Anders Nordentoft

b. 1957

Danish

Summary

It has been said that Anders Nordentoft’s music offers its listeners ‘an outstretched hand.’

His music takes direct communication as its starting point, whether through clear narrative, sensual lyricism or an almost physical impulse that seizes the attention. The composer once claimed he set out to create music both ordinary and fantastic at the same time, like a normal day of the week. 

Nordentoft studied violin and composition at the Royal Danish Academy of Music with Ib Nørholm and composition at the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus with Per Nørgård. Over the course of a four-decade career writing music, he has prioritized structural coherence while insisting his music convey the bigger picture of life on earth. 

Anders Nordentoft has written over 70 published works for orchestras and ensembles of all sizes and configurations and has taught composition at the Royal Danish Academy of Music. 

He was awarded the Carl Nielsen Prize in 1997, the Edition Wilhelm Hansen Award in 2002 and the Carl Prize in 2021. From 2020-22 he was composer-in-residence at Denmark’s foremost ensemble for new music, Athelas Sinfonietta.

Andrew Mellor, 2019 & 2023

Critical Acclaim
...No Danish compositions are carried on intuition as much as the best ones of Nordentoft are - Søren Schauser, Politiken

...
Nordentoft have played both the violin at the finest places, and rock music with his friends. In short, he is a musician of soul and mind - Søren Schauser, Politiken

Biography

It has been said that Anders Nordentoft’s music offers its listeners ‘an outstretched hand.’ His works are refreshingly free of dogma and take direct communication as their starting point, whether through clear narrative, sensual lyricism or an almost physical impulse that seizes the attention. The composer once claimed he set out to create music both ordinary and fantastic at the same time, like a normal day of the week.

Nordentoft studied violin and composition at the Royal Danish Academy of Music with Ib Nørholm and composition at the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus with Per Nørgård. Over the course of a four-decade career writing music, he has exercised extreme discipline - prioritizing structural coherence while insisting it convey the bigger picture of life on earth. The composer’s theatre piece On This Planet (2002) proved a landmark in Nordic music theatre, a work that forged a new idiom from the varied strands of Nordentoft’s creative work. It communicated the essence of human life with straightforwardness and passion.  

A strong rhythmic emphasis characterized many of Nordentoft’s works of the 1980s. The orchestral score Entgegen (1985) judders forwards with driving insistence. The solo cello work Cathedral (1985) weaves a single thread that builds huge cumulative power, expanding to fill the space implied by its title. The orchestral work Born (1986) probes issues of ethics and destiny, originally marking the 25th anniversary of its commissioner, Amnesty International. 

In the decade that followed, that focus began to link arms with sensuality, lyricism and harmonic depth. The Shadow of This Lip (1990) for soprano, violin and piano with a text by Sylvia Plath adumbrates a new sensitivity to melody while Zenevera sesio (1992) for ensemble generates a hovering, looping sound-space inspired by Michael Strunge’s psychedelic poem. Distant Night Ship (1996) casts the orchestra as a huge glinting object. The cello concerto Light Imprisoned (originally Sweet Kindness, 1996) consists of an arching structure pinned into place by two cadenzas, the solo cello playing a searching elegy in between.  

Both those scores were, in a sense, archetype Nordentoft -establishing an atmosphere and then examining it like a prism in rotation. Light Imprisoned, in particular, features a classically Nordic exploration of light (often by means of harmonics), while its rigid structure is echoed in the through-line of HillShapes-WindStillness (2000) and the organization of Pointed Out (2006), in which an existing kit-of-parts is re-assembled over time. The same sort of poetic logic, linked to the unfolding patterns propagated by the Aarhus School, exists in the piano trio Doruntine (1994) where the structural DNA is unraveled with great beauty. In Hymne (1996), block chords are deconstructed as notes are removed one by one.  

For two years from 2020, Nordentoft was composer-in-residence with Denmark’s foremost new music ensemble, Athelas Sinfonietta. He had previously written the ensemble piece Stream (2017) for Athelas, a tight, rhetoric-free conversation for chamber ensemble whose velocity is determined by its own undercurrents of unease.  

That work was followed by the first fruit of the residency, Balcony (2020) - a ‘complete, small symphony’ celebrating the composer’s obsession with balconies and the unusual perspective they offer on the world. There are Nordentoft hallmarks all over the piece, which carries with it the feeling of a delicate sculpture. In 2023 Balcony, with Stream, was released in a new recording by Dacapo. 

