The Nielsen Nexus

[DaveF]

Could this be my ideal Clarinet Concerto that I've been seeking for years?:

[asin]B000E97Z3C[/asin]

Just been rounding off Christmas Day excerpting lots of recordings of it on Spotify, and this Swedish/Finnish collaboration is seriously exciting - sounds like Ib Eriksson come back to life - but with all the right notes .  The way she rips into the second cadenza is quite thrilling.  The band are good, too, with a side-drummer who wants us to realise that actually it's a double concerto.  (We had Petri Sakari in Cardiff once for a very fine Inestinguibile, so he knows his stuff.)  Anybody else know this disc/have opinions?  I'll probably download from Qobuz (sorry to keep mentioning Euro-Qobuz), which will also make me the proud owner of a short concerto by John Fernström and a half-hour monster by Jouni Kaipanen - ?? anybody ??  Just hope they're as good as Kalevi Aho's that Martin Fröst recorded on his Nielsen disc.

[SurprisedByBeauty]

(sorry to keep mentioning Euro-Qobuz),

Don't be! Qobuz is the only company that gets classical downloading/streaming right. I include them in every link on my posts, too, despite their non-US presence (for now), simply because everyone should know how it CAN be done. ;-)

[vandermolen]

Really enjoying this CD. The placing of Helios, Saga-Drom, Pan and Syrinx and An Imaginary Journey to the Faroe Islands in sequence is wonderful - very fine performances and recordings too. The Aladdin music is the icing on the cake - a great CD:
[asin]B000BDH5DQ[/asin]

[Mirror Image]

Really enjoying this CD. The placing of Helios, Saga-Drom, Pan and Syrinx and An Imaginary Journey to the Faroe Islands in sequence is wonderful - very fine performances and recordings too. The Aladdin music is the icing on the cake - a great CD:
[asin]B000BDH5DQ[/asin]

There are many fine recordings of all those works of course, but I would be curious how these particular performances stack up against others like Willen, Dausgaard, and Jarvi? How's the audio quality?

[vandermolen]

There are many fine recordings of all those works of course, but I would be curious how these particular performances stack up against others like Willen, Dausgaard, and Jarvi? How's the audio quality?

I'll get back to you on that. It sounds very good to me John although I don't listen on very expensive equipment.

[Mirror Image]

I'll get back to you on that. It sounds very good to me John although I don't listen on very expensive equipment.

Ah okay, sounds like a plan, Jeffrey.

[SymphonicAddict]

Nielsen is one of my favorite absolutes, a composer who overflows brilliance in everything he composed. His style is so resolute and that makes it even more unique. Everything I've heard from him I liked a lot. As an inexhaustible lover of symphonies in general, I have Nielsen's symphonies in a very high esteem. For me the best symphonies are 3-5 without deserving the other 3, but the first mentioned have an overwhelming energy (it's difficult not to be astonished at such a display of power). Among his other works I like Pan and Syrinx, the tremendous Flute concerto, the magnificent Clarinet concerto, the so lovely and fine Hymnus Amoris and the kaleidoscopic Commotio for organ. I was listening to the fourth movement of the third symphony and it is absolutely infectious, I can't get it out of my head!

[Mirror Image]

Nielsen is one of my favorite absolutes, a composer who overflows brilliance in everything he composed. His style is so resolute and that makes it even more unique. Everything I've heard from him I liked a lot. As an inexhaustible lover of symphonies in general, I have Nielsen's symphonies in a very high esteem. For me the best symphonies are 3-5 without deserving the other 3, but the first mentioned have an overwhelming energy (it's difficult not to be astonished at such a display of power). Among his other works I like Pan and Syrinx, the tremendous Flute concerto, the magnificent Clarinet concerto, the so lovely and fine Hymnus Amoris and the kaleidoscopic Commotio for organ. I was listening to the fourth movement of the third symphony and it is absolutely infectious, I can't get it out of my head!

Sibelius, Nielsen, Ravel, Bartok, and RVW. These composers are my musical soulmates (yes, one can have more than one ). I wrote this rather short paragraph on Facebook beside a photo of Nielsen about a year or so ago that read:

"It took me about six years to come to grips with Nielsen's idiom. For some, the attraction to the music is immediate, but, for me, I had to work at it. I was allured by his sound-world but I didn't love it. I'd say I finally cracked this music wide-open. Nielsen draws from many sources: Mozart, Brahms, Beethoven, Danish folk music, but this is all projected through his own unique lens and the result is something a bit off-the-wall, passionate, emotionally absorbing, half sweet, half sour, but, ultimately, his music was a reflection of who he was like all the great composers. His compositional voice is one of challenging traditional notions of symphonic music. I'm glad I never stopped listening. Great things do come to those who are patient enough to wait for it."

