Asger Hamerik and Marie Jaëll – and others?

[Ilja]

HI all,

Listening to the First Piano Concerto by Marie Jaëll it dawned on me how blatantly its first theme was copied - and subsequently used as the main motif - in Asger Hamerik's Fifth Symphony. The opening of both works is virtually identical. A bit of research reveals that Jaëll started at the Paris conservatory in 1862 when she was 16 - the same year that Hamerik, age 19, arrived in Paris to study with Berlioz.

I haven't been able to track much more information, but this goes way past a coincidence. However, it made me wonder whether Hamerik made use of such tributes (I'm sure it is that) more often, also because I always had the sense that I heard the main theme of the Third Symphony (1884) before. There is not a lot of published material on Hamerik's work, but if there's a forum where the members might have noticed this sort of tributeit is this. Anyone?


For comparison:

   
• Marie Jaëll, Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor (1877): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2f0M-VJ1zI0
• Asger Hamerik, Symphony No. 5 in G minor, "Symphonie sérieuse" (1891): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIkwnW4FKVo

[rosflute]

Very interesting - I am looking forward to seeing more of your research.

[dwshadle]

Very nice find! I have enjoyed getting to know Hamerik's music, and this certainly puts a new spin on my experience of it.

[Ilja]

Allow me to revive this ancient thread. I have found another piece that employs the same five-note motif (CCCD#C) at the start, Hendrik Waelput's Pacification of Ghent cantata of 1876:

So now there are three pieces that contain this fragment, all from the French-Belgian tradition and written in 1876 (Waelput), 1884 (Jaëll) and 1891 (Hamerik). It's awfully close to the opening of Mozart's Requiem, but slightly different. I'd be grateful if anyone would be able determine where this comes from?