Symphonies 1 & 3

Endeavours and Reverses

By Jens Cornelius

Victor Bendix (1851–1926) was a complex figure in Danish music, central but at the same time an outsider. Despite being a highly respected composer, pianist and conductor he never quite received the recognition he dreamt of.

Bendix’s early life showed great promise: he was a child prodigy born to a cultivated family living in the centre of Copenhagen, and began composing when he was only a young boy. As a fifteen year old he became a pupil of the king of Danish musical life, Niels W. Gade, and for a time he appeared likely to become Gade’s successor. But rather than following his mentor’s conservative ideals, he turned instead towards Liszt and Wagner. Bendix developed a taste for the new music of the time and gradually lost Gade’s support as a result.

At 19, Bendix became a répétiteur at the Royal Danish Theatre, working on, amongst other things, the first Danish performances of Wagner’s Lohengrin and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. With his fee, he went on a pilgrimage to Wagner’s Bayreuth Festival, and was the only Dane present when Wagner laid the foundation stone for his festspielhaus and conducted Beethoven’s 9th Symphony in 1872. Bendix was also there four years later, when the whole of the Ring cycle was performed for the first time.

These trips were of decisive importance for Bendix, who made many connections with German musical life. He additionally used the trip in 1872 to seek out Franz Liszt, who at that time lived in Weimar. Several times in the following years, Bendix traveled to Weimar, where Liszt very kindly welcomed him, reviewed his compositions and played four-handed piano with him.

But there were other reasons besides musical taste which kept Bendix out of Copenhagen’s inner circles. Bendix was Jewish, and he was also politically radical, an atheist like his famous cousin, the much-discussed man of letters, Georg Brandes. In Denmark’s conservative musical life, this made him stand out, while his penchant for polemic and sharp sarcasm only intensified the voices against him. It was also an open secret that the charismatic Bendix was a womaniser with numerous erotic affairs, including with his own piano students.

These purely personal matters were probably decisive, as Bendix never obtained a leading position in Danish musical life. Instead, he forged his own path, and there was often an element of defiance, as he showed when he stepped forward and demonstrated his great talents: Denmark’s finest musical institutions evidently thought they could do without him. He directed the first Danish performances of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde and Verdi’s Don Carlos, which he mounted at his own expense because the Royal Danish Theatre would not take on the responsibility – nor would they have anything further to do with Bendix himself.

As a composer, Bendix was highly self-critical. Of his around 150 compositions only 33 were given opus numbers. Two of his key works are his Symphonies 1 and 3: they stand as high points in his life, as well as constituting a poignant narrative of his artistic fate. Symphony No. 1 (1877–78) is his hopeful, ambitious debut, while the melancholic Symphony No. 3 (1891–92) is marked by resignation and fatalism.

Symphony No. 1 (1877–78)
Symphony No. 1 was Victor Bendix’s first orchestral work, and was entitled Fjeldstigning (Ascension). In its idea, form and technique, the symphony was a purposeful breakthrough in Danish music. Before its first performance, Bendix showed the score to Liszt, who gave his approval of the symphony. It deliberately lives up to Liszt’s ideas for a renewal of musical language, combining an abstract four-movement form with programmatic content, like a symphonic poem. In other words, it is a symphony with a ‘plot’. Additionally, it is structured using cyclical themes, another one of Liszt’s principles.

Nothing similar had been written by a Dane before, and it was quite a battle for Bendix to get his symphony performed in Denmark. It was on 4 March 1882 when he conducted it at Musikforeningen (The Music Society) in Copenhagen, which was usually steered by the strong hand of Niels W. Gade. Before the concert, Bendix had asked one of Denmark’s best-known authors, Holger Drachmann, to write an accompanying poem to the music. But the idea of combining poetry and music was altogether too demanding for the Copenhagen public. ‘The audience couldn’t find their way in or out, and Ascension did not have much success’, wrote a newspaper about the premiere.

Later, Bendix replaced the poem with a foreword which explained the work as a description of endeavour and idealistic ambitions:

‘Drawing a picture of a laborious hike towards the temple on the mountain peak, the symphony deals with a person’s emancipatory development from frivolous aimlessness to a life guided by a higher idea.
In the first part of the symphony – the struggle before the decision – three motives embodying the ideal, despair and hope interact. The second part, a Nocturne, presents a nocturnal ramble through the mountain woods, which alluring monuments of the past seek to hinder. In the third part, Marcia solenne, the induction into the temple is portrayed. Finally, in the last part, we have a picture of the joy of a life lived through work in the service of the idea.’

