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Although he was best known as a conductor, Ole Schmidt, who has died aged 81, first came to public notice in his native Denmark as a composer of ballets, composing three in fairly rapid succession in the 1950s: The Fire-maker (Ildmageren, 1952), Behind the Curtain (Bag Tæppet, 1954) and Fever (Feber, 1957). Schmidt's outstanding talent on the conductor's rostrum – he had studied with Sergiu Celibidache and Rafael Kubelik – was showcased at the premiere of the third of these and the following year he took up the post of conductor at Copenhagen's Royal theatre, which he relinquished only in 1965.
Following posts with the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra (1969-70) and the Danish Radio Sinfonietta (1971-73), Schmidt made the leap to international prominence as a conductor in 1974 when he recorded the six Nielsen symphonies with the London Symphony Orchestra for the London-based record label Unicorn. Engagements from around the world, the UK and North America not least, raised his profile further: he became principal conductor of the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra in Denmark (1978-85) and later was permanent guest conductor of the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester and principal guest conductor of the Toledo Symphony in Ohio.
His many recordings concentrated on a variety of Danish composers: Karl Aage Rasmussen, Niels Viggo Bentzon (several of that composer's early symphonies), Svend Erik Tarp and others. One of the most imaginative of his later discs was one devoted to music inspired by the writings of Hans Christian Andersen. He also recorded several of his own works, including the film music written in 1983 for Carl Theodor Dreyer's silent film Jeanne d'Arc (1928) and five of his wind concertos.
Schmidt was born in Copenhagen and was initially self-taught, playing jazz piano in restaurants – jazz would later seep into the fabric of his own compositions. He enrolled in the composition class at the Royal Danish Academy of Music, where his teachers included the finest of his compatriot composers: Vagn Holmboe, Finn Høffding and Bentzon. His compositions include opera; a symphony; concertos for piano, accordion, trumpet and trombone, flute, horn, violin, tuba and guitar; chamber music; and choral works including the Øresund Symphony (1993), co-written with the Swede Gunnar Jansson to celebrate the inauguration of the Øresund Bridge Project between Denmark and Sweden (eventually opened in 2000). Schmidt's music was direct in utterance, tonal in idiom, with traces of Hindemith, Stravinsky and, for example in the exhilarating Tuba Concerto, jazz.
He married the dancer Lizzie Rode in 1960. They collaborated on the Ballet in D in 1961 and had two children, Henrietta and Tina. All three survive him.
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