The Nielsen Nexus

[71 dB]

Tell that to Blomstedt's nephew, who's struggling to get through college because... "we" can savor his uncle's great work for pennies on the dollar!! Oh, what have "we" become?

Free education is the answer to this "uncle problem".

[Parsifal]

I certainly don't have a problem with you not liking Leaper's Nielsen. That's not my business. Each to their own.

You told you don't understand why someone listens to Leaper when sets of Blomstedt and Kuchar are so cheap and easy to pick up. That's when I had to explain my choices. I did it and I even ordered the Blomstedt cycle. I think I am well over it by now. 

You'd better brace yourself for someone claiming that you should have gotten Blomstedt's other Nielsen cycle with the Danish Radio Symphony, on EMI (now Warner). 

(I would definitely expect the Decca set to have more pleasing sound.)

[Madiel]

You'd better brace yourself for someone claiming that you should have gotten Blomstedt's other Nielsen cycle with the Danish Radio Symphony, on EMI (now Warner). 

(I would definitely expect the Decca set to have more pleasing sound.)

Nah. Schønwandt. As re-released on Naxos.

[Parsifal]

Nah. Schønwandt. As re-released on Naxos.

The same ones originally released on DaCapo (which I have somewhere)?

[Madiel]

Yes.

[Parsifal]

Yes.

Are Naxos and DaCapo somehow the same?

Anyway, the last time I listened to Nielsen symphonies, it was Salonen, which I found adequate but not inspiring.

[Madiel]

Are Naxos and DaCapo somehow the same?

No. But have you never come across licensing of recordings before?

[71 dB]

Are Naxos and DaCapo somehow the same?

Yes and no. DaCapo is "the Danish National label" Distributed by Naxos.

[Madiel]

Yes and no. DaCapo is "the Danish National label" Distributed by Naxos.

Which is not what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about Naxos distributing discs that are labelled as Da Capo (in the same way they distribute a number of other labels). In the case of the Nielsen symphonies, the recordings have been re-released AS NAXOS DISCS.

[kishnevi]

The same ones originally released on DaCapo (which I have somewhere)?

This box maybe?
[asin]B005FF2U2Q[/asin]
Or the individual issues on Dacapo have red covers with a portrait of the composer.

Meanwhile, looking at Amazon I just realized I have the set I linked, and two of the Naxos CDs, and never noticed they were the same. Admittedly it has been quite a while since I played the Naxos versions.

BTW, I found this to be a perfectly satisfactory recording:
[asin]B001HMFCMQ[/asin]

[PerfectWagnerite]

Regarding Leaper I think these are very good to excellent recordings:



[asin]B000L42JDG[/asin]

[asin]B003NA7G9M[/asin]




Mr. Henning also posted a link awhile ago with Leaper conducting a relatively unknown non-British orchestra in Bax's Tintagel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3lPDkk-8Mk

From here you can see he has pretty good baton techniques and is a good example of a so-called second-rate conductor teaming with a third rate orchestra producing first rate music that is idiomatic in every sense of the word. I think he is just as good a conductor as other Brits like John Wilson, or Martyn Brabbins, or Andrew Davis all of whom happen to recording on more "expensive" labels with bigger name orchestras.

[Mirror Image]

I certainly don't have a problem with you not liking Leaper's Nielsen. That's not my business. Each to their own.

You told you don't understand why someone listens to Leaper when sets of Blomstedt and Kuchar are so cheap and easy to pick up. That's when I had to explain my choices. I did it and I even ordered the Blomstedt cycle. I think I am well over it by now. 

Well, I'm glad you came to your senses and bought a good cycle of Nielsen symphonies.

[71 dB]

Well, I'm glad you came to your senses and bought a good cycle of Nielsen symphonies.

I have lived 20 years believing Leaper's cycle IS good. 

Naxos needs to put a warning sticker on their Nielsen discs:

"WARNING: THIS IS A MEDIOCRE AT BEST PERFORMANCE. PLEASE BUY BLOMSTEDT'S OR KUCHAR'S CYCLE INSTEAD."

