Carl Nielsen the Masterworks Volume 1 – Orchestral Music

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carl Nielsen The masterworks Volume 1 – Orchestral music

Danish National symphony orchestra Michael Schønwandt / Thomas Dausgaard CD 1 carl Nielsen Symphony no. 3, op. 27 “Sinfonia espansiva” (1910-11)��37:11 1 I Allegro espansivo ��11:41 The masterworks 2 II Andante pastorale**��9:33 Volume 1 – Orchestral music 3 III Allegretto un poco ��6:21 4 IV Finale: Allegro ��9:28 ** Inger Dam-Jensen, soprano; Poul Elming , tenor Danish National symphony orchestra Michael Schønwandt / Thomas Dausgaard * Symphony no. 2, op. 16 “The Four Temperaments” (1901-02) ��33:44 5 I Allegro collerico ��10:07 6 II Allegro comodo e flemmatico ��4:39 7 III Andante malincolico ��11:20 8 IV Allegro sanguineo ��7:28

CD 2 Symphony no. 4, op. 29 “The Inextinguishable” (1914-16) ��36:28 1 I Allegro ��12:30 2 II Poco allegretto (8 bars after tempo marking) ��4:53 3 III Poco adagio quasi andante ��9:32 4 IV Con anima – Allegro ��9:32 René Mathiasen, timpani 1; Christian Utke Schiøler, timpani 2

Symphony no. 5, op. 50 (1920-22) ��38:21 5 I Tempo giusto – ��10:37 6 Adagio ��10:02 7 II Allegro – ��6:28 8 Presto ��3:12 9 Andante poco tranquillo – ��4:55 Dacapo is supported by the Danish Arts Council Committee for Music 10 Allegro (Tempo I) ��3:03 Niels Thomsen, clarinet; Tom Nybye, snare drum CD 3 Saul and David (1898-1901) Symphony No. 1, Op. 7 (1889-94)��34:00 9 Prelude to Act II: Allegro marziale�� 5:08 1 I Allegro orgoglioso �� 9:22 2 II Andante �� 6:56 Rhapsody Overture: (1927) 3 III Allegro comodo – Andante sostenuto – Tempo I �� 8:01 An imaginary journey to the Faroe Islands 10 Andante sostenuto – Andante tranquillo – Allegro molto ��10:17 4 IV Finale: Allegro con fuoco �� 8:42

(1907-08) Symphony No. 6 “Sinfonia semplice” (1924-25) ��34:34 Willemoes 11 Prelude to Act III: Andantino espressivo �� 2:11 5 I Tempo giusto��14:17 6 II Humoresque – Allegretto �� 4:20 Pan and Syrinx. Pastoral Scene for Orchestra, op. 49 (1917-18) 7 III Proposta seria – Adagio �� 5:07 12 Andante tranquillo �� 8:43 8 IV Theme and Variations: ��10:50 Allegretto un poco – Var. 1 – Var. 2: Allegretto quasi andantino – Cupid and the Poet, op. 54 (1930) Var. 3: Più vivo – Var. 4 – Var. 5: Brioso – Var. 6: Tempo di valse – Var. 7 – 13 Ouverture: Allegretto con brio �� 5:22 Var. 8: Molto adagio – Var. 9: Tempo di tema (Allegretto un poco) – Fanfare Ouverture Helios, op. 17 (1903) 14 Andante tranquillo – Allegro ma non troppo – Presto –��11:55 CD 4 * Tempo I – Andante tranquillo Maskarade (1904-06) 1 Overture �� 4:21 DVDs 1 and 2 2 Cockerel’s Dance �� 5:42 The six symphonies recorded live at the Danish Radio Concert Hall. Sir Oluf He Rides (1906) 3 Prelude: Andantino giusto �� 5:38

Snefrid. Suite for orchestra (1893-94/99) ��13:21 4 I Prelude �� 2:15 5 II Andante quasi sostenuto�� 2:43 6 III Postlude: Allegro non troppo �� 2:03 7 IV Snefrid’s Sleep: Andante – Quasi allegretto – Andante �� 3:27 8 V Funeral Music: Andante sostenuto �� 2:33 years afterwards he also signed a general contract with the publisher Wilhelm Hansen, CARL NIELSEN by Niels Bo Foltmann who published more or less all his works until 1924. Alongside his composing career Carl Nielsen was to hold several important posts in Carl (August) Nielsen was born on 9th June 1865 at Sortelung near Nørre Lyndelse on Danish musical life. In the period 1908-14 he conducted at the Royal Theatre, then from the island of Funen. His father, who was a painter, also worked as a village musician, and 1915 until 1927 he conducted the concerts of the society Musikforeningen. In 1915 he was as a boy Carl was already playing in his father’s dance orchestra. At the same time he played elected to the board of trustees of the Royal Academy, where he also taught theory and in the local amateur orchestra, Braga, whose repertoire, besides entertainment and dance composition from 1915 until 1919. Finally he was on the boards of the Danish Composers’ -music, also included the symphonies of Vienna Classicism. At the age of just fourteen he Society and the Society for the Publication of Danish Music. was engaged as a trombonist in the regimental band in Odense. Alongside his work as a From the earliest works on, Carl Nielsen’s compositions were permeated by a Classicist military musician he played string quartets with his friends and studied Das wohltemperi- aesthetic which deliberately avoided any element of Late Romanticism. But in the course of erte Klavier on his own initiative. From these years came his first real attempts at composi- the 1910s and 1920s he oriented himself more towards the new currents in European mu- tion – mainly chamber music works in the Classical style. sic. Little by little he now worked several modernist elements into his music, but without at Thanks to patrons in Odense, Carl Nielsen had the chance to go to Copenhagen, any time abandoning his very characteristic personal style. This development is very clear where he studied at the Royal Academy of Music in 1884-86 with the violin as his main in the last three symphonies, no. 4 (1914-16), no. 5 (1920-22) and no. 6 (1924-25). Alongside subject and the Joachim pupil Valdemar Tofte as his teacher. He was also taught theory the increasingly modernist instrumental works Nielsen worked, with his friend Thomas (by J.P.E. Hartmann and Orla Rosenhoff), piano (by Gottfred Matthison-Hansen) and Laub for example, to reform the Danish national song tradition. This resulted in a number music history (by Niels W. Gade). After his years at the Academy he continued his theo- of collections of simple strophic songs where he deliberately tried to perpetuate the ideals retical studies with Rosenhoff and in 1888 he felt ready to publish his opus 1, the Suite for of J.A.P. Schulz’ Lieder im Volkston (1784). Strings. The next year he was engaged as second violinist in the Royal Orchestra, a posi- Carl Nielsen had a distinctive literary talent which resulted in the childhood memoirs tion he kept until 1905. In 1890, as recognition of his talent, he was awarded the grant Min fynske barndom (My Childhood on Funen) which is amazingly objective and unsenti- Det Anckerske Legat, which enabled him to go on a study trip to different places on the mental, and the essay collection Levende musik (Living Music), where his anti-Romantic Continent. During this trip, in 1891, he married the sculptress Anne Marie Brodersen, aesthetics were clearly expressed. who remained his wife for the rest of his life, although the marriage underwent serious In later years Nielsen suffered from a weak heart, and he died on 3rd October 1931 after crises in some periods. a heart attack, 66 years old. In the 1890s Carl Nielsen consolidated his position as one of the country’s promising young composers with works like the First Symphony op. 7 (1890-92), the J.P. Jacobsen songs op. 4 and 6 (1891), the Violin Sonata op. 9 (1895) and the choral work Hymnus amoris (1896-97). The years around the turn of the century further brought two operas, Saul and David (1898-1901) and Masquerade (1904-06), the last of which quickly gained the status of a Danish national opera. From 1901 he was granted a Government salary, which meant that he was no longer forced to take private pupils to keep up the family finances. A few

