En klaverstil folder sig ud

Niels Viggo Bentzons klavermusik i 1940’erne og 1950’erne

Abstract

During the 1940s and 1950s Niels Viggo Bentzon, being both a composer and a

pianist, developed an original and personal piano style. It is a style in which a

considerable amount of romantic expressivity is often added to the tonal and

Hindemith-inspired Neoclassicism. The composer’s method of working, in which

the borderline between improvisation and composition is fluid, gives some of

the works a sense of ‘frozen improvisation’. The main aim of the article is to

describe the development in Niels Viggo Bentzon’s piano style through the examination

of some central works, such as Toccata op. 10 (1941), Passacaglia op. 31

(1944), Partita op. 38 (1945), the sonatas nos. 2 to 6 (1946-52), and Træsnit op. 65

(1951). The article concludes with an outline of the time after 1960 when the

developing form of the earlier works yields to a more tessellated structure.