (II,1 1). "Poor heart, are you weary" is from a<br />
play by Jens Christian Hostrup. Ingeborg, a young girl'<br />
has been rescued from the sniles of the nix at the last<br />
moment by the sound ofthe churchbells. Thorsten, her<br />
beloved, finds her and sings this song to the girl who<br />
has fainted away (II, I 2). In "Spring Song ofthe Young<br />
Lrk" the piano descibes "con leggerezza'how the ltrk,<br />
intoxicated with spring, soars up towards the sky'<br />
jubilantly singing. The text is by the Danish poet Steen<br />
Steensen Blicher (II, l3). The only Heise song with Else<br />
Brems on a gramophone record is "Agnete's Lullaby"<br />
from the play Agnete and. the Merman by<br />
H.C.Andersen. Agnete at the bottom of the sea is<br />
singing to the baby she has had with the mermm (II,l4).<br />
Fini Henriques, a contemporary of Carl Nielsen, was<br />
primarily a violinist, but as a composer he was a<br />
melodist of mark. We include here his happy song<br />
"Spring" with a text by a long-forgotten Danish<br />
novelist, Ellen Reumert (II,15). The Danish composer<br />
dearest to Else Brems's heart was probably Peter<br />
Erasmus Lange-Mtiller His quiet, inttmate tone was<br />
highly congenial with her own charactel In his "The<br />
Sky Glows Faintly" he comes fairly close to<br />
impressionism (II,16). The "Neighbour's First Song",<br />
from a long-forgotten play by Sophus Bauditz' is a<br />
graceful little serenata which became a much-loved<br />
encore by her ever faithful, large audience (II, l7). The<br />
"Sunset" is a beautiful, moumful evening song with<br />
its muted sense of longing (II,l8), whereas "Firenze"<br />
is an enthusiastic homage to this "flowering" city of<br />
the South (II,l9).<br />
Else Brems worked primarily with three pianists For<br />
her d6but she was accompaniedby the outstanding Carl<br />
Nielsen interpreter, Christian Christiansen, and later on<br />
she had either Folmer Jensen, regular accompanist in<br />
Radio Denmrk, at the pimo, or Kjell Olsson, the highly<br />
esteemed accompanist of many great, foreign singers.<br />
Kjell OIsson accompanied her al concens. radio transmissions,<br />
and gramophone recordings.