6 7 In this music there are the finest effects of light – cloud shadows hastening over flowing Symphony no. 1, op. 7 by Peter Hauge water. The sun breaks forth and the sun hides. Waves tower up and subside again. There are the eternally shifting moods of an easily moved human mind, from tears to smiles, It is hard to say exactly when Carl Nielsen began work on his first symphony. No complete from weeping to laughter. Eyes sparkle and eyes become dewy, the heart beats with joy and draft is preserved, only rough drafts and sketches. He probably began as early as 1889-90. is crushed by torment. And all this is given enchanting expression in music, bold and yet This is confirmed by among other things the fact that in the draft and sketches for the F undemonstrative, flashy and yet refined. minor quartet (op. 5), which was performed for the first time in Berlin in December 1890, This symphony is a whole marvellous and captivating series of moods, so airy and easily there is a short motif, which was later used in the G minor symphony, Symphony No. 1. -Al- flowing that one almost thinks the mere generic designation is a burden upon it. A work though Nielsen says in his diary in January 1891 that he has now begun on an andante “in D from which there already flashes a summer lightning of talent and which seems to promise flat major for the symphony” possibly corresponding to the D flat major second subject in a coming storm of genius. the Allegro orgoglioso, it was probably only when he had returned from his travels abroad in Unquiet and ruthless in harmony and modulation, yet all so wonderfully innocent the summer of 1891 that he began the real work on the symphony. and unconscious, as if one saw a child play with dynamite. And what is most important: In 1893 Johan Svendsen promised to perform the new work in the coming season, genuine and with no pretence whatsoever from start to finish, an accurate and faithful although Nielsen had not finished it. At any rate he had progressed no further than feeling expression of this quite distinct, unusual young artistic personality. that he had no problem rejecting the second subject of the final movement, since it was Quite captivating was the second movement, an Andante sostenuto, as quiet and “too slender for the first subject”. Despite heart problems that had arisen during the move dreaming as the scent of clover. It was also heard with that indescribable awe which far to Frederiksgade 5 in the autumn of 1893, and a resulting stay in hospital of 20 days, in more clearly than loud applause spread the confirmed opinion over the whole hall; none December Carl Nielsen was able to finish the fair copy of the first three movements, while of our young composers had hitherto written such a valuable and significant piece of new the fair copy of the final movement was only finished in mid-January of the New Year. music as this […] The symphony was given its first performance on 14th March 1894 at “the Koncertpalæ by But both in the introductory movement, an Allegro which rightly bore the designation the whole Royal Orchestra and the best musicians outside the Orchestra under the baton of “proud” and in a whimsically formed third movement, Allegro piacevole, which the designa- Johan Svendsen”, as the young composer proudly wrote in his diary. The next day the reviewer tion explicitly protected from being perceived as a Scherzo, and then in a Finale appas- on the newspaper Politiken, Charles Kjerulf, wrote an extremely laudatory, enthusiastic and sionata, there was so much spirit and power, so much new and distinctive, fine and fertile, poetic review (please note that Carl Nielsen later changed the names of the movements): that no one could be in any doubt that Carl Nielsen has here, in the most beautiful and From the first to the last note this work engages ear and mind equally. And yet – not in convincing way, honoured the many great promises of the past. the sense that there is any breakthrough, that all Carl Nielsen’s powers are here at once And when this, his G minor symphony, ended so naturally and straightforwardly, as if crystallized in fixed forms, blocks and bricks of notes, from which with a firm hand and there was no grain of defiance, in a bright C major chord, the applause thundered out, and assured architecture an enduring edifice rises. the youthful composer, from his modest second violin desk, had to come forward a whole What this symphony or just this music “represents” or “is supposed to mean”, no one, three times to the side of the radiantly happy Johan Svendsen to thank the audience person- perhaps least of all Carl Nielsen himself, is likely to say. At all events it “represents” no ally for the enthusiastic acclaim. Such a feelingful concert moment is something one only more than a painting with sea and air alone, but for all that this is also more than enough. experiences at intervals of many years […]

