Niels Gade

Niels Wilhelm Gade (22 February 1817 – 21 December 1890) was a Danish composer, conductor, violinist, organist and teacher. Together with Johan Peter Emilius Hartmann, he was the leading Danish musician of his day, in the period known as the Danish Golden Age. Biography Gade was born in Copenhagen, the son of a joiner and instrument maker. He was intended for his father’s trade, but his passion for a musician’s career, made evident by the ease and skill with which he learned to play upon a number of instruments, was not to be denied. Though he became proficient on the violin under Frederik Wexschall, and in the elements of theory under Christoph Weyse and Weyse’s pupil Andreas Berggreen, he was to a great extent self-taught. He began his professional career as a violinist with the Royal Danish Orchestra, which premiered his concert overture Efterklange af Ossian (“Echoes of Ossian”) in 1841. When the performance of his first symphony had to be delayed in Copenhagen, it was sent to Felix Mendelssohn. Mendelssohn received the work positively, and conducted it in Leipzig in March 1843, to enthusiastic public reaction. His work attracted the notice of the king, who gave the composer a