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His symphonies are by far some of the most engrossing music ever written. I also love all three of his concerti, most of his orchestral works like Saga-Dream, Imaginary Voyage to the Faroe Islands, Helios Overture, Pan & Syrinx, the Wind Quintet, and Violin Sonata No. 2. These particular works stand out to me and are reason enough to hold that Nielsen flag high and keep it waving. An extraordinary musical mind.

[SymphonicAddict]

Great and accurate words!

It is interesting to know that there are people who like this music as much or more than me and can share those impressions. All of the above enriches each topic of conversation in general, whether or not there are favorable comments on it.

[Mirror Image]

Great and accurate words!

It is interesting to know that there are people who like this music as much or more than me and can share those impressions. All of the above enriches each topic of conversation in general, whether or not there are favorable comments on it.

Absolutely. That's the great thing about GMG in general is that you're not always alone in your likes (and sometimes even your dislikes as well).

[Madiel]

I'm definitely catching the Nielsen bug. Once I've got to the end of the Da Capo orchestral set, I will undoubtedly exploring further. Because so far there's not a single weak piece in there.

[Karl Henning]

I'm definitely catching the Nielsen bug. Once I've got to the end of the Da Capo orchestral set, I will undoubtedly exploring further. Because so far there's not a single weak piece in there.

Hear, hear.

[Mirror Image]

I wrote a review on Amazon of the Schonwandt cycle that I'm rather proud of:

Title: Lacking Power In Nielsen's Forward Moving, High-Octane Symphonic Cycle

Carl Nielsen (1865 - 1931) is the most important composer to come out of Denmark. He's recognized as Denmark's most celebrated composer and rightfully so: he bridged his own highly individual musical language with classical music's rich musical past to forge a style that is ultimately his own. One of the main characteristics of his style or at least in his symphonic writing is how his music is structured not only in musical form but in terms of harmony. To a person just coming to Nielsen for the first-time, I highly recommend Leonard Bernstein's recording of "Symphony Nos. 3 & 5". This will give you an idea rather quickly of where Nielsen was coming from and how his own musical language works. You just can't go wrong with this Bernstein recording and any Nielsen fan will tell you this.

As for the cycle at hand, Schønwandt has received many favorable reviews over the years and his cycle received a 10/10 on ClassicsToday from David Hurwitz, but I'm afraid I just can't agree with the positive reviews given my own preferences and the way I like to hear this music performed. What makes Schønwandt's performances fall flat for me is there's a smoothed over, almost uniform quality to all of the performances that makes me think that he views all the symphonies the same when they couldn't be any more different from each other. There are six symphonies in Nielsen's symphonic cycle and each one, for me, represents a different side to the composer. I'll give a short break-down of each symphony's musical personality:

"Symphony No. 1" - This is Nielsen's first stab at a symphony and it has a 'young man showing what he can do' kind of sound to it if that makes any sense. He was clearly finding his own voice and you can hear it in the sheer exuberance of the music and the fact that the symphony itself struggles to find a key (even though it's labeled as being in G minor).

"Symphony No. 2, The Four Temperaments" - Nielsen is still testing the waters here, but this is probably his most lushly 'Romantic' symphony. There is sort of a program behind this particular symphony and you can go read about it, but basically each movement represents a side of the human experience. Like most of Nielsen's symphonies, it starts off with a bang from the get-go.

"Symphony No. 3, Sinfonia espansiva" - I'll go ahead and say it "Symphony Nos. 3-6" are where's it at for me in terms of Nielsen's symphony cycle. The 3rd pretty much has done away with the kind of Romantic gesturing you hear in the 1st and 2nd and we start to hear Nielsen's compositional voice come into the fore. This is energetic, driven music that sounds like nothing you've heard before. Nielsen makes use in the second movement of two vocalists (a soprano and a baritone) singing in a wordless vocal style that calls to mind Vaughan Williams' usage of this kind of sound in his "Pastoral Symphony". This said, the "Sinfonia Espansiva" could be viewed as his "Pastoral Symphony" but even this description would be undermining the sheer energy and power this symphony projects to the listener.

