...The Carl Nielsen Childhood Home
In 1953 the house was threatened by demolition as it was in the way of a planned straightening of the Odense-Faaborg highway. The newspaper, Fyens Stiftstidende’s chief editor at that time, Knud Secher, placed himself at the head of a committee who wanted the house to be preserved and used as a museum. The plan was to tear down the house and reconstruct it stone by stone at an appropriate distance away from the new highway. This work started in the autumn of 1955. After the re-positioning of the highway, the location of the house was 20-22 metres to the west of its original position, and after the reconstruction, the rooms corresponded more to the original order that was in place when Carl Nielsen’s parents lived. Since 1956 the house has functioned as a museum.
...The word is that the Russian Czar Peter the Great
in October 1716 took a break from his journey at a house which was close to the Odense-Faaborg Highway at the dividing line between Nr. Lyndelse and Nr. Søby. Therefore, the house was named "Petersborg". In the 1850s the house which later would be Carl Nielsen's childhood home was built on the spot where "Petersborg" had stood.
Carl Nielsen's Childhood Home
Carl Nielsen's Childhood Home
The house, which is situated about 15 kilometres south of Odense on the main road between Odense and Faaborg between the villages Nr. Lyndelse and Nr. Søby, was Carl Nielsen’s third and final childhood home. It was converted into a museum in 1956.
“A palace with sun and light and happiness”
Thus does the composer Carl Nielsen describe his childhood home in his memoir My Childhood (Min fynske Barndom) (1927). The house was built in the 1850s. Carl Nielsen’s parents, Maren Kirstine and Niels ‘the Painter’ Jørgensen, bought the property in March 1878. Apart from a brief period in the summer of 1878, Carl Nielsen lived here until November 1879, when he was apprenticed as a military bandsman in Odense. It was also in his childhood home in July 1891 that he introduced his wife, the sculptor Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen, to his family before his parents sold the house and all their belongings in September that same year and emigrated to USA.
The museum in this cosy house tells the story of Carl Nielsen’s childhood and of the working and musical life of the Nielsen home, which was to be decisive for Carl Nielsen’s development both as a musician and composer.
The Carl Nielsen's Childhood Home
Odensevej 2A
Nr. Lyndelse
DK-5792 Årslev