Fynsk Foraar

Fynsk Foraar (Springtime on Funen), for soloists, chorus and orchestra, Opus 42, is Carl Nielsen's last major choral work. Written to accompany a prizewinning text by Aage Berntsen, it was first performed in Odense's Kvæghal (Cattle Hall) on 8 July 1922 where it was conducted by Georg Høeberg.

Aage Berntsen, a medical doctor and a writer, was the winner of a competition arranged around 1917 by the Dansk Korforening (Danish Choral Society) for a text on Danish history or landscape which would subsequently be set to music by Carl Nielsen. Several years went by before the composer could find the time or inclination to work on the piece, especially as he was in the middle of composing his Fifth Symphony. Indeed, on 19 August 1921, he wrote: "For some time I have not felt very comfortable because I could not get started on the choral work which I must have done by 1 September, and every day I considered throwing it away and informing the board of all these combined societies that I had to beg off... But then one day I found the tone and the style, which will be a light mixture of lyricism and humour, and now it is well in hand and will soon be finished.

Only with the help of his pupil Nancy Dalberg, who had helped with fair-copying the large score for Aladdin was he able to meet his deadline. On 3 September 1921, he wrote to his wife: "My new choral piece has turned out to be a really big piece of work (42 pages in the piano arrangement) and has now actually been delivered on time. But I have also worked a lot and with a certain lightness. The poet has called it Springtime on Funen but I also give it a subtitle, Lyrical Humoresque, which suggests that the style is light and lively... Now I will continue with my interrupted symphony."

The first performance of Fynsk Foraar was at the opening concert of Third National Choral Festival which took place on 8 July 1922 in the huge Odense Kvæghal (Cattle Hall), specially renamed Markedshallen (Market Hall) for the occasion. The circumstances were not ideal. While Nielsen had envisaged the work for a fairly small orchestra and choir, there were 80 in the orchestra and several hundred in the choirs from Funen and Copenhagen. The hall itself could accommodate up to 10,000 people.

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