8 9 The quotation suggests that the frequent claim that Charles Kjerulf was extremely criti- nevertheless he did show so much interest in it that Carl Nielsen was allowed to conduct cal of Carl Nielsen’s compositions until he heard the performance of the Fourth Symphony the symphony at the first orchestral concert that Nicodé held in Dresden in 1896. in 1916 must be reconsidered. There can be no doubt that Kjerulf was enchanted by the In his diary Carl Nielsen wrote that it was not as great a success in Dresden as it had First Symphony. been in Copenhagen; all the same he listed the number of times he had been called up to Common to quite a few of the articles is the fact that they find the motifs of the first the stage. He was further convinced that the symphony’s “concise form and precise mode movement “a little breathless”, or that they suffer from “a certain shortness of breath”, of expression […] both amazed and appealed to people”, and that “such a piece will be able which shows that even in the First Symphony Carl Nielsen’s style deviates from the more to do some good and open ears and eyes to all the German gravy and fat among Wagner’s Lied-like themes of many Romantic composers. The second movement appears to have imitators”. In Denmark and Sweden too the work was performed innumerable times dur- been the one that aroused most attention, while the third movement seems to have been ing the lifetime of the composer. perceived as less personal and more lustreless. The most critical review is however to be A recurring feature of the reviews of the work during Carl Nielsen’s lifetime is an em- found in Dagbladet (the same review appeared in Dagens Nyheder and Nationaltidende), phasis on the work’s “succinct form” and “precise expression” – which should probably be written by Angul Hammerich: understood as the concise form and the brief, non-Lied-like phrasing. This was also em- Mr. Carl Nielsen had the honour of making his debut at this place with a new sym- phasized in exactly the same words by Nielsen himself in 1896, when he contrasted it with phony. It has been written with a decidedly radical tendency, somewhat in the style of the “German gravy and fat”. The idea is also suggested in a letter the composer wrote to the César Franck’s things. What it otherwise adds or does not add, it would be impossible Swedish conductor, composer and pianist Wilhelm Stenhammar in 1910, where he hoped to have any opinion about, without looking at it in much more detail. At first glance that the “weak and far too lyrical aspects” could be disregarded. Thus Carl Nielsen is saying one notes a number of effective ascents, well adapted closes, which attune the restless indirectly that the important thing is precisely to keep a firm grip on the form and the short- content to harmonically functioning cadences, and further many peculiarities and non- er phrasings. Precisely these important aspects of the work are clarified in a longish review significant motifs. by Julius Rabe in connection with a performance of the symphony in Gothenburg in 1918. Hammerich concludes: “The concert was not a musical evening that came up to Rabe’s discussion is important, because Carl Nielsen replied very positively and even agreed expectations”. with Rabe’s characterization. The first symphony, which is very rigorously structured accord- In mid-October 1894 Carl Nielsen went to Germany, to among other places Berlin, ing to the classical musical forms, is according to Rabe an expression of “a clear will to form, where along with Alfred Wilhelm Hansen from the publishers Wilhelm Hansen he tried of an unconditional dissociation from all that does not directly serve the expression through to launch a major campaign in favour of his most recent works. Carl Nielsen also went to its formal value”. Like Nielsen himself, Rabe in particular involves Wagner in the discussion Vienna, where he met Brahms and among other things presented him with a copy of the as an opposite pole where the Wagnerian “gravy and fat” – according to Rabe for example the symphony. Unfortunately Brahms apparently never gave any indication of what he thought contentless accompaniment figures like tremoli in the strings – are conspicuously absent about the young Danish composer’s work. Nielsen’s very determined promotion, which from Carl Nielsen’s work. By contrast Nielsen’s counterpoint is in “every detail the bearer of to some extent aroused the indignation of his old teacher in composition Orla Rosenhoff, a constructive idea, serving not sonorous sensuality but the tension of the architecture, the was probably the most important reason why the symphony was performed several times logic of development”. What Carl Nielsen considered essential in the symphony (but what he in Germany over the next few years. According to Carl Nielsen the German conductor, com- apparently thought in 1910 in the letter to Stenhammar could be done better), was also what poser and pianist Jean Louis Nicodé does not appear to have understood much of the work; was noticed at the premiere in 1894 and what later became a part of his musical personality.

10 11 Despite these views there were several conductors who felt prompted to revise the Symphony No. 2, op. 16 – The Four Temperaments by Niels Bo Foltmann work – not in terms of basic substance or form, but in terms of interpretation. In 1918 Carl Nielsen’s son-in-law Emil Telmányi reviewed in particular the dynamics, articulation and phrasing, very probably in consultation with the composer; and in 1928 the conductor and The years around the turn of the century were a very fruitful period in Carl Nielsen’s life: composer Ebbe Hamerik made similar revisions and reworked a passage in the final move- the opera Saul and David, the Second Symphony and major occasional works like a cantata ment, also with the approval of Carl Nielsen. for the Students’ Union were created in this period. It is thought-provoking that Telmányi and Hamerik for example considered it necessary He began to work on the Second Symphony, The Four Temperaments, while the work on to make extensive changes and additions in the phrasing, dynamics and articulation. The Saul and David was still in progress. The first movement was finished on 28th December reason may be that the work was far less thoroughly worked through by the composer 1901, but after this the composition made slow progress. On 21st August Nielsen wrote to than one sees in works published earlier. But Telmányi’s and Hamerik’s revisions may his friend, the pianist Henrik Knudsen that “the original idea was that the Sanguine type also reflect the considerable changes in performance practice and musical ideals between [fourth movement] would come sweeping in one day. I still have no idea of the form the the time of the first performance in 1894, when Johan Svendsen conducted more or less beast will take; a couple of attempts I have made can only be called laughable. But I sup- without additions of any kind, and the end of the 1920s, when the playing style entailed a pose it will come. The Phlegmatic [second movement] now has a fine tail on him, and is far higher degree of detail, especially in the notation of articulation and dynamics – a devel- thus quite finished and won’t get any better in this round.” opment Carl Nielsen presumably accepted, since on at least one occasion (26th February As was often the case, Carl Nielsen only finished his work at the last moment; the 1928) he appears to have used Ebbe Hamerik’s revised material. fourth movement has the end date 22nd November 1902. Only a week later he person- There can be no doubt that Carl Nielsen respected and accepted Hamerik’s revisions ally conducted the first performance of The Four Temperaments in a concert at the society and reworking of a passage in the fourth movement, but there is no basis for thinking that Dansk Koncertforening on 1st December 1902, just three days after he had conducted the the composer actually preferred the new version to his original one. premiere of Saul and David at the Royal Theatre. Dansk Koncertforening had been founded in 1900 at the initiative of Nielsen and others with the aim of performing new works by Danish composers. The symphony was well received by the audience, and the press in general was positive about the work. Yet it was clear that most of the reviewers had a rather ambivalent attitude to Nielsen’s music. His indisputable talent was acknowledged, but there was some incom- prehension of his symphonic style, which they described with words like knotty, odd and bizarre. The attitude is clear, for example, from Leopold Rosenfeld’s review in Dannebrog, which said among other things: “Carl Nielsen’s new work should I suppose rather be called a suite of moods for orchestra than designated as what we understand by a symphony. But aside from the name, this new work by the highly fêted composer again bears favourable testimony to its author’s uncommon ability to give expression to characteristic sound painting through a considerable orchestral technique. Whether one really dares call

