Asger Hamerik

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Asger Hamerik (Hammerich) (April 8, 1843 – July 13, 1923), was a Danish composer of classical music.

Born in Frederiksberg (nr. Copenhagen), he studied music with J.P.E. Hartmann and Niels Gade. He wrote his first pieces in his teens, including an unperformed symphony. His family was friends with Hans Christian Andersen, with whom Hamerik would correspond regularly.

Later, he left Denmark in 1862 to study music in Germany, with Hans von Bülow, and France where he was a protégé of Hector Berlioz. It was in 1864 where he began using the more unmistakeably Danish version of his last name, rather than Hammerich, because of the Danish-Prussian war.

He left Paris in 1869 for Italy, and then Vienna, where he was offered the post of director of the Peabody Institute, which he accepted in 1871. While the director of the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, he composed most of his large scale concert works for the Institute's Orchestra. He left his position as director of the Peabody in 1898. He eventually returned to Denmark in 1900, with his American pianist wife, born Margaret Williams, but had essentially retired. He would sit on competition boards and conduct, including his own works.

He has 41 opus numbers, including seven symphonies symphonies, chamber music, four operas, 5 orchestral suites and popular orchestral music based on Scandinavian folk tunes. During his lifetime he was considered the best known Danish composer after Gade, and as a composer influenced by Berlioz. His Requiem was his most successful work, and the one he considered his best.

His son Ebbe Hamerik was a conductor and composer, and his daughter Valdis Hamerik an opera singer.

[edit] Musical Style

While relatively obscure today, Hamerik was an influential teacher in the US, as the director of the Peabody in Baltimore for over a quarter of a century, and his works were performed in both the United States and Europe. The most obvious influence in his music is Berlioz - particularly his conscious choice of rooting his music in French influences, the French subtitles to his symphonies and the use of an ideé fixe. His music is often described as having a "nordic" cast, and in letters he told friends that even though he was going to America he would always be a Dane.

His later work incorporates influences from composers such as Paul Dukas and César Franck and the more roving harmony and extended tonality, including movements in different keys, expanded use of vagrant chords. His 7th symphony has been compared with works by Mahler of the same period.