Carl Nielsen (1865-1931)
String Quartets (Complete) Volume 1
String Quartet in E flat major, Op. 14
String Quartet in F major, Op. 44

The Danish composer Carl Nielsen was born in 1865, the son of a painter and village musician in whose band he had his earliest musical experience playing the violin. In 1879, after learning to play the cornet, he joined a military orchestra at Odense and by 1884 had been able, with the help of sponsors, to enter the Royal Danish Conservatory in Copenhagen as a student of the violin, piano and music theory. After graduation in 1886 his compositions began to win a hearing, with a significant success in 1888 for his Little Suite, scored for strings. The following year he became a violinist in the royal chapel, broadening still further his musical experience and in particular his knowledge of the music of Wagner, a subject of serious study for him in Germany in 1890. It was here that he began the first o