12 13 these ingeniously constructed orchestral sounds music is another question again. What Despite the rather unsuccessful Berlin performance, The Four Temperaments quickly is especially captivating about these musical illustrations is the composer’s ability to mix became one of Carl Nielsen’s best loved orchestral works, and in the period 1905‑28 the colours, which neglects no opportunity to exercise the listening ear. Sometimes, though, composer himself conducted at least 13 performances in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the colours are very brutal and in their crudeness easily cross the aesthetic line.” Germany. In the same period the symphony was also performed in London under Sir Henry Just under a month after the first performance, the manuscript of a piano duet ar- Wood, in Paris by Frederik Schnedler‑Petersen, and in Leyden, Rotterdam and Riga. rangement of The Four Temperaments was available, drawn up by Henrik Knudsen. In Shortly before his death in 1931 Carl Nielsen was asked to write programme notes for January 1903 Carl Nielsen and Henrik Knudsen went on a short trip to Germany to stir up the work in connection with an upcoming performance in Stockholm. This resulted in the interest in the new symphony and Saul and David. Together they played the symphony for following description of the symphony and its origins: the Director‑General of Music in Dresden, Ernst von Schuch, who does not however seem “I had the idea for ‘The Four Temperaments’ many years ago at a country inn in Zea- to have been interested. Later, in Berlin, they showed it to Ferruccio Busoni, with whom land. On the wall of the room where I was drinking a glass of beer with my wife and some Carl Nielsen had made friends as early as 1891. Busoni took an interest in the work and friends hung an extremely comical coloured picture, divided into four sections in which promised to put it on the programme in the series of concerts of new and rarely heard ‘the Temperaments’ were represented and furnished with titles: ‘The Choleric’, ‘The San- music that he was giving at this time with the Berlin Philharmonic, and it was probably out guine’, ‘The Melancholi’ and ‘The Phlegmatic’. The Choleric was on horseback. He had a of gratitude for this that Nielsen dedicated the work to Busoni. long sword in his hand, which he was wielding fiercely in thin air; his eyes were bulging out On 5th November 1903 the symphony was performed in Berlin; Busoni left it to the of his head, his hair streamed wildly around his face, which was so distorted by rage and composer himself to conduct his work. Carl Nielsen gave an account in a letter to his wife diabolical hate that I could not help bursting out laughing. The other three pictures were Anne Marie [2.11.1903]: “Today we rehearsed. I went through the symphony without going in the same style, and my friends and I were heartily amused by the naiveté of the pictures, into detail, and got the impression that it aroused a good deal of interest from this blasé their exaggerated expression and their comic earnestness. But how strangely things can orchestra. Busoni has told me that his concerts are lambasted on principle by the press. sometimes turn out! I, who had laughed aloud and mockingly at these pictures, returned That’s nice! Well, I suppose it will work out.” constantly to them in my thoughts, and one fine day I realized that these shoddy pictures [3.11.1903]: “Today I have been rehearsing again. The orchestra is becoming more and still contained a kind of core or idea and – just think! – even a musical undercurrent! more interested in my symphony, I can clearly feel that. The press situation here is said to Some time later, then, I began to work out the first movement of a symphony, but I had be so bad that Messrs. Critics only listen to five minutes of a concert and then go home and to be careful that it did not fence in the empty air, and I hoped of course that my listeners run it all down. Busoni says that we will all be lambasted, and since my concert only comes would not laugh so that the irony of fate would smite my soul. I tried to raise the idea of the half an hour into the programme, I can be quite safe in that sense, since they will then have pictures to a different plane, and now – since that is what is wanted – I will give a modest gone off without hearing a note of it. That’s funny!” explanation of my Symphony No. 2, ‘The Four Temperaments’, op. 16. As expected, the symphony was given a very cool reception by the Berlin press, and the The first movement, Allegro collerico, immediately sets in fiercely with the following concert was by no means the breakthrough for Nielsen on the German music scene that he motif (see No. 1), which is developed with a later small motif (No. 2) in the clarinet, and had hoped for – a setback that he in fact took very much to heart. On the other hand, the rises to a fanfare that leads into the second subject (No. 3), which sings very espressivo but symphony had a predominantly positive reception the next year when it was reviewed in is soon interrupted again by extremely turbulent figures and rhythmic thrusts. After a fer- the German music periodical Signale für die musikalische Welt. mata the second subject sings ƒ and expresses itself with greater breadth and power, which

