Aftenposten
- The American Elections
- Danish Music
- The Fire at Traane Farm
Aftenposten's front page of 3 November 1926 led with an editorial on the American elections. It argued that the idealism with which the United States had entered the war under Wilson had given way to materialism, with Americans praising prosperity and hoping to stay out of European politics, and it traced the change to disappointment with the peace. The page also carried a signed column by the Danish composer Carl Nielsen, who judged that Danish music held no especially marked place in European musical culture, being neither deeply rooted in folk song nor at the summit of art music. A special telegram reported that the outbuilding at the Traane farm had been deliberately burned under the supervision of a fire constable from Mandal, leaving only ashes while a fire tarpaulin kept the farmhouse safe.
Translation
The American Elections.
Among everything that has now been written and said in connection with the elections, one will search in vain for any of the idealism that was so characteristic of America when it entered the war under President Wilson's leadership. Idealism has been replaced by materialism. Everywhere people praise the good times in lofty tones and pray to be spared from once again being drawn into the hornets' nest called European politics. The cause of this radical change must be sought in the many disappointments that the peace brought the Americans.
Danish Music.
If we now take, as it were, an overview of European musical culture, we can surely agree that, on the whole, Danish music does not occupy any particularly marked place. It is neither strongly shaped by folk music or the Danish folk ballads, nor has it reached the highest level of art-music culture.
The Fire at Traane Farm.
The outbuilding at Traane has now been burned. The fire was set at around 12 o'clock under the supervision of a fire constable from Mandal, and within a couple of hours the whole thing was done. Now only a heap of ashes remains. The wind conditions were very favourable, and the farmhouse, which was protected by a fire tarpaulin, was not threatened for a moment.
Context
How the 1926 midterms reduced the Republican Senate majority
The editorial responded to the American midterm elections of November 1926, which took place in the middle of Republican President Calvin Coolidge's second term. In the Senate the outcome was a setback for the president's party: the Republican majority was reduced by seven seats, although the Republicans still kept control of the chamber. The selected passage of Aftenposten's piece does not discuss seat numbers; instead it reads the tone of the campaign, setting the idealism with which America had entered the war under Wilson against a public mood that praised good times and wanted no part in European affairs. The claim that Americans had turned inward out of disappointment with the peace is the newspaper's own interpretation. The independently documented result is narrower: Coolidge's Republicans lost ground in the Senate but kept their majority.
Carl Nielsen and the Oslo performance of his Flute Concerto
The author of the column on Danish music, Carl Nielsen, conducted his own new Flute Concerto in Oslo five days after this page appeared. He had written the concerto in 1926 for Holger Gilbert-Jespersen, who had succeeded Paul Hagemann as flautist of the Copenhagen Wind Quintet. The work was generally well received at its Paris premiere in October 1926, but Nielsen had not finished it in time and had to give it a temporary ending. When the concerto was performed in Oslo on 8 November, again with Gilbert-Jespersen as soloist, Nielsen took over as conductor, and he still had not written a real ending; the first complete version was heard only on 25 January 1927 at the Music Society in Copenhagen. The column therefore came from a composer about to present his newest music to Norwegian listeners. Its sober verdict that Danish music held no marked place in Europe is Nielsen's own opinion, written for Aftenposten's readers.
Norway's first foot-and-mouth outbreak and the burning at Traane
The Traane dispatch describes a planned destruction: the fire was lit around 12 o'clock under the supervision of a fire constable from Mandal, on Norway's south coast, and the farmhouse was shielded with a fire tarpaulin. The selected passage does not give the reason, but the date matches Norway's first outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, which came to Sørlandet in the autumn of 1926 and was effectively fought until it ended in the spring of 1928. Norway, as a country that is free of the disease for long periods, deals with outbreaks by slaughtering infected herds together with disinfection and cordons; Store norske leksikon describes this as the present-day method. The virus is also durable: feed and surroundings stay infectious for about a month, longer in cold conditions, which helps explain why authorities in 1926 might destroy a contaminated building rather than only clean it. Linking Traane to the epidemic is an inference from timing and place, since the passage itself records only the supervised burning.
Original
De amerikanske valg.
Blandt alt hvad der nu har været skrevet og talt i forbindelse med valgene vil man forgjæves søke efter noget av den idealisme, som var saa karakteristisk for Amerika, da det gik med i krigen under præsident Wilsons førerskap. Idealismen er blit erstattet av materialisme. Overalt priser man i høie toner de gode tider og ber sig bevaret for atter at bli blandet ind i det hvepsebol, som heter europæisk politik. Aarsaken til denne radikale forandring maa søkes i de mange skuffelser, som freden bragte amerikanerne.
Dansk musik.
Hvis vi nu likesom tår et overblik over den europæiske musikkultur, kan vi sikkert bli enige om, at i det store og hele har den danske musik ikke nogen særlig markert plas. Den er hverken kraftig betinget av folkemusikken eller de danske folkeviser, ei heller har den naad den kunstmusikalske kulturs øverste trin.
Traanegaardens brand.
Uthuset paa Traane er nu brændt. Ilden blev sat paa ved 12tiden under kontrol av en brandkonstabel fra Mandal, og i løpet av et par timer var det hele gjort. Der er nu bare en askehaug tilbake. Vindforholdene var meget gunstige, og vaaningshuset, som var beskyttet av et brandseil, var ikke et øieblik truet.