ABRAHAMSEN, HANS  BIOGRAPHY

The Danish composer Hans Abrahamsen studied the horn at the Royal Danish Conservatory in Copenhagen and was a composition pupil of Niels Viggo Bentzon, subsequently studying with Gudmundsen-Holmgreen, Nørgård and Ligeti. He has taken a leading position in Danish contemporary music as a performer, composer and teacher.

Orchestral and Chamber Music

Abrahamsen’s earlier music often had a political purpose, while following the principles of the Neue Einfachheit, the ‘new simplicity’ of the 1960s, a reaction against Central European complexity. He later turned to a more subjective idiom, which he explains as an attempt to bring together form, a fixed structure and freedom. His Symphony in C of 1972 originally had the title ‘Anti-EEC-sats’ (‘Movement against the EEC’), which was later dropped.