14 15 gradually wanes, then the modulation section begins, working with the motifs described After one and a half bars of introduction the following theme begins (No. 7) and is above, now wildly and violently, like a person almost carried away, now in a gentler mood drawn heavily towards an intense burst of pain ( ƒ ); then the oboe enters with a small, plan- like one who regrets his irascibility. At the end comes a coda (stretto) with intense passages gent, sighing motif (No. 8) which gradually develops into something immense and ends in the strings, and the movement ends with the same character as it began. in a climax of woe and pain. After a short transitional passage comes a milder, resigned The second movement was conceived as the complete opposite of the first. I do not like episode in E flat major (No. 9). A long, rather static thematic development now follows, and programme music, but it may still interest my listeners that when I was working out this finally the parts enmesh like the strings of a net, and everything fades out; then the first piece of music, something like this happened: A young man appeared to me. He seems theme suddenly breaks out again in full force, and now all the different motifs sing with to have been his mother’s only son. The mother was nice and amiable, she was a widow interruptions, and the end approaches, falling calm with the following motif (No. 10). and she loved him. He too was extraordinarily nice, and everyone liked him. He was 17‑18 In the finale, Allegro sanguineo, I have tried to evoke the basic character of a person who years old, his eyes were sky‑blue, confident and large. At school he was loved by all, but the storms thoughtlessly on in the belief that the whole world belongs to him and that roast teachers were at the same time dismayed and gently resigned; for he had never learned his pigeons fly into his mouth without work and care (No. 11). There is however a brief minute lessons; but it was impossible to scold him, for everything that exists of idyll and Paradise when he becomes afraid of something, and he gasps for breath for a moment in violent in nature was reflected in this young man, so one was completely disarmed. Was he merry syncopations (No. 12); but this is soon forgotten, and although the music now goes into a or serious, was he lively or slow in his movements? He was none of these! His inmost na- minor key, his happy, rather shallow nature is still manifested (No. 13). ture was there where the birds sing, where the fish glide silently through the water, where Just once, though, it seems that he has encountered something really serious; at least the sun warms and the wind gently brushes ones locks. He was blond; his expression could he meditates over something that is alien to his own nature (No. 14), and it seems to affect be described as happy, but not self‑satisfied, rather with a small touch of quiet melancholy, him, so that while the final march may be happy and bright, it is still more dignified and so you felt an urge to be kind to him. When the air shimmered in the heat he usually lay on not as silly and smug as some of his previous bursts of activity (No. 15).” the pier at the harbour with his legs out over the edge. I have never seen him dance; he was too inactive for that, but he might well rock his hips in a slow waltz rhythm (No. 4) and it is in this character that I have completed the movement Allegro comodo è flemmatico and tried to maintain a state of mind that is as far from energy, ‘Gefühl’ and similar feelings as is really possible. Only once does it rise to an f (No. 5). What happened? Did a barrel fall in the water from one of the ships in the harbour and disturb the young man as he lay dreaming on the jetty? Who knows? But no matter: a brief moment, and all is calm; the young man falls asleep, nature dozes, and the water is again as smooth as a large mirror (No. 6). The third movement attempts to express the basic character of a grave, melancholy person, but here as always in the world of music, a title or a programme is only a hint. What the composer wants is less significant than what the music, on its own terms, from its inmost being, demands and requires.

16 17 grace … but which, unlike so much else of Carl Nielsen’s before, was solidly construct- Symphony No. 3, op. 27 – Sinfonia espansiva by Niels Bo Foltmann ed, balanced and refreshingly free of all irrelevant experimentation. It was at last the fully mature artistic personality that emerged here; the last traces of – if I may say so – After he had finished the Second Symphony (1902) no fewer than eight years passed before the musical ‘awkward age’ had been knocked off, and one had the man and the artist, Carl Nielsen again turned to the demanding symphonic genre. In the intervening period he with his virtues and faults, but such as he happens to be, and such as certainly will not mainly composed theatre music and occasional cantatas, undoubtedly because in 1908-12 he change – on this earth. The first wholly and fully ripe apple from his tree.” was employed as a conductor at the Royal Theatre, so he only had limited time for compos- On 28th April 1912, at the urging of Carl Nielsen’s good friend the Dutch composer ing. It has been said that Carl Nielsen brooded long over the first movement of the Third Julius Röntgen, and just two months after the world premiere, he conducted a successful Symphony. Then at last he got the idea for the main subject one day while he was in a tram, performance of his Third Symphony in Amsterdam with the Concertgebouw Orchestra. and having no music paper he notated the theme on his sleeve. The first movement was Later Carl Nielsen conducted the symphony in Stuttgart, Berlin, Helsinki, Stockholm and finished on 13th April 1910, after which the work on the symphony had to be put aside for a Gothenburg, as well as repeatedly in Copenhagen, for example in the Danish Broadcasting while so he could write the music for the play Hagbarth and Signe, which was to be finished for Corporation’s first symphony concert on 14th January 1927. During Carl Nielsen’s lifetime an open‑air production in June. At the beginning of July he took up the symphony again, and the symphony was also performed with other conductors in Berlin, Hamburg, London and the second movement was created during a summer holiday at Damgaard near Fredericia. Gothenburg. At Carl Nielsen’s funeral in Copenhagen Cathedral on 9th October 1931 the After this the work at the Royal Theatre again led to a break in the composition process, and slow movement, Andante pastorale, was played. it was not until well into the autumn that he had the time and energy to go to work on the last As was the case with the Second Symphony, Carl Nielsen himself several times wrote two movements, which were composed in very difficult conditions, where Carl Nielsen could the programme notes for the Third Symphony; the last time for a concert in Stockholm in by and large only work on the symphony in the nighttime hours after the theatre closed. The March 1931, where he wrote as follows: third and fourth movements were finished on 14th January and 30th April 1911 respectively. The symphony was now set aside for just under a year before it was premiered at Carl “The work is the result of many kinds of forces. The first movement was meant as a gust Nielsen’s ‘Symphony Concert of New Compositions’ in the Odd Fellow Concert Hall in of energy and life‑affirmation blown out into the wide world, which we human beings Copenhagen on 28th February 1912, a concert that also featured the first performance of would not only like to get to know in its multiplicity of activities, but also to conquer Carl Nielsen’s Violin Concerto, op. 33, composed in 1911, immediately after the Third Sym- and make our own. The second movement is the absolute opposite: the purest idyll, phony. The concert was a great success and represented a turning‑point for the reception and when the human voices are heard at last, it is only to underscore the peaceful of Carl Nielsen’s works in Danish public music criticism. Indeed, one could even speak mood that one could imagine in Paradise before the Fall of our First Parents, Adam and of Carl Nielsen’s final breakthrough, since his music had hitherto often been regarded as Eve. The third movement is a thing that cannot really be described, because both evil cool, academic and artificial. Characteristic of this change in attitude was Charles Kjerulf’s and good are manifested without any real settling of the issue. By contrast, the finale review in the newspaper Politiken, which said: is perfectly straightforward: a hymn to work and the healthy activity of everyday life. Not a gushing homage to life, but a certain expansive happiness about being able to “Yesterday evening friends and opponents of Carl Nielsen’s art – but perhaps most of all participate in the work of life and the day and to see activity and ability manifested on those who are both – had to rejoice in this work, which was genuinely Carl Nielsenesque all sides around us.” in all its strange mixture of naiveté and refinement, humour and lyricism, violence and

