Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen was born on November 21, 1932 in Copenhagen as the son of a sculptor. From 1948 he got violin lessons. From 1951 to 1953 he took private lessons in theory and compositions with Finn Høfding. At the age of 26 he entered the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen, where he studied theory, composition and history of music with Finn Høfding and Svend Westergaard, as well as instrumentation with Vagn Holmboe. In 1958 he finished his studies at the Academy.
In 1959 he started working as a technical assistant with the Royal Danish Theatre and stayed there until 1964. During the years 1967 to 1972 he has been a teacher of composition at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Århus.
Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen has won several prizes such as the Lange-Müller Stipend in 1965, the Herman Sandby Prize in 1971, the Carl Nielsen Prize in 1973, the Music Prize of the Nordic Council for his Symphony, Antiphony in 1980 and the Wilhelm Hansen Prize in 1996.
His compositional debut took place in 1955 at the Music Festival of the Scandinavian Conservatories with Variationer for cello solo (1954). In this work, as well as in his other early compositions like the first two String quartets there is an obvious influence of neo-classicism and, more particularly, of Bartók.
With the arrival of serialism, Gudmundsen-Holmgreen became influenced by this composition technique, being particularly interested in the problems concerning time and rhythm. An example of works from this period is Chronos (1962). Already in this early work we can see the composer's interset in geometric organisation of frozen modules.
Just a few years later serialism is over for Gudmundsen-Holmgreen and from now on he works in an manner away from serialism and definitely anti-romantic. This became the trademark for his mature compositions like Collegium Musicum Konsert(1964) and Mester Jakob(1964). Absurdism and grotesque humour enter his works, influenced by the Irish author Samuel Beckett, still his major influence. A composition like Je ne me tairai jamais. Jamais (1966) is an example of this style.
In the mid sixties his style emerged to what is called 'New Simplicity', being a reaction to the 'New Complexity' as well as a means of getting away from the laws of serialism. The result in his music was an insertion of 'everyday elements', repetitions and banalities. His music became more ritualistic, opening itself and disclosing underlying possibilities. Compositions like Tricolore I (1966), Tricolore IV (1969) and Plateaux pour deux (1970) are good examples of this technique. In Tricolore IV we hear only 3 chords throughout the whole piece, while in Plateaux pour deux it is the instrumentation that draws attention: Cello and car-horns. At the same time Gudmundsen-Holmgreen still used a sophisticated construction in his works. Several works are based on a mirror scale, symmetrically dividing the composition around a central tone, like in his Spejl pieces. In the mid-seventies the composers started to insert quotations, fragments of older music, filtered through his 'tone-sieve' system. Works from this period are Genbrug (1975) and Symfony, Antiphony (1977). The material of Gudmundsen-Holmgreen is always subjected to strict discipline: scale-binding, rhythmic or melodic mirroring and mechanical repetitions with rhythmical displacement. The main point is repetition. But in more recent years one can also see a less obvious role of structure and law, resulting in a bigger interest in the role of the musicians as a living presence. We can feel this in his Stringquartets 5-8 (1982-86), his beautifully ritualistic Triptykon (1985) and works like For cello and orchestra (1996).
Even though his music often sounds provocative, pessimistic and abstract, one can always feel the warmth of a composer working in a sensitive and decent way, with an unstoppable will to write uncompromising and authentic music, which is easily overheard at the first encounter, but grows stronger on closer acquaintance.
(André Chaudron, February 2000)
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