This description can easily be taken as a self-portrait of the composer and his development. The objective is clear to him, but requires that he should defeat both despondency and obstacles (‘the nocturnal ramble through the mountain woods’) and distracting traditions (‘alluring monuments of the past’). In the end he reaches the ultimate objective of being acknowledged by the elite (‘induction into the temple), and on this triumphant level his existence can unfold with new meaning.

The symphony begins with a short introduction which presents the three principal motives in quick succession: the striving, ascending fanfare, the ‘ideal’; then ‘despair’, which is introverted and plaintive in the minor; and finally, the consolatory theme ‘hope’, which is in the major.

The three themes and their respective moods alternate through the whole of the first movement. Bendix works contrapuntally, especially in the development’s speculative, hushed sections, leading to a fugue based on the ‘ideal’, while ‘hope’ blends in. By the close of the movement, ‘despair’ is overcome by the more optimistic themes, but buried thoughts of doubt continue to gnaw away.

The 2nd movement’s nocturnal forest scene, ‘Nocturne’, is orchestrated with refinement and takes us through a misty wilderness. The ‘ideal’ accompanies our journey in a new transformation and shows the way. A chorale motive can be heard in the bassoons and clarinets: this may be one of the ‘alluring monuments of the past’ mentioned in the accompanying text. On the way up the mountain, new inspiration emerges: the opening theme is cheerfully modified, and a little violin solo lights up like a brief floral idyll. But the ascent must not come to a standstill, and with a call from the trombones, the ‘ideal’ reminds us of the purpose of the entire nocturnal hike. This gets the mountaineer to stop, shocked, with ‘hope’ played by a lone bassoon.

The journey’s goal is near, and the 3rd movement, ‘Marcia solenne’, takes us towards the induction procession in the temple. The key is E flat major, Beethoven’s heroic key, and the hymn grows, pure and dignified. The symphony continues directly to the 4th movement, where the main character can now unfold freely and as part of cultured society. The movement’s optimistic main theme is derived from ‘hope’ while a side-theme is related to the temple theme from the 3rd movement. Bendix’s contrapuntal high point arrives at the end of the movement, as the ‘ideal’ is played by trombones accompanied by gong-strikes as tribute. The targeted effort has led the mountaineer to the liberation he has been seeking.

The symphony was performed nine times in Bendix’s lifetime, including a performance by the Berlin Philharmonic, and it was acknowledged as a significant work. Carl Nielsen, who had a very close and inspiring friendship with Bendix in the 1890s, conducted the symphony in 1921, in both Copenhagen and Gothenburg. Amongst the younger generation of Danish composers, Ascension became something of a model, not least for Rued Langgaard, whose Symphony No. 1, Cliffside Pastorals (1911) had nearly the same programme, about a spiritual mountain climb but in a greatly enlarged form. But remarkably, Ascension has not been performed since 1929, and has had only a couple of studio recordings. Even if Romantic music generally has had a very difficult time in Denmark during the 20th century, it is a truly astonishing fate for a landmark work which is clearly a ‘missing link’ in Danish music history.

Symphony No. 3 (1891–92)
In 1888, Bendix presented his next symphony, which was very different. The title of his 2nd symphony is Sommerklange fra Sydrusland (Summer Sounds from South Russia). The music was inspired by those contemporary Russian composers whose works Bendix had come to know in Germany. Bendix often stayed in the great German cultural cities during the 1880s, and Symphony No. 2 was performed in, among other places, Dresden and by the Berlin Philharmonic.

Gade’s death in 1890 provided an opportunity for Bendix to gain employment in Denmark, and he offered himself as a candidate for the post of conductor of the Music Society in Copenhagen. As a showcase for himself, he arranged a concert at which he conducted Ascension and Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, with the famous Adolph Brodsky as soloist. But it didn’t help much: in the election for the top post in 1891, Bendix received no votes at all. The unbearable sides of his personality were probably decisive.