18 19 Originally the Third Symphony had no by-name, but shortly after the first performance Carl Symphony No. 4, op. 29 – The Inextinguishable by Claus Røllum-Larsen Nielsen gave the work the designation Sinfonia espansiva, a by‑name referring to the tempo given for the first movement, Allegro espansivo. Carl Nielsen began work on his fourth symphony, The Inextinguishable, in the summer of 1914. He had by then left the burdensome position as conductor at the Royal Theatre with a view to having more time to compose. On 3rd May 1914 he wrote in a letter to his wife, the sculptress Anne Marie: “I have an idea for a new work which has no programme, but which is to express what we understand by Life Urge or Life Expression – that is, everything that moves, that has the will to life, that cannot be called either bad or good, high or low, large or small, but simply ‘That which is life’ or ‘That which has the will to life’ – you understand, no particular idea of anything ‘magnificent’ or anything ‘fine and delicate’ or warm or cold (violent perhaps) but just life and motion, yet different, very different, but in a context, and sort of constantly flowing, in one great movement in one flow. I must have a word or a short title that says this; that will be enough.” From the outset Carl Nielsen had wanted to make the music appear as itself, and thus not only symbolize, but to be an example of the elementary will to life. In order not to be tied down by the traditional types of musical form, he was prepared from an early stage to merge the four movements of the traditional symphony type together in one uninterrupted flow. Liszt’s Sonata in B minor is said to have prompted this idea. The work on the symphony did not proceed without difficulties, but on 4th May 1915 Nielsen could write to his friend, the Dutch pianist and composer Julius Röntgen, that he “will soon have a new symphony finished. It is very different from my three others, and it is based on a particular idea: that the most elementary essence of music is light, life and movement, which chop the silence into pieces. In other words it is all that has the will and the urge to life that cannot be kept down. Not in the sense of demeaning my art to mere nature imitation, but of letting it try to express what lies behind. The calls of the birds, the cries of sadness and joy of animals and human beings, their hungry murmur- ings and shouting, fighting and mating, and whatever all the most elementary things are called.”

20 21 On 14th January 1916, the composer noted in his diary that the new symphony was fin- Over the next few years The Inextinguishable was performed several times, also abroad. It is ished. But there now remained the writing-out of the parts, and it was only five days before thought-provoking to see how the composer’s programme note still aroused wonder and the concert at the society Musikforeningen that the last proofs of the parts were read. Carl uncomprehending expressions from many of the reviewers, both Danish and foreign. Sev- Nielsen himself conducted the first performance of The Inextinguishable on 1st February eral reviewers considered that Nielsen should either have made the thought-content of the 1916 in the large concert hall of the Odd Fellow Palæ. work more specific or wholly refrained from writing the accompanying programme note. The thoughts Carl Nielsen had expressed in a number of letters formed the basis for the As mentioned above, the symphony has an uninterrupted succession of movements, note he had printed in the programme for the first performance. In its entirety it reads: which do however fall into four sections corresponding to the traditional four movements of the symphony type. After the chaotic introduction the cantabile second subject is “The composer, in using the title The Inextinguishable, has attempted to suggest in a introduced, and it will prove to be the bearing idea of the work. The first section concludes single word what only the music itself has the power to express fully: the elementary will with a hymnic version in the full orchestra of this subject, followed by a transition to the to life. second section. The character of this contrasts strongly with the first section, almost Faced with a task like this – to express life abstractly, where the other arts stand anticipating the pastoral feel of Carl Nielsen’s wind quintet. The third section is character- without resources, forced to go roundabout ways, to extract, to symbolize – there and ized by a broad melodic motion in the strings, which is interrupted by an expressive violin only there is music at home in its primal region, in its element, simply because by being solo. In what follows the situation becomes tenser as the two subjects of the section are itself it has performed its task. For it is life there, where the others only represent and pitted against each other. After a violent culmination, the headlong flow falls calmer and a write about life. Life is indomitable and inextinguishable; the struggle, the wrestling, spirited string passage leads over into the fourth section, which is introduced by a broadly the generation and the wasting away go on today as yesterday, tomorrow as today, and singing melody in 3/4 time. This is interrupted several times by duels for the two timpani everything returns. sets of the orchestra. The music works up to an infernal climax where an imitative passage Once more: music is life, and like it inextinguishable. For that reason the word that in the strings passes into the final culmination, an apotheosis where the second subject of the composer has set above his work might seem superfluous; however, he has used it to the first section crowns the symphony. emphasize the strict musical character of his task. No programme, but a signpost into With its radical questioning of the Late Romantic symphony type, The Inextinguishable music’s own domain.” has situated itself as one of Carl Nielsen’s most original and uncompromising works. In general the symphony was positively received by the reviewers. Carl Nielsen’s pupil There can be no doubt that the symphony bears strong marks of having been conceived Emilius Bangert wrote that against the backdrop of the horror and cruelty of the First World War – which affected Carl Nielsen greatly – just as the marital crisis he was undergoing at this time has found expres- “a major work of Danish music – indeed, let us boldly say of European music – has been sion in the work. But if we are to take the composer at his word, and we have every reason to created here. Allow that the great nature composers – like Reger, Strauss, Saint-Saëns do so, the symphony depicts, as few other works do, the most elementary forces of life; that and Debussy – may be more skilled in handling music and more assured devotees of is, something eternal. This delving down to the foundations is beautifully expressed in the beauty than Carl Nielsen; yet they are as if bound by the thought and emotion of our age. title of the work. Carl Nielsen has a far deeper feeling for the source, his musical nature grows out of a primal era when man was greater and stronger in both inner and outer power.”

