Life
Bent Lorentzen was born in Stenvad, a village in eastern Jutland. He studied musicology at the university in Aarhus and at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen. He was a pupil of Knud Jeppesen, Finn Høffding, Vagn Holmboe and Jörgen Jersild. After his final examination he taught at the Academy of Music in Aarhus for some years.
Bent Lorentzen occupies a special position in modern Danish composition music. In the 1960s Electronic music inspired his creativity to take new paths, and since then innumerable other composition techniques have exerted an influence. Lorentzen was one of the earliest pioneers in the field of Danish electronic music (The Bottomless Pit in 1972 for the Nordic Music Days in Oslo, and Visions 1978), which was also introduced with an educational aim: the LP Elektronmusikkens materiale and the LP Water – electronic music for children, 1968. The possibilities of serialism perfectly matched his constructivism and his interest in sound as totality and potential for experiences, which were not limited by traditional musical elements. Bent Lorentzen’s music is often characterized as "sonic," meaning that it has the actual sounds - the experience of sonority and materiality at its centre.
He has composed in nearly all genres. His orchestral music includes concertos for oboe (1980), cello (1984), piano (1984), saxophone (1986), trumpet (1991) and violin (2001); his chamber music comprises solo works for organ, piano, trumpet, saxophone, clarinet, guitar, violin, cello and double-bass, as well as string quartets and works with mixed ensembles (2-12 instruments). His choral music consists of a wealth of works in a special theatrical style. To these we can add electronic music and instrumental theatre works. Bent Lorentzen has probably had most significance as a music dramatist with eighteen operas so far, many of which have been staged abroad, mostly in Germany at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, at the Statestheatres of Braunschweig and Kassel, also at the theatres of Bremen and Kiel, as well as at the Hamburgische Staatsoper. Of course he is performed in Denmark at the Royal Operahouse in Copenhagen and at the ... in Aarhus.
There is no question: Lorentzen is a dramatist in no matter what genre he composes. Incidentally he resembles Richard Wagner in two ways : 1.) he writes most of his libretti himself, and 2.) the works are all part of an ambitious vision of a reformed musical life. He is the most prolific music dramatist in Denmark with – until now – 18 operas or Music-Theater pieces, of which many have been performed abroad and some of them feature German lyrics by Michael Leinert. Add to this the instrumental theatre and pantomimic Carillons (for actors and bells). In a genre all of its own is Comics (1987) for entertainer, orchestra, children's and adult choir and amateur band.
His son, Morten Lorentzen, is a comedian.
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