GLASS, LOUIS  

Louis Glass was an exact contemporary of Carl Nielsen, and was one of the most important and consistent Late Romantic composers in Denmark. His artistic integrity was highly esteemed, but his reflective idiom did not win him general popularity. From his studies abroad Louis Glass brought home inspiration from Bruckner, Wagner and César Franck, and especially after his personal immersion in Theosophy produced a series of large-scale independent works. In his six symphonies we find an unusually sure grasp of the technical and intellectual aspects of music. The Third and Fourth Symphonies are monumental, the Fifth Symphony is a high point of Danish Symbolism, while the Sixth was a vain attempt to revive National Romanticism. To these we can add many other orchestral works, including a Fantasia for piano and orchestra, and the Theosophical ballet Artemis. Glass was both a pianist and a cellist, and his chamber works are very well-written. After the deaths of Glass and Nielsen, Glass' music was ousted from the musical milieu by the standard-bearers of Nielsen, and only in recent years have we re-discovered how he complements the Danish culture of the turn of the century in a very personal way.