Selected Songs

Intriguing Depths

By Christine Canals-Frau

Poul Julius Ouscher Schierbeck was born on 8 June 1888, into a Copenhagen family with a profound passion for theatre and music. His father, a doctor and member of the Student Choir Association, along with both parents, played various instruments. Thus, Poul learned to play the piano and mandolin at an early age; later, he also sang in the same choir as his father. At the age of 19, he began composing a couple of works for male choir while receiving private lessons from Carl Nielsen and Thomas Laub (composition), Paul Hellmuth (organ), Henrik Knudsen (piano), and later, American Frank van der Stucken (conducting).

Over the following years, his composition catalogue grew with numerous melodies, mostly for voice and piano based on texts from Thor Lange’s Fjerne melodier (Distant Melodies), but also several piano pieces. As a student of Carl Nielsen, he contributed to Johan Borup’s songbook in 1916 with ‘Du kære, blide danske bæk’ (‘You Dear, Gentle Danish Brook’) along with four other melodies. The year before, he made his debut as a composer at a presentation concert on 1 November at the Odd Fellow Palace in Copenhagen.

Poul Schierbeck c. 1919, The Royal Danish Library

In 1916, he took the position of organist at Skovshoved Church, where he would continue until his death. There, he met the young soprano Sylvia Larsen. Eventually, they fell in love and were married in the summer of 1919. This marriage bore no children, but together they gave many concerts, with him accompanying her on the piano. That same year, he received the Ancker Foundation Scholarship, which obliged him to spend time abroad.

The Schierbeck couple thus travelled to Italy in March 1920. In Rome, they met authors Johannes Jørgensen, Peter Schindler and L.C. Nielsen; Schierbeck composed several songs based on the poems of the latter two. Poul and Sylvia’s next journey took them to Paris in 1923, where Poul cultivated his friendship with the composer Albert Roussel, whose opera ballet Padmâvatî  became a significant source of inspiration. His preference for French music, as opposed to German, would last his entire life.

During these years, Poul Schierbeck not only composed many songs but also a symphony, some cantatas, puppet music, and later, his opera Fête galante , which premiered in 1931 at the Royal Danish Theatre with Sylvia Schierbeck in the lead role. 1931 also marked the beginning of Schierbeck’s teaching career at the Royal Danish Academy of Music, where he taught instrumentation and composition. Among his most notable students were Jørgen Jersild, Leif Kayser and Jan Maegaard. Additionally, he taught privately and at a people’s (folk) music school in Hellerup.

The vocal production constitutes the largest and most significant part of Schierbeck’s compositions. Music for voice and works with voice or choir represent about 80 percent of his output, spanning his entire career as a composer. In his later years, he composed many cantatas, most of which were commissioned works. Additionally, he produced a couple of orchestral works, radio plays, chamber music and organ preludes. During the 1940s, film music also found a place in his compositional endeavours, notably the music for Carl Th. Dreyer’s film Vredens dag (Day of Wrath) (1943).

In late 1948, Poul Schierbeck fell seriously ill with tracheal cancer. He died in Copenhagen on 9 February 1949, at the age of 60.

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This release offers a wide selection of Poul Schierbeck’s song production. Both lyrics and music exhibit various expressions and moods, stylistically belonging to different periods of Schierbeck’s life, yet all testifying to the composer’s outstanding ability to interpret texts in music.

From Lange’s Distant Melodies, whose lyrics were adaptations of Slavic folk songs, five songs are featured in this release: ‘Du, min guldfisk’ (‘You, My Goldfish’), ‘Blomsterbrud’ (‘Flower Bride’) and ‘Træt’ (‘Tired’), published by Edition Wilhelm Hansen in 1912, as well as ‘I veninder, lyt!’ (‘Listen, O Friends!’) and ‘Legende fra Volga’ (‘Legend of the Volga’).

‘You, My Goldfish’ begins with a melody in major, which shifts to minor as the suitor is rejected by his young bride, only to conclude in major again. The piano alternates between independent accompaniment and playing the melody alongside the vocal line. ‘Flower Bride’ is in a bright major key with a beautiful melody, first in the piano’s prelude and then in the vocal line. In ‘Tired’, sorrow is expressed through the minor key via a gentle vocal theme with consistent rhythm and simple melodic elements. In contrast, ‘Listen, O Friends!’ and ‘Legend of the Volga’ have a considerably more dramatic character and length, contrasting with the other songs.

