Music in Denmark

The Importance of Danish Music

Danish music has a long history and is constantly evolving. The music of Denmark includes a wide variety of folk traditions and a large number of pop stars. This musical range makes for a very diverse music scene within the country. Jazz is also very popular in Demark and the Copenhagen Jazz Festival is now world-renowned. The current pop and rock scene has produced successful bands like Aqua, The Raveonettes, Michael Learns to Rock, Alphabeat, Kashmir, and Mew. Lars Ulrich was the first musician from Denmark to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Origins

The first Danish music dates back to the Bronze-Age when lurs were used and considered musical instruments. A lur is a long natural blowing horn without finger holes. Since the late 18th century, these instruments have been mainly found in Demark but also regions of Scandinavia. In his patriotic work of Danish history called Gesta Danorum (11th century), author Saxo Grammaticus discusses the influence music had on King Erik the Kind-Hearted.

Minnesingers (lyric and songwriters of the time) like Tannhäuser and Frauenlob sang in the Danish courts in the 13th and early 14th centuries. The Codex Runicus (12th century) has a verse written on it in runes with a music notation. It has also been proven that English monks ventured to Denmark to sing at a celebration in honor of St Canute (who died in 1086).

Classical Music

In 1703, Frederik IV (king of Denmark and Norway from 1699 to 1730) opened an opera house in Copenhagen in 1703. The first performance was from the Italian Bartolomeo Bernardi. From 1721–1723, Reinhard Keiser (the successful opera composer from Hamburg) presented his works in Copenhagen. Another successful composer and conductor in Denmark was Emil Reesen (1887–1964). He is best known for his very famous operetta called Farinelli in 1942. This operetta is still popular to this day. Opera still remains prominent in the Danish music scene partly because of the Copenhagen Opera House (which opened in 2000).

Other Popular Musical Genres in Denmark

Jazz has been one of Denmark’s most important musical genres over the past century. Jazz in Denmark dates back to Valdemar Eiberg’s band in 1923 and the recordings they produced a year later. In 1925, Sam Wooding brought his orchestra to Copenhagen, which officially introduced the Danish to the genre.

The rock scene in Demark flourished in the 1970s when groups took influence from trends in the United States and Britain. The most successful Danish rock bands have been Gasolin’, Shu-Bi-Dua, Sebastian, Anne Linnet, TV-2, and in recent times Magtens Korridorer.

The pop scene in Denmark has also been very successful over the years. One of the most popular Danish pop artists is Thomas Helmig who has won awards at the Danish Music Awards (DMA) eight times. A Danish band named Aqua made a large outside of Denmark whose hit “Barbie Girl” helped sell 15 million albums and 6 million singles. Electronic and folk music have also dominated the Danish music scene.