Link to home page

Musikbladet

(Copenhagen, 1884-1895)

Prepared by Kirsti Grinde
Introduction by Eva-Brit Fanger
1 volume* (1997)

The weekly Musikbladet: Ugerevue for Musik og Theater [The music magazine: Weekly review for music and theater] was published in Copenhagen from October 1884 to March 1895 by the music publisher Wilhelm Hansen. The chief editor Henrick Vissing Schytte, a music teacher and music critic who contributed to a number of Danish newspapers, was also owner of a Copenhagen music store. While editor of Musikbladet he prepared the first Danish music dictionary, the Nordisk Musiklexicon. As Copenhagen was regarded as the center of musical life in Denmark, Schytte believed the city should support a music periodical similar to those published in Christiania (Oslo) and Stockholm where music journals had long ago gained a foothold.

The content of the journal in its first years is, in general, composed of biographical studies, articles of historical interest, reviews of newly-published music, notes on forthcoming events at home and abroad, and concert and opera reviews. The leading articles focus on the characteristics of composers’ works—Haydn’s nature painting in the Creation, for example—on the analyses of significant compositions (such as Méhul’s Joseph and His Brothers, Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman, and Beethoven’s Missa solemnis), on comparisons of composers’ styles (Anton Rubinstein and Hans von Bülow), and, on biographies. From 1888 on, the subject matter of the lead articles shifts to other areas of interest; among these are the place of musicians in society, music from a hygienic point of view, psychological items (music and character, true and false in originality), and theoretical and pedagogical topics.

Beginning in 1888 music supplements for piano solo or duet, and for voice and piano—by a number of composers including Edvard Grieg, Carl Nielsen, Christian Sinding and Agathe Backer Gröndhal—are inserted into the journal.

* Hard bound with

×