The Nielsen Nexus

Started by BachQ, April 12, 2007, 10:10:00 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 7 Guests are viewing this topic.

drogulus

Quote from: Joe Barron on June 15, 2010, 10:04:29 AM
I have two recording's of CN's Sixth --- Ole Schmidt and Herbert Blomstedt with the SFS. I've listened to both in the past week. Both are great, bu I have to say and I'm particularly  impressed with the Blomstedt. It has clarity, power and drive, and the CD has a very full, "present" sound. the section that caught my attention when i was listening to it last night was the end of the third movement, when the orchestra is slowing down, and the the high strings are playing a haunting, broken, wandering figure over the winds. It never really struck me with such force before, and I've known this piece for more than thirty years.

     These are the 2 cycles I have, and as an inexpert listener they sound authoritative (I guessed as much when I chose them, following leads from here). I'm still working my way through the 2 sets, on the 3rd symphony.

     
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:123.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/123.0
      
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:109.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/115.0

karlhenning

They are both good, though I believe that Blomstedt has the edge.

karlhenning

Quote from: Joe Barron on June 10, 2010, 09:09:34 AM
. . . The First is a young man's effort, and I haven't listened to it enough to judge. I should go back to it. Maybe even today.

A young work, but strong.  There are some ways in which I prefer the First to the Second.

Quote from: Joe BarronFirst symphony in history to end in a different key than it sarts in, I believe. There's a word for that, but I can think of it. Something like polydiatonharomicism.

Progressive tonality?

Separately . . .

Chorus for the 50th Anniversary of the Danish Cremation Union: has anyone heard it?  Somehow I find myself struck with interest in this.  Not directly related to tomorrow's being Thanksgiving, I think.

The new erato

#163
Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on November 24, 2010, 08:38:11 AM
Progressive tonality?

I think there are earlier works that start in minor and end in major; i heard such a work a few days ago but cannot for the life of me remember what it was.

Edit: I wonder if it was a Sinfonia by J C Bach.

Scarpia

Quote from: erato on November 24, 2010, 08:58:20 AM
I think there are earlier works that start in minor and end in major; i heard such a work a few days ago but cannot for the life of me remember what it was.

I believe it was not atypical for minor key symphonies to end in the major during the classical era.   Beethoven's 5th certainly begins in c minor and ends in c major.

Opus106

Quote from: Scarpia on November 24, 2010, 09:17:46 AM
Beethoven's 5th certainly begins in c minor and ends in c major.

And Mahler's 2nd (c to Eb). I think it was while reading about that work that I first came across the term.
Regards,
Navneeth

(poco) Sforzando

Quote from: Scarpia on November 24, 2010, 09:17:46 AM
I believe it was not atypical for minor key symphonies to end in the major during the classical era.   Beethoven's 5th certainly begins in c minor and ends in c major.

Not the same thing at all as ending in a different tonic (an earlier example of which is the Chopin 2nd Ballade, which begins in F major and ends in A minor - which still is a related key). By placing his finale in the major, Beethoven was using a large-scale version of the Picardy 3rd, very common in minor mode works (including numerous instances in Bach) because the major mode was felt to have greater stability. Much less common is a major mode work ending in its own tonic minor, but the Brahms Eb Rhapsody op. 119/4 qualifies. Even the Mahler 2nd progresses from the nominal minor mode (C minor) to the relative major (Eb) - a closely related key. A more radical procedure is in the Mahler 5, which begins in C# minor and ends in D major, a tonality that is completely unrelated. Same with the Mahler 9th, which begins in D and has its adagio finale in Db.
"I don't know what sforzando means, though it clearly means something."

karlhenning

Quote from: Sforzando on November 24, 2010, 10:16:22 AM
Not the same thing at all as ending in a different tonic (an earlier example of which is the Chopin 2nd Ballade, which begins in F major and ends in A minor - which still is a related key).

Chopin was quite a trailblazer in this, even on a small scale . . . the a minor prelude actually begins in e minor.

karlhenning

Quote from: Opus106 on November 24, 2010, 09:30:02 AM
And Mahler's 2nd (c to Eb).

That's still a move to the relative major, one of the closest relations.

Nielsen's First opens in g minor . . . second movement in G, the parallel major . . . third movement in the "Schubertian" E-flat major (the flattened submediant).  The fourth movement, like the first, starts in g minor, though with a C major chord . . . which sets up the idea of concluding the piece with C as the tonic.

The new erato

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on November 24, 2010, 11:03:41 AM
That's still a move to the relative major, one of the closest relations.

Nielsen's First opens in g minor . . . second movement in G, the parallel major . . . third movement in the "Schubertian" E-flat major (the flattened submediant).  The fourth movement, like the first, starts in g minor, though with a C major chord . . . which sets up the idea of concluding the piece with C as the tonic.

Pity Saul isn't here to explain all this stuff to us.

(poco) Sforzando

Quote from: erato on November 24, 2010, 11:05:28 AM
Pity Saul isn't here to explain all this stuff to us.

We must soldier on somehow without him.
"I don't know what sforzando means, though it clearly means something."

(poco) Sforzando

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on November 24, 2010, 10:55:03 AM
Chopin was quite a trailblazer in this, even on a small scale . . . the a minor prelude actually begins in e minor.