Many more Nordentoft works are driven by the idea of combining unlikely partners which maintain their independence. Dance of Separation (1998) is a vigorous workout for string sextet in which two elements bound by tension are prized apart. In City of Threads (1994), individuals face up to the threatening grandeur of the city while recurring, repeating notes convey the endless cycle of urban life.

That idea was taken forward in City Trance (2019), a frenetic score for solo piano that looks at various urban landscapes with a marked sense of perspective, as if viewing them from the windows of a skyscraper (foreshadowing Balcony). It won the Carl Prize in 2021 and came in the midst of a clutch of piano works including the enchanting portrait of a spider’s day in three movements for piano, Edderkop (2018, recorded by Dacapo in 2021), Rumours (2020), Roads for Piano (2023) and To Manuel (2022). 

Directly expressive vocal music has been a consistent thread through Nordentoft’s career. On This Planet (2002) is a series of wild, free-spirited songs that present a picture of one man’s journey through life and the fleeting spaciousness of existence. These were followed by song cycles that leave similarly powerful residues. Noch du bist du da (2018) set German verse by Rose Ausländer for soprano, piano and viola with a combination of spoken acuity, lyrical delicacy and pianistic focus that tapped the German lied tradition. Days I Have Held (2019), for high voice, clarinet, percussion and double bass, is a cutting, crystalline setting of poems by Derek Walcott.

Anders Nordentoft has written over 70 published works for orchestras and ensembles of all sizes and configurations and has taught composition at the Royal Danish Academy of Music. He was awarded the Carl Nielsen Prize in 1997, the Edition Wilhelm Hansen Award in 2002 and the Carl Prize in 2021.

Andrew Mellor, 2019 & 2023

News

  • International Piano Day 2023
  • Anders Nordentoft opens Athelas Sinfonietta’s autumn season
  • Anders Nordentoft har komponeret musik til forestillingen "Babelstorm – en sæbeopera".
  • Danish Firsts
    • Danish Firsts
    • 1st October 2005
    • Fact: Home of the Vikings. Fact: Slightly less than twice the size of Massachusetts. Fact: The land of The Little Match Girl, Thumbelina and The Ugly Duckling. Fact: The high employment rate is primarily due to the...

Performances

28th June 2025

SOLOISTS
Signe Asmussen, soprano; Tine Rehling, harp
LOCATION
Svanekegaarden, Svaneke, Denmark

Features

Photos

Discography

    Balcony Stream

    Balcony Stream
    • Label
      Dacapo
    • Catalogue Number
      8.226671
    • Conductor
      Robert Houssart
    • Ensemble
      Athelas Sinfonietta
    • Released
      October 2023
    • Works

    Noch bist du da

    Noch bist du da
    • Label
      Birte Dalbauer-Stokkebæk
    • Ensemble
      Rose Musicke
    • Released
      July 2021
    • Works

    Animal Universe

    Animal Universe
    • Label
      Dacapo
    • Catalogue Number
      8.224733
    • Ensemble
      Christina Bjørkøe, piano
    • Released
      23rd April 2021
    • Works

    Conversations for violin and piano

    Conversations for violin and piano
    • Label
      Dacapo
    • Catalogue Number
      8.226519
    • Soloist
      Elisabeth Zeuthen Schneider (violin), Ulrich Stærk (piano)
    • Released
      November 2009
    • Works

    From the Merry Life of a Spy

    From the Merry Life of a Spy

    Contemporary Music from Denmark

    Contemporary Music from Denmark
    • Label
      Danish Music Export & Promotion
    • Catalogue Number
      MXP CD 0594
    • Conductor
      Flemming Windekilde
    • Ensemble
      Athelas Ensemble
    • Released
      1994
    • Works

    Light Imprisoned

    Light Imprisoned
    • Label
      Dacapo
    • Catalogue Number
      8.226577
    • Ensemble
      Aarhus Sinfonietta
    • Soloist
      Johannes Søe Hansen (violin)
    • Works

    Ny Musik i Suså 2

    Ny Musik i Suså 2
    • Label
      Classico
    • Catalogue Number
      CLASSCD 630
    • Conductor
      Frans Rasmussen
    • Ensemble
      Storstroms Kammerensemble
    • Works

    On This Planet

    On This Planet
    • Label
      dacapo
    • Catalogue Number
      8.224221
    • Conductor
      Morten Ryelund Sørensen
    • Ensemble
      Athelas Sinfonietta
    • Soloist
      Thomas Sandberg (vocals)
    • Works

    Passage - Piano Trios

    Passage - Piano Trios
    • Label
      Dacapo
    • Catalogue Number
      8.226009
    • Ensemble
      Trio Ondine
    • Works
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