News:

BEFORE POSTING read our Guidelines.

Main Menu

Fun With Kuhlau...the Danish Way!

Started by edurban, Wednesday 24 February 2010, 03:11

Previous topic - Next topic

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


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.  ;)