20 December 1909, Horsens, Jutland – 1 September 1996
Danish composer and educator
Works for Brass Ensemble
- Brass Quintet No. 1, Opus 79 (1962)
- Fanfare, Opus 121 (1974) for 3 trumpets and timpani
- Brass Quintet No. 2, Opus 136 (1978)
- Notations, Opus 140 (1979) for 3 trombones and tuba
- Concerto for Brass, Opus 157 (1983)
- Egil’s Ballad, Opus 185 (1991) for baritone (voice) and brass quintet
Biography
Vagn Holmboe was born into a merchant family of dedicated amateur musicians. From the age of 14 Holmboe took violin lessons and two years later he began formal music training at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen on the recommendation of Carl Nielsen. He studied under Knud Jeppesen (theory) and Finn Høffding (composition).
After finishing his studies in 1929, he moved to Berlin where for a short period Ernst Toch became his teacher. During his time in the German capital he met the Romanian-born pianist and visual artist Meta May Graf who had studied at the Musikhochschule Berlin with Paul Hindemith as one of her teachers. The couple married in 1933 and left Berlin for Romania, where they visited obscure and remote villages and studied Transylvanian folk-song. Subsequently, they moved to Denmark in 1934, settling in Copenhagen. While Meta gave up her musical career to pursue her passions in the visual arts, Vagn gave music lessons privately and began composing during this period. Similar to the research he had already done in Romania, he pursued his studies of folk-song with much field-work throughout Denmark including the Faroes and Greenland. Many overtly folk-linked compositions, including the Inuit Songs, are a result of these activities.
From 1941 to 1949 he was a teacher at the Royal Institute for the Blind, and from 1950 to 1965 he taught at the Royal Conservatory in Copenhagen, being appointed a Professor there in 1955. Prior to that he worked as a music critic for the Danish daily Politiken from 1947 to 1955.
Vagn Holmboe’s students included Per Nørgård, Ib Nørholm, Bent Lorentzen, Arne Nordheim, Egil Hovland, and Alan Stout.