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Niels Gade

(b. Copenhagen, 22 Feb 1817; d. Copenhagen, 21 Dec 1890),

Danish composer, the most important figure in 19th-century Danish music. He trained as a violinist and played in the Royal Orchestra, Copenhagen, producing his official op.1, the prize-winning concert overture Efterklange af Ossian in 1840. Encouraged by Mendelssohn, who was enthusiastic about his First Symphony (1841-2), he went to Leipzig as an assistant conductor of the Gewandhaus Orchestra, also meeting Schumann and composing the Mendelssohnian Third Symphony (1847) and String Octet (1848). In Copenhagen he reorganized the Musical Society, establishing a permanent orchestra and choir which gave the premières of his Symphonies nos. 4-8 and his large choral works ('Koncertstykke'), notably Comala (1846), and serving as co-director of the Copenhagen Academy of Music. Although the personal, Scandinavian colouring of his early works gave way to the German Romantic influence in his music after c 1850, he had an immense influence on the next generation of Danish composers.