DANSK TONE: Ekkoet af danskhed?

Abstract

This article makes a comparison between two Danish singers or two vocal objects: Aksel Schiøtz, a famous and international tenor in the bel-canto tradition (1906-75) singing songs from "the Danish treasure of songs" and Lars H.U.G.: a rocksinger and composer, born in 1953 and known (only) in Denmark in the 80’es and 90’es as a renewer of Danish rockmusic and lyrics. In this comparison the focus is on the listening to the voices and their treatments of the Danish languange – thus questioning whether we may speak of "the sound of Danish", "Danish tone" or "echo of Danishness" and whether this relation between oral national language and music vocational articulation is fixed, or whether it is – like the society on a whole – permanently changing and ex-changing with other "tongues" in our late-modern, multicultural society.