This defeat coincided symbolically with his new Symphony No. 3 in A minor, written the same year. It appears to be without programmatic content, but knowing Bendix’s way of thinking and his personal history points us toward an explanation.

The symphony has just three movements, of which the 1st has the unusual title, ‘Fantasie’. The beautiful minor main theme swells from its place like a dark grey sea whilst the composer fantasises. The melancholic mood is interrupted by a march theme that calls the composer back to reality – and to the struggle. A lyrical passage, beautifully scored for string quartet, provides inspiration and leads to the gentle closing theme and the hope that darkness can be turned to light. Later in the movement melancholy gains a new intensity, and a brief return of the hopeful theme cannot change things: the fantasy ends in resignation.

The 2nd movement is the symphony’s scherzo, and has a German title, ‘Bunte Bilder’ (‘Variegated Pictures’). It is a restless movement which seeks to sweep worries away with hectic creativity. After a short introduction we hear the chasing main theme twisting itself into a delirious dance. The variegated pictures proceed with elegant transformations from a tripping motive, until a rustic peasant dance and a pastoral serenade for the oboe. When the main theme returns it does so with a very assertive character, doomed to end abruptly – which it does, much like a drunkard stumbling and falling over.

The slow 3rd movement, ‘Elegie’, forms the climax of the symphony – or rather, its deliberate anti-climax. The movement feels its way forward, first with a mournful theme that is replaced by a peaceful theme in the high strings. But in the midst of this clarification comes a confused outburst and the sorrowful conclusion: the darkness from the symphony’s beginning has grown stronger. The movement’s true main theme reveals itself to be a solemn lament that grows in strength in order to stress that the proud struggle is lost. Reminiscences of the motives from the 1st movement pass in review before they disappear again, as brief glimpses of a brighter time that has passed.

Bendix himself held the symphony’s final movement in high regard, quite understandably. Unfortunately the Danish audience were puzzled at the first performance on 14 November 1893, conducted by Gade’s successor at the Music Society, Franz Neruda. What was the idea of the unusual work and its elegiac finale? The best analysis came from the music critic Robert Henriques, who argued that the symphony was autobiographical: an expression of the mature artist’s disappointment that what he had hoped for in his youth had not been fulfilled. Henriques, who himself was Jewish and a friend of the Bendix family, likely had an insider’s view when he wrote in his review:

‘In the 1st movement he clearly shows us his ambitious youthful dreams, sunlit and fresh as they were when he completed his Ascension. The 2nd movement is a wild scherzo whose energetic rhythms are meant to illustrate the tribulations of life and the composer’s defiance of them. The 3rd movement is a melancholic elegy, depicting resignation and renunciation. The struggle has been given up without fully reaching the great goals. The stone which the young Sisyphus, with the expenditure of all his spiritual and bodily strength forces up to the mountain’s top, rolls down again, time after time, though the goal be ever so near, so near.’

Symphony No. 3 was performed by Staatskapelle Dresden (then the Dresden Court Orchestra) in 1895, then in 1903 by the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by the composer himself. In more recent times it has been performed in Japan (Hiroshima, 2007), US (Oakland, 2015) and Columbia (Bogotá, 2023), but this truly well-written symphony has not been played in Denmark since the year of its premiere, 1893. Bendix’s experience of being rejected by the Danish music scene was reaffirmed.

Victor Bendix ended his career as a symphonist with his Symphony No. 4, which was premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1907 under the direction of Karl Muck. At this point Bendix was a fairly scandalous figure in Denmark, having had a child out of wedlock with a well-known pianist who later attempted to shoot him! The attempted murder and the paternity case ended up on the front pages of the newspapers, and for the following few years, Bendix maintained a low profile and spent much of his time in Germany.

In his later years, he significantly reduced his compositional work. Just as when he was young, he felt himself ‘in opposition to the ruling taste’, as he put it, but it was no longer because he was too radical. On the contrary, he insisted on the learned, classical skills in a new century which saw many great changes. He felt, with some bitterness, underrated as ‘a representative of a kind of art that had outlived itself’. It would have delighted Victor Bendix that his distinguished symphonies, with all their Romantic ideals, are now resounding again, nearly 100 years after his death.

Jens Cornelius is the author of the biography, Victor Bendix (Multivers, 2021).