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Steen Chr. Steensen. Musik er liv: En biografi om Carl Nielsen. Includes CD set Carl Nielsen: De seks symfonier. London Symphony Orchestra Dirigeret af Ole Schmidt, 1973-74. Frederiksberg: Fisker & Scholl, 2001. Pp. 388.
Steen Chr. Steensen's recent biography of Carl Nielsen,Musik er liv: En biografi om Carl Nielsen, follows on the heels of Jorgen I. Jensen's definitive work, Carl Nielsen Danskeren:Musikbiografi (1991) and appropriately acknowledges Jensen's contribution in discussing the life and works of Denmark's preeminent composer. At first glance, Steensen's work may appear redundant, even unnecessary, but such a glance hardly gives Steensen and his considerable efforts their due. Steensen offers a fairly even appraisal of Nielsen's literary and musical auvres; an exploration of Carl Nielsen as a "sammensat personlighed," an individual pulled and pulling in several different directions simultaneously; and, a lucid study of the symphonies that, in Steensen's view, constitute the highpoints in Carl Nielsen's art. Steen Chr. Steensen has revisited the life and works of Nielsen and made his...