Aladdin (Nielsen)

Aladdin, or the Wonderful Lamp, Op. 34, is theatre music for soloists, mixed choir, and orchestra written from 1917 to 1919 by the Danish composer Carl Nielsen to accompany the Danish playwright Adam Oehlenschläger's 1805 "dramatic fairy tale" of the same name. The play is a five-act retelling of the "Aladdin" story from the Middle Eastern folklore anthology, One Thousand and One Nights.
The play, albeit divided into two parts, received its premiere at the Royal Danish Theatre in Copenhagen, respectively on 15 February and 22 February 1919; Ferdinand Hemme conducted the Royal Danish Orchestra. For each act, Nielsen provided extensive original music, and the complete score is the composer's third longest work, exceeded only by to his operas, Saul and David and Maskarade.

Background

Nielsen composed much of the music in Skagen during the summer of 1918, completing it after returning to Copenhagen in January 1919. He experienced major difficulties with the work as the director, Johannes Poulsen, had used the orchestra pit for an extended stage, leaving the orchestra cramped below a majestic staircase on the set. When Poulsen cut out large parts of the music during final rehearsals and changed the sequence of dances, Nielsen demanded that his name be removed from the posters and the programme. In fact, the theatre production in February 1919 was not very successful and was withdrawn after only 15 performances.

Music

Complete score

The complete score, lasting over 80 minutes, is Nielsen's longest work apart from his operas. Demonstrating great inventiveness, Nielsen's enriched style can be observed in the musical language he used for the exotic dances, paving the way for his Fifth Symphony. In May 1992 a recording of virtually the entire score was made by the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chamber Choir with Gennady Rozhdestvensky.

Aladdin suite

Nielsen frequently conducted extracts from Aladdin to great popular acclaim both in Denmark and abroad. The music was successfully presented at London’s Queen's Hall on 22 June 1923 and at 12 performances of Aladdin at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg in November and December 1929. Nielsen had been scheduled to conduct extracts with the Radio Symphony Orchestra on 1 October 1931 when he suffered a major heart attack. Lying on a hospital bed, he was nevertheless able to listen to the Oriental March, Hindu Dance and Negro Dance on a crystal set before he died the following day.
The extracts were published in 1940 as the Aladdin suite. Its seven parts are:

Oriental Festival March
Aladdin's Dream/Dance of the Morning Mist
Hindu Dance
Chinese Dance
The Marketplace in Isphahan
Dance of the Prisoners
Negro Dance

A transcription for piano of the Oriental Festival March was published by Borup's Musikforlag in Copenhagen in 1926.
On the basis of information from the Carl Nielsen Society, the Aladdin Suite is currently one of Nielsen's most widely performed works.

Three songs

Nielsen published Aladdin, three songs from the play by A. Oehlenschlæger in 1919 as his Opus 34. The songs are:

Cithar, lad min Bøn dig røre
Visselulle nu, Barnlil!
Alt Maanen oprejst staar

Discography

The table below lists commercially available recordings of the complete Aladdin Suite:

	Conductor	Ensemble		Time	Recording venue	Label
1		Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra	1983	21:27	Gothenburg Concert Hall	BIS
2		Odense Symphony Orchestra	1985	25:18		Unicorn-Kanchana
3		Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra	1989	23:11	Berwald Hall	CBS Masterworks
4		San Francisco Symphony	1989	25:01	Davies Symphony Hall	Decca
5		Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra	1995	23:18	Gothenburg Concert Hall	Deutsche Grammophon
6			2002	24:55	Musikhuset, Sønderborg	Naxos
7		Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra	2003	26:02	Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool	Classico
8		Aarhus Symphony Orchestra	2004	24:16	Frichsparker, Aarhus	MSR Classics
9		New York Scandia Symphony	2005	25:56	Trinity Church	Centaur
10		Philharmonia Orchestra	2016	26:35	Henry Wood Hall, London	Signum Classics
11		Karlovy Vary Symphony Orchestra	?	?	ArcoDiva Studio	ArcoDiva
12		Ensemble Midtvest	2018	27:19	Den Jyske Sangskole, Herning, Denmark	First Hand Records