Fantasistykker Op. 43 (1861)

Although he was born and educated in Copenhagen and spent the last forty years of his life there, the formative period in Gade’s development as a composer was the five years he spent in Leipzig as assistant to Mendelssohn at the Gewandhaus Orchestra and, after the latter’s death, chief conductor. He had been an admirer of Mendelssohn and Schumann even before he left Copenhagen and his professional and personal contact with those two distinguished figures in Leipzig confirmed him in his allegiance. Schumann drew attention to Gade’s “utterly original melodic idiom with national characteristics never before encountered in the higher categories of instrumental music” but, to our ears, the Dane in him is very much less apparent than the Leipzig disciple. The Fantasistykker (Fantasy Pieces) for clarinet and piano Op.43 clearly relate to the Fantasiestücke (Fantasy Pieces) for clarinet and piano Op.73 of Robert Schumann and there is not much in them that could be described as “utterly original.”

The melodic line carried by the clarinet over a rudimentary piano part in the short opening movement is attractive enough, however, and there is an engaging romantic impulse to the Allegro vivace. Where Gade parts company with Schumann is in the Ballade, not so much in the two quicker episodes as in the opening Moderato, which is effectively coloured by arpeggiated piano chords in manner of a bardic harp and the poetically eloquent voice of the clarinet in its lowest (chalumeau) register. The resemblance between the clarinet melody here and a familiar theme in Die Meistersinger is entirely coincidental: Gade wrote his Fantasistykker in 1864, four years before the first performance of Wagner’s opera. If the tremolando piano writing later in the Ballade is less felicitous, Gade compensates for it in the closing Allegro molto vivace, which is not the least Schumannesque but which is the most consistently well scored of the four movements.