Carl August Nielsen (1865-1931), Danish
composer. Prolific in almost all genres: two operas, six symphonies,
three solo concertos, chamber music, piano and organ music, a large
number of songs as well as occasional music. In his very personal
musical idiom he dissociated himself strongly from Late Romanticm, and
his early works were inspired by Brahms' classicism, while later
adopted features from European modernism. As the most important Danish
composer of the first third of the twentieth century, Nielsen exerted a
crucial influence on the Danish composers of the next generation.