22 23 Marie Carl-Nielsen that the first movement was finished, and on 30th March he reported Symphony No. 5, op. 50 by Michael Fjeldsøe that the fair copy of the movement was also finished; but he could not get started on the second movement. In the years up to 1920, when Carl Nielsen began work on his Fifth Symphony, he several “At present I have come to a halt in my symphony and have a rather strong feeling that times harked back to his Fourth Symphony when he had to explain how music was able my old abilities are failing me.” to paint a picture of the mighty forces of nature. In music as in nature, a small shoot can develop into a large organism, but there are also strong, destructive forces of nature In the summer of 1921 Carl Nielsen broke off the work on the symphony because he had that can sweep the whole away again. Carl Nielsen’s description of this musical force of promised to write a work to a text by Aage Berntsen. This work, Springtime on Funen op. 42, nature, which he gave in a letter to Julius Röntgen on 15th February 1920, applied to the was finished on 30th August 1921, and on 3rd September he wrote to Anne Marie Carl- Fourth Symphony, but can also be read as a description of the starting-point for the Fifth Nielsen: “Now I am going to go on with my interrupted symphony”. The work continued un- Symphony, which begins from nothing, and which had the working title Vegetatio, that is, til the fair copy score of the symphony, after a huge effort, was finished on 15th January 1922. something that grows: The symphony was given its first performance with the composer as conductor at the -music society Musikforeningen in Copenhagen on 24th January 1922. Carl Nielsen was “The music should express the manifestation of the most elementary forces of all aware that the symphony was not easy to play, but the orchestra made careful prepara- among human beings, animals, even plants. We can say that if the whole world were tions. Five rehearsals were held instead of the usual three, and there is no doubt that the destroyed by fire, flood, volcanoes, etc., and all living things were destroyed and died, symphony was the major work of the evening to which everyone was looking forward. On still Nature would again begin to breed new life, begin to push forward with the strong the day the newspaper Politiken had featured both an advance notice with a report from the and fine forces that are in matter itself.” rehearsals, predicting success, and an interview with the composer, where Nielsen spoke That is how the Fifth Symphony begins. about the symphony, which unlike the previous ones had no title: Carl Nielsen’s Fifth Symphony was composed in the years 1920-1922. The work on the “My first symphony was nameless too. But then came “The Four Temperaments”, first movement had begun in October 1920, when Carl Nielsen was also working to com- “Espansiva” and “The Inextinguishable”, actually just different names for the same plete the music for Helge Rode’s play Moderen (The Mother). At this time he was staying thing, the only thing that music in the final analysis can express: the resting powers as at Damgaard near Fredericia, where he had hired a piano so he could work on “a largish opposed to the active ones. If I were to find a name for this, my new fifth symphony, it thing I have to do, which is making rapid progress just now”, as he wrote in a letter of 8th would express something similar. I have been unable to get hold of the one word that is October to Johannes Nielsen, the director of the Royal Theatre. This ‘largish thing’ was the at the same time characteristic and not too pretentious – so I let it be.” Fifth Symphony. “But the idea or thought that lies behind it?” In the spring of 1921 Carl Nielsen spent much of his time at a house called Højbo “Yes, how should I explain it? I roll a stone up a hill, use the energy I have in me to get in Tibberup, near Humlebæk, which had been lent to him by the couple Vera and Carl the stone up to a high point. And there the stone lies still. The energy is tied up in it – un- Johan Michaelsen, to whom he dedicated the symphony. They were very interested in Carl til I give it a kick, and the same energy is released and the stone rolls down again. Nielsen’s music and gave him much support in this period. This was where he finished the But you just mustn’t see this as a programme! first movement at the beginning of March 1921. On 4th March he wrote to his wife Anne

24 25 These explanations and instructions for what the music “represents” can only be “For in earlier performances it has emerged that the drummer is always afraid of bad, they distract the listeners and spoil the absolute grasp of the work. abandoning himself fully from the point […] where he plays in free time. He must be This time I have changed the form and I am content with two parts instead of the usu- absolutely absorbed [in] wanting to ruin the singing [in] the orchestra with all sorts of al four movements. I’ve thought so much about this – that in the old symphonic form you figures and now begin < > and now > […] and whatever he can think usually said most of what you had on your mind in the first allegro. Then came the calm of. Still, I ask you to agreeπ withfƒ the man that sometimesƒƒ π he must hold pauses.” andante, which functioned as a contrast, but then it’s the scherzo, where you get up too The first performance was a great success, and the reviews were positive. The reviewers high again and spoil the mood for the finale, where the ideas have all too often run out. immediately accepted the first movement, while they were more hesitant about the second I shouldn’t wonder if Beethoven felt that in his “Ninth”, when he got some assistance part of the symphony. August Felsing’s review in the periodical Musik is characteristic: from the human voice towards the end! “Intellectual art is what the second part is, and it is a master who speaks. But the pact with So what I have done this time is divided the symphony into two large, broad parts the eternal in art which shines forth in the first part is broken here.” – the first, which begins slowly and calmly, and the second, more active. I’ve been told In the years to come the symphony had an impressive number of performances. Within that my new symphony isn’t like my earlier ones. I can’t hear it myself. But perhaps the first six years it was performed in nine places abroad and at further two concerts in it’s true. I do know that it isn’t all that easy to grasp, nor all that easy to play. We’ve had Copenhagen: after the first performance Carl Nielsen conducted it in 1922 in Gothenburg many rehearsals of it. Some people have even thought that now Arnold Schönberg can and Berlin; in 1924 it was performed in Stockholm (Georg Schnéevoigt), and in both 1923 pack his bags and take a walk with his disharmonies. Mine were worse. I don’t think so.” (F. Snedler-Petersen) and 1925 (Carl Nielsen) it was performed in Tivoli Gardens in Copen- This was not meant as an attack on Schönberg, as was evident from the end of the inter- hagen on the composer’s birthday. In 1926 it was performed in Paris (Emil Telmányi) and view, where Carl Nielsen described Schönberg as a thoroughly honest musician whose Oslo (Carl Nielsen), and in 1927 Wilhelm Furtwängler conducted it at the ISCM Music music he considered excellent insofar as he understood it; and he therefore assumed Days in Frankfurt am Main and in Leipzig. In the same year it was performed in Königs- that what he did not understand was also good. Schönberg was more likely mentioned to berg (Jascha Horenstein) and finally it was performed by the Concertgebouw Orchestra in prepare the public for the fact that there were places in the Fifth Symphony that sounded Amsterdam under Pierre Monteux. unusual and harsh, and which broke with the traditional view of harmony. And there are indeed places in the Fifth Symphony that were unusual for their time, especially as regards the percussion. In particular, the solo of the snare drum is notable for its radicality: it plays in its own tempo independently of the rest of the orchestra, and the fact that it is explicitly meant to be in audible conflict with the orchestra is evident from Carl Nielsen’s instructions in the score: The drummer plays in his own tempo, as if he must at all costs disturb the music. After a few bars it is up to the drummer to improvise the rest of the cadenza. That Carl Nielsen meant this seriously can be seen from a letter to Wilhelm Furtwän- gler, written on Christmas Day 1926, where Carl Nielsen was giving an account of his experiences with the drum solo:

