Johan Svendsen

by Finn Benestad

"Johan Svendsen (1840-1911) has been characterized as "the boy from the wrong side of the tracks who won both the kingdom and a bevy of princesses." Raised by his authoritarian father in a slum area of Christiania (now Oslo), Norway, in 1857 Johan experienced a "musical awakening" upon hearing Beethoven's Fifth Symphony for the first time. It was a defining moment, one that changed his life forever." "In 1877 Svendsen, by then quite famous in Germany and Scandinavia, was invited to conduct a concert of his own works for King Oscar II and his guests at the royal palace in Oslo. A member of the orchestra later described the event: "It was an unpleasant, bitterly cold forenoon. ... The musicians were not in very good spirits. ... Then Svendsen jumped up on the cloth-bedecked conductor's platform and said in an authoritative voice: 'Gentlemen, when the royal entourage comes into this room, there is just one king, and that is - me.'" In 1883 he became musical director of the Royal Opera Hou