Writing for amateurs

By Erling Kullberg

Introduction

In general, Per Nørgård's works are not of the kind amateur musicians would be prepared to tackle. More often than not, the compositional   challenges the composer set out to meet in his works tend, correspondingly, to stretch the musicians who play them to the utmost. Just as often, nothing less than virtuoso performances are required of these musicians, along with considerable technical insight.

However, alongside this occupation with 'complicated' works that gave the composer no quarter, Per Nørgård has always shown an interest in writing for and being in contact with musicians of more limited skills: amateurs, children and young people.
This is presumably because he feels it important to be in constant touch with the broader spectrum of musical activities which in the last analysis supplement and round off the professional world; perhaps, too, because he feels that what he wants to express through his music should not be reserved to the inside circles of the elite.

In the earlier years - the1960s - he mostly wrote music for schools, or music that in some way or other was connected with children.
Later - at the end of the 1970s - he wrote a number of 'open works' which gathered together solo singers, choirs, musicians and dancers of all kinds in a common musical endeavour. These works were 'open' in terms of instrumentation and length and often as regards form.

Works from the 1960s

'Open works' in the 1970s, etc.