Still, just like the original Aladdin story (part of The Arabian Nights, which also inspired Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade), there's a silver lining here too. Nielsen asked to have his name removed from the production. And instead of placing the musicians in the orchestra pit, he forced them to squeeze under an onstage staircase. Poulsen cut significant portions of the music and jumbled an important string of dances. Nielsen came up with almost 90 minutes of stunningly original music, including the colorful Oriental Festival March (heard here), subtly spiced with Asian accents, and an innovative scene where he divides the orchestra in quarters, each with its own tune, to mimic the bustle of a busy marketplace.īut once the production went into rehearsal there was trouble.

In 1919, Nielsen agreed to write incidental music for Poulsen's revival of the play Aladdin by Adam Oehlenschläger, one of Denmark's great literary figures. If you rub Aladdin's lamp you're supposed to be lucky, right? But luck didn't quite materialize for Danish composer Carl Nielsen when he rubbed elbows with theater director Johannes Poulsen.

Rub the lamp aladdin