26 27 esque, is finished. After an interruption, among other things in the form of a combined con- Symphony No. 6 – Sinfonia semplice by Thomas Michelsen cert and recreation trip in March, including a stay in the south of France, where Carl Nielsen met Arnold Schoenberg, he wrote on 18th April to Telmányi that the third movement had been Carl Nielsen composed his Sixth Symphony in the years 1924-25, when he was about sixty finished. In July, though, Carl Nielsen came to a halt in the work on the symphony, and as with years old. In the course of 1922 his heart problems had taken a serious turn and he was -di- many of his other works he only finished his Sixth Symphony at the last moment. That he was agnosed with angina pectoris. The condition left its mark on his output. In the subsequent still composing at the end of October is evident from a card from Carl Nielsen to Telmányi period he had to take medical advice and cut down on work activity, and sometimes rest dated 30th October 1925, and he must have worked on the symphony for more than a month completely. He was also forbidden to smoke and had to spend time at health resorts. after this, for the final movement was not end-dated until 5th December 1925. After a post- Besides his work on the school songbook Danmark he mainly composed vocal music ponement the premiere took place six days later, on 11th December at the concert hall of the from mid-1922 until mid-1924. But his summer holiday in 1924, which he spent at his Odd Fellow Palæ in Copenhagen. The concert was the last public celebration of the composer’s house in Skagen, where despite his illness he learned to drive a car, strengthened and sixtieth birthday, which had aroused quite a fuss, and Carl Nielsen himself conducted the encouraged him, and in August he went to work on his first major work after the Fifth Royal Danish Orchestra at this gala concert. On the programme too were his Saga Dream, Pan Symphony and the Wind Quintet – the Sixth Symphony. and Syrinx, the “Oriental March” from Aladdin and his violin concerto with Telmányi as soloist. On 12th August, in a letter to his daughter Anne Marie, he wrote of his vision of the sym- A good month before the premiere Carl Nielsen had tried out the first movement of the phony, which at that time he envisaged as being: “quite idyllic in character; that is, quite symphony at a concert at Musikaliska Akademien in Stockholm, but apart from these no beyond all time-bound taste and fashion, but simply fine and inward musical abandon- other performances conducted by the composer are known. Among performances conducted ment to the tones in the same way as the old a cappella musicians, yet still with the resourc- by others in his lifetime we know only of the first performance in Gothenburg on 3rd February es of our time – what do I know, when I still only feel it loosely and as an obscure urge to do 1926, where Emil Telmányi was in charge, and the first performance in the Tivoli Concert Hall something along those lines?” in Copenhagen on 18th June 1927, where the conductor was Frederik -Schnedler-Petersen. Carl Nielsen was able to enddate the first movement 20th November 1924, and one The symphony was performed for the first time by the Danish Broadcasting Corporation senses precisely a light, bright mood like the one described here at beginning of the sym- under Fritz Busch in 1937, a good five years after the death of the composer. phony. In a letter of 22nd October to his friend and patron Carl Johan Michaelsen the com- As regards the reception of Carl Nielsen’s last symphony, the biographer Torben poser still imagines his symphony as uncomplicated, although he dare not say anything Meyer’s assessment – that the symphony “stands as the weakest among Carl Nielsen’s sym- definitive about the result: phonic works” – was the dominant view for a long time. Despite a mainly positive reception in the press, most reviews of the first performance expressed reservations. “I am coming along well with my new symphony; as far as I can see it will in the main be Most positive were William Behrend in Berlingske Tidende and Hugo Seligmann in Poli- of a different character from my others: more amiable, flowing or what should I say – yet tiken. Behrend was in fact unreservedly enthusiastic, and like several of his colleagues he con- it is not good to say, since I do not know what currents may arise during the voyage.” sidered the instrumentation innovative. Seligmann too dwelled on the chamber-music-like That other currents did arise can be heard in the further course of the symphony. A good and experimental use of the orchestra, at the same time describing the symphony as an “odd month later, on 30th November, he is still making good headway with the work, and on 28th work” that was not “all that easy to get to grips with”. He called the composer “the stark mod- January 1925 he can tell his son-in-law Emil Telmányi that the second movement, the humor- ernist”, but otherwise praised him for his “pure and beautiful sense of music” and his “genu-

28 29 ine Danish humour”. Most negative was Gunnar Hauch, who in his comprehensive critique “The humoresque begins with the three small percussion instruments – glockenspiel, in Nationaltidende called the symphony “the most complicated, singular or rather pigheaded drum and triangle – agreeing to wake up the other, larger instruments, which lie sleep- work” by Carl Nielsen, who he thought had become “rampantly egocentric and has lost much ing. These three small creatures don’t have much brain, they’re very childish, sweet, of the ‘expansive’ character that also used to captivate his surroundings”. His conclusion was innocent small creatures, and now they begin with their bim-a-lim-a-bim and their that “here one looks – with a few exceptions – in vain for original, spontaneous inspiration. gentle bom-bom-bom … they get more and more enthusiastic and in the end manage to In addition Carl Nielsen’s orchestra – which has after all rarely been seductively euphoni- alarm the others into playing … the clarinets, the piccolo and the bassoons. But the little ous – sounds this time with greater harshness than before.” The unsigned review in Kristeligt innocent instruments don’t care at all for the modern music that is now sounding – they Dagblad states that the symphony does not like its predecessors make up an organic unity, hammer away by themselves: stop, stop, they say … and then soon it’s all up with the “for the inserted ‘humoresque’ was a piece all its own”. More or less all the reviewers were modern music. But then a clarinet starts to play, it’s a small childlike melody, and the however agreed that Carl Nielsen had retained a youthful freshness at the age of sixty. small instruments keep quiet and listen. The trombone, this big instrument, yawns and Like several of the other reviewers, Seligmann compared the humoresque to music by says Bah, bah, baby food! The other instruments come in again, there’s a struggle over another of the leading figures of contemporary music, Igor Stravinsky, who had at that the music, it sounds a bit out of tune and confused – and in the end it all settles into time just had some of his own works performed in Copenhagen. It must be singled out as nothing worth talking about. That’s the humoresque of the symphony.” remarkable that Carl Nielsen himself on the one hand described the symphony as standing “beyond all time-bound taste and fashion” and spoke of writing a simple, old-fashioned Another thing bearing on the discussion of the programmatic features of the symphony symphony, while on the other hand he had in reality worked towards a contemporary style is the fact that the