Unless you want to think of that e minor as V in a minor. But however you do it, that piece certainly feels like one of Chopin's most harmonically unstable through most of its length. This is an interesting discussion:

http://www.scottdstrader.com/blog/ether_archives/000374.html
"I don't know what sforzando means, though it clearly means something."

karlhenning

[ cross-post ]

This Thanksgiving season, I've sort of slouched into a Nielsen revival.  And last night I revisited the "Cantata rarities" Da Capo disc.

This morning, I've just listened (with score) to the First Symphony.  Really a marvelous symphony, especially for a first.  As a first, you expect it to owe something to certain composers as models . . . but Nielsen has already assimilated the craft, and the piece is entirely in his own voice.  He wrote this piece with the lean economies of Brahms, yet the material is by turns buoyant and fiery.

I think I shall likely have time to revisit De fire Temperamenter a little later today.

Superhorn

  Nielsen carried progressive tonality to the point that a movement,particularly in his later works,might end in a totally unrealted key. 
   The first movement of the 3rd begins in d minor,but ends in A major,which is very unorthodox. The 4th has no one key at all, and moves restlessly from one to another,achieving tonal stability only at climaxes.
  The 5th is in two movements,and the tonal center procedes in the first from roughly F to C to G,rising by fifths.
  The second begins in B major,proceding to F minor,F major, resuming B major and ultimately ending in E falt major, a key which had never previously been used !
   In Nielsen's music,tonality is extremely fluid and unfixed.

Mirror Image

Nielsen is one of those great early 20th Century composers who was still shaking off some of that Romantic residue to only, in turn, come up with some of the most incredible and inventive symphonic music of that century. I got into Nielsen the same time I got into Sibelius. Their music is like night and day. It's amusing they're lumped in with each other just because they both hail from Scandinavia. Anyway, Nielsen's six symphonies are masterpieces of the genre I think. They have this certain edginess to them that I find interesting. One of the most interesting aspects of Nielsen's music is how he is almost in constant motion and doesn't linger too long with one idea. It's as almost he has composer's ADD. :D I've really come to love his music and there's a lot of great stuff beyond the symphonies, which has already effectively been covered by other members.

bhodges

Great news: Alan Gilbert and the NYPO will record Nielsen's six symphonies and three concertos, on Dacapo. From the press release:

"The New York Philharmonic, conducted by Music Director Alan Gilbert, The Yoko Nagae Ceschina Chair, will over several seasons perform and record the six symphonies and three concertos of Carl Nielsen (1865–1931) — the national composer of Denmark for release on Denmark's Dacapo label. The soloists for the individual concertos — for flute, violin, and clarinet — will be Philharmonic Principal Flute Robert Langevin, Philharmonic Principal Clarinet Designate Ricardo Morales, and violinist Nikolaj Znaider. Each of the four discs will be released separately — the first, in the fall of 2012 — with all being integrated into a set in the fall of 2015 to coincide with the 150th anniversary of Nielsen's birth; they will be distributed worldwide by the Naxos group."

Complete info (in PDF form) here.

--Bruce

Mirror Image

Quote from: Brewski on June 10, 2011, 12:25:22 PM
Great news: Alan Gilbert and the NYPO will record Nielsen's six symphonies and three concertos, on Dacapo. From the press release:

"The New York Philharmonic, conducted by Music Director Alan Gilbert, The Yoko Nagae Ceschina Chair, will over several seasons perform and record the six symphonies and three concertos of Carl Nielsen (1865–1931) — the national composer of Denmark for release on Denmark's Dacapo label. The soloists for the individual concertos — for flute, violin, and clarinet — will be Philharmonic Principal Flute Robert Langevin, Philharmonic Principal Clarinet Designate Ricardo Morales, and violinist Nikolaj Znaider. Each of the four discs will be released separately — the first, in the fall of 2012 — with all being integrated into a set in the fall of 2015 to coincide with the 150th anniversary of Nielsen's birth; they will be distributed worldwide by the Naxos group."

Complete info (in PDF form) here.

--Bruce

This is great news indeed. Will this be the first Gilbert-led NY Philharmonic commercial release?

jlaurson

Quote from: Mirror Image on June 10, 2011, 07:23:21 PM
This is great news indeed. Will this be the first Gilbert-led NY Philharmonic commercial release?

Well... great news for the NYPhil & Gilbert to do something interesting... whether it will improve on existing cycles is another question.
Gilbert has recorded more or less the whole season with the NYPhil, but they're only on-line / iTunes 'recordings', not hard-copy releases... so yes, it would be what we understand a first 'commercial release' to be.

DavidW

Quote from: jlaurson on June 11, 2011, 03:30:24 AM
Well... great news for the NYPhil & Gilbert to do something interesting... whether it will improve on existing cycles is another question.
Gilbert has recorded more or less the whole season with the NYPhil, but they're only on-line / iTunes 'recordings', not hard-copy releases... so yes, it would be what we understand a first 'commercial release' to be.

That's terrible.  The majority of classical music listeners still prefer buying cds (actually the majority of music listeners as a whole still buy more cds than digital downloads), offering only downloads is flat out foolish.

karlhenning

Quote from: jlaurson on June 11, 2011, 03:30:24 AM
Well... great news for the NYPhil & Gilbert to do something interesting... whether it will improve on existing cycles is another question.

And, love Nielsen's music though I do, he's a composer now faded practically into antiquity.