Fun With Kuhlau...the Danish Way!

[edurban]

Apparently, in Denmark there is a well-known comedy film series about a goofy band of criminal would-be masterminds called the Olsen Gang (Olsen-banden.)  One of their most famous routines (Olsen-banden ser rodt [1976]) features a robbery pulled off to the wonderfully noisy overture Friedrich Kuhlau supplied for the play Elverhoj (Elfhill).  Here it is, from Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUNEX8Ncnc4&feature=related

In case you're wondering, everyone stands up when the Royalist anthem "King Christian Stood by the Lofty Mast"  appears in the finale...

David

[Gareth Vaughan]

Terrific fun! I loved it.

[Marcus]

The Danes certainly have a sense of humour, but I doubt if Kuhlau would be impressed, although if he were alive today, he would be impressed to see his multiple listings in the catalogue.
Marcus
.

[edurban]

Don't be sure, Marcus.  After all, Khulau used to sit around in taverns with Beethoven writing jokey canons.  Sounds like a fun guy...

David

[Marcus]

Yes edurban , I would have enjoyed a few ales with him. Those ale houses would probably leave today's establishments far behind, and the music ..... bawdy songs interspersed with piano sonatas - wow ! Perhaps I need to change pubs !
Cheers !
Marcus

[Peter1953]

Was Kuhlau indeed such a funny & sunny bloke?

When he left his native country at the age of fourteen, he found a very warm welcome in Denmark and was there much celebrated, that's true. That must have given him a lot of satisfaction. But as a child an accident with a pair of scissors caused him to lose an eye, followed by a long illness.
His PC is a marvellous work with an utterly powerful opening, full of sparkling themes, almost a perfect copy of Beethoven's op. 15. And he wrote a 2nd PC, but the score was destroyed by a fire in his house. A heavy loss.
However, maybe he saw everything from the bright side of life and some bad luck didn't spoil his good temper. The one-eyed Kuhlau on the spree with the deaf Beethoven.

[JimL]

I thought the accident that took his eye out was some kind of a fall in the street.  I hadn't heard that scissors were involved at all.

[Marcus]

The only reference to Kuhlau's loss of an eye, that I can find states it was an "early childhood accident."
Also, at the famous meeting with Beethoven in Vienna, in 1825, where both men enjoyed a drink or two, both wrote canons, the words of Beethoven's beginning with "Kuhl-nicht-lau".
Beethoven wrote to his friend the next day: "I must confess that the champagne got too much into my head last night,and has once more shown me that it rather confuses my wits than assists them; for though it is usually easy enough for me to give an answer on the spot, I declare I do not in the least recollect what I wrote last night. Think sometimes of your most faithfull Beethoven. "
Kuhlau lost his parents soon after, and his house was burnt down with many of his manuscripts in 1830. He was said to have been deeply affected by  this , and it hastened his death two years later.
Marcus.

Ref: Groves, & Cyclopedia Music & Musicians. (Oscar Thompson)

[Peter1953]

I thought I've read somewhere that the loss of an eye was due to a pair of scissors, but according to Wiki it's caused by an accident on the street. Never mind.