"Symphony No. 4, The Inextinguishable" - What a symphony! This is where Nielsen began structuring his music in an organic way, where each movement is played without pause and are interlocked. The finale of "The Inextinguishable" is a raucous timpani battle where the timpanists are given a significant amount of creative liberty to play as loudly as they can so they're almost drowning out the orchestra. It's a real hoot!

"Symphony No. 5" - Perhaps reflecting the horrors of World War I, the 5th is one of Nielsen's most menacing works. It contains a first movement where a side drummer is making one aggressive statement after another while the woodwinds are chattering away with their own embittered snipes before giving away to a beautiful "Adagio" section. This symphony, like all of Nielsen's mature symphonies, displays a remarkable amount of moods and emotions, but, also as I mentioned before, it doesn't sound like any of the other symphonies, which, in itself, is an astonishing achievement for any composer. This kind of thinking clearly shows that he wasn't too concerned with creating a 'unity' in his symphonies per se, but wanted each of the symphonies to display a different idea and sound-world that was uniquely its' own.

"Symphony No. 6, Sinfonia semplice" - The oddball of Nielsen's symphony cycle, but it's actually not so odd if you actually sit down and listen to it. When I finally understood this symphony, I was so happy that I persevered and continued trying to wrap my mind around it. This work contains some gnarly dissonances and is possibly the most forward-looking of all of his symphonies. There are many sporadic episodes here and there and sometimes you may wonder what relevance do any of them have in connection with each other, but you soon realize that the nature of this symphony, or, at least in my opinion, is that life as Nielsen knew it was coming to an end (he was quite in ill health whenever he wrote what would be his final symphony) and these episodes reveal a troubled mind, but also someone who was continuing to question the existence of all things. In this regard, this is actually the most tragic of all his symphonies and it reminds one of how our time is indeed quite limited.

Some of my favorite Nielsen conductors: Bernstein, Blomstedt (San Francisco SO Decca cycle), Chung, Gilbert, and Oramo. I cannot recommend this Schønwandt set on the account that, for me, there are much better performances offered.

[vandermolen]

What a great review John! For me Ormandy is without equal in No.6. I love the newly reissued Barbirolli version of No.5 for the manic side-drummer. I also like Horenstein's Unicorn version. I like Alexander Gibson in 4 and 5 too.

[Sergeant Rock]

I cannot recommend this Schønwandt set on the account that, for me, there are much better performances offered.

Agree. For me Schønwandt's is the most disappointing Nielsen cycle.

Sarge

[Mirror Image]

What a great review John! For me Ormandy is without equal in No.6. I love the newly reissued Barbirolli version of No.5 for the manic side-drummer. I also like Horenstein's Unicorn version. I like Alexander Gibson in 4 and 5 too.

Thanks, Jeffrey. One thing is for certain: we surely do have a plethora of recordings of these magnificent works available to us, which is something that probably couldn't have been said when LPs and such were being offered to the public. Nielsen has come a long way.

[Mirror Image]

Agree. For me Schønwandt's is the most disappointing Nielsen cycle.

Sarge

I've been disappointed with several Nielsen cycles, but, yes, Schønwandt's performances never quite take off for me.

[amw]

Counterpoint: I appreciate the Schønwandt set for its neoclassicist qualities, bringing out Nielsen's deep relationships to Brahms and Haydn. The interpretations sometimes lack rhythmic life (as in No. 3) but Nos. 2 and 6 in particular either avoid this problem or render it less noticeable.

[Mirror Image]

Counterpoint: I appreciate the Schønwandt set for its neoclassicist qualities, bringing out Nielsen's deep relationships to Brahms and Haydn. The interpretations sometimes lack rhythmic life (as in No. 3) but Nos. 2 and 6 in particular either avoid this problem or render it less noticeable.

It's certainly true that Nielsen revered Beethoven, Brahms, and Mozart, but these were merely stepping stones in the affirmation of him as a symphonist of such brilliant ingenuity. Bringing out the more 'classicist' aspect of his music, for me, belies the craggy, scorching hot undercurrent of the music, which thrives on forward momentum and surges of vigor in order for it sound more less right. So, while I'm not disagreeing with you completely, I do feel, however, without this particular aspect I spoke of being on display, his music comes off as rather flaccid. All IMHO of course.

[Madiel]

It's good writing, but it seems to me that a lot of it isn't actually a review of the cycle.

Don't get me wrong, I think you should be proud of the writing. I'm just of the view that a review of a particular recording should have more about the recording. I think Amazon does have places where you can write about the music and THEN outline preferred and non-preferred versions, and that may have been a better place for it.

I of course am very happy with Schønwandt's cycle, but that's neither here nor there.