‘Vårbud’ (’Spring Courier’) features lyrics by Carl Christian Jessen, a doctor, professor and singer in the Student Choir Association. At the choir’s concerts, he often sang solo parts alongside his close friend, Poul’s father, who had a beautiful voice. Additionally, Jessen was the resident poet for the choir, and several of his poems were set to music by Poul Schierbeck.

The lyrics of Den kinesiske fløjte (The Chinese Flute) are Eugen Franks’s Danish translations of ancient Chinese poems, some from the Tang dynasty (c. 600–900 AD), and others later. This song cycle stands as one of Schierbeck’s finest works. Both the vocal line and piano accompaniment express and illustrate the poems in a refined manner, for example, in ‘Vårregnen’ (‘The Spring Rain’), where the piano depicts the pouring rain, or the quiet, flowing river in ’sang på floden’ (’song on the River’). In ‘De tre prinsesser’ (‘The Three Princesses’), the singing voice expresses their fantasy world with a children’s song-like melody, and in ‘Den trofaste hustru’ (‘The Faithful Wife’), the woman’s complex emotions are portrayed.

After 1924, almost all Schierbeck’s songs become strophic, likely because of the era’s focus on simple, folk-like songs. ‘Du kære, blide danske bæk’ (‘You Dear, Gentle Danish Brook’), ‘Det er i dag et vejr’ (’Such Weather Today’), ‘I Danmark er jeg født ‘(‘In Denmark I Was Born’) and ’stæren’ (‘The Starling’) are strophic and tonal, with fairly easy and pleasant melodies.

The melody of ’Such Weather Today’ was used in Carl Th. Dreyer’s Ordet (The Word) (1955), and ‘In Denmark I Was Born’ was composed as a replacement for Henrik Rung’s melody. Here, Schierbeck employs Carl Nielsen’s and Thomas Laub’s principles: singable melody with small intervals and uniform note values. In this song, he also places the melody in the piano part, which then becomes his most frequently used principle.

‘En dæmpet strofe’ (‘A Muted Verse’) (from the Student Choir Association’s Freshman Cantata , with music by several composers) is the last work Poul Schierbeck managed to compose before falling seriously ill. After the premiere of the cantata on 9 December 1948, baritone Thorkel Riisager (brother of the composer Knudåge Riisager) sang ‘A Muted Verse’ almost every year until 1976.

‘Nocturne’ is composed over Peter Schindler’s poem ’skumringsbøn’ (‘Twilight Prayer’). The accompaniment for piano or organ suits the poem’s religious mood, which is also illustrated by the psalm ‘Fra himlen højt kom budskab her’ (‘From Heaven Above to Earth I Come’) appearing in the instrumental accompaniment and later in the vocal line.

‘Nævner min tanke’ (‘Mentioning My Thought’) belongs among Schierbeck’s earliest works. It is based on melodic elements that finely express the dreamy thought and the feeling of loss, sorrow, and darkness.

This album features two songs by Schierbeck based on poems by Hugo Marx-Nielsen: ‘Jeg drømte’ (‘I Dreamed’) and ‘Majalil’. Harmonically, ‘I Dreamed’ can be considered one of the most modernist pieces in Schierbeck’s song production. In each bar, the piano plays a brief lamenting melody consisting of three chords followed by a deep fifth in a regular rhythm of crotchets. The vocal line employs a different, also repetitive rhythm, and together with the slow tempo, these elements express both the dream and the sorrow. The original poem for ‘Majalil’ was titled ‘Come, Darling’. The song is strophic with a charming melody in the vocal line.

‘Hafiz’ grav’ (‘Tomb of Hafez’) is available in both Danish and French versions. The French version was successfully performed at a Danish concert in Paris in 1923 and published in France the following year. The song is through-composed and alternates between the delicate and the dramatic.

’Herremanden’ (‘The Squire’) and ’Visen om hvordan det gik hr. T.’ (‘The Song of How Mr T Fared’) are from Nye satiriske viser (New Satirical Songs). Both of these strophic songs have humorous melodies and an accompaniment that utilises a light, bouncing staccato rhythm.

The Danish text, retranslated into French by Paul Verrier under the title ‘Chant de Viking’, is N.F.S. Grundtvig’s Bjarkemål (Bjarke’s Tongue). It begins with repeated chords on the piano and a small fanfare with the rhythm of a rooster crowing as an illustration of ‘the rooster’s call summoning you!’ The singing voice sounds throughout like the call it is: ‘Wake up, heroes! Wake up, Danes!’ supported by a strong, energetic accompaniment. The work also exists in a later version for voice and orchestra.