[71 dB]

Which is not what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about Naxos distributing discs that are labelled as Da Capo (in the same way they distribute a number of other labels). In the case of the Nielsen symphonies, the recordings have been re-released AS NAXOS DISCS.

I know. I have some Buxtehude discs released by Dacapo I bought at full price long ago and then a decade later Naxos re-released the same recordings as Naxos discs at Naxos price in order to expand their Buxtehude selection. Quite annoying! 

[Madiel]

My original point was merely that there is another Naxos Nielsen symphony cycle available for those who are into that sort of thing.

I bought the Da Capo box containing the same recordings because I also wanted the Dausgaard disc of orchestral works, and at the time the box was the cheaper method of getting everything.

[Karl Henning]

This discussion (and the excellent performance of Tintagel which I posted erewhile, as PW has reminded us) has me curious to try out the Leaper Nielsen cycle . . . I've found Used—Very Good copies of all three discs, $1.11 for the lot;  even adding the inevitable $11.97 shipping, it is like buying Naxos discs at their original price-point at the dawn of their venture    An entirely acceptable risk::reward profile.

[71 dB]

This discussion (and the excellent performance of Tintagel which I posted erewhile, as PW has reminded us) has me curious to try out the Leaper Nielsen cycle . . . I've found Used—Very Good copies of all three discs, $1.11 for the lot;  even adding the inevitable $11.97 shipping, it is like buying Naxos discs at their original price-point at the dawn of their venture    An entirely acceptable risk::reward profile.

I really like the cover art of these Leaper discs. The paintings of J. F. Willumsen seem so right for Nielsen's music!  0:)

I'd had to pay total £6.63 delivered for these three discs if I had to buy them today.

[Madiel]

"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.

I had to go back quite a lot of pages to go find your review and see what I thought as I'm getting into the symphonies more depth. Though of course, because I'm doing them out of order, I can't tell right now how "Romantic" the first 2 symphonies might be compared to this one!

But it's one of Nielsen's most fascinating qualities, a kind of anti-Romanticism (shared in some ways with Sibelius?) where he refuses to let the music descend into something gluggy. The start of the 2nd movement is an example of something that sounds as if it could turn a bit sentimental, but there's a clarity to the lines that prevents that from happening. Similarly with the wordless vocals, that's something you might expect to get terribly misty-eyed but Nielsen keeps that impulse in check.

Having recently spent a lot of time with the Chailly set of Brahms symphonies and the Gardiner set of Schumann ones, I do think there's something in common with those sorts of composers when they're played well, but Nielsen is from the time when late Romanticism was getting into it's biggest excesses so it's all the more interesting that he was more like an early Romantic than a late one.

[PerfectWagnerite]

This discussion (and the excellent performance of Tintagel which I posted erewhile, as PW has reminded us) has me curious to try out the Leaper Nielsen cycle . . . I've found Used—Very Good copies of all three discs, $1.11 for the lot;  even adding the inevitable $11.97 shipping, it is like buying Naxos discs at their original price-point at the dawn of their venture    An entirely acceptable risk::reward profile.

Yes there is an edginess and concentration to the playing that is pretty awesome I think. Also a depth and richness to the sound, very atmospheric. I like how the opening flute trills are more prominent here than other recordings.

I found this video of the same orchestra playing of all things Walton's 1st. You hear the same rawness and sense of discovery as you do in Bax's Tintagel. Not Leaper conducting this time...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWe6VWRXo9Q&t=1144s

[Madiel]

To move to something non-symphonic: who has a recording of Springtime in Funen?

I'm only even aware of 2 recordings, one conducted by Leif Segerstam and the other by Tamás Vetö. I'm particularly curious about the Segerstam recording (which I think, Mirror Image, you might have bought recently?) as the album as a whole ticks some repertoire boxes very neatly, but I'd also like to know about any other recordings out there.

EDIT: The only professional review of the Segerstam disc that I know about, from Gramophone magazine, has a distinct air of disappointment. And the criticisms it makes about Segerstam pressing the music too hard resurface in an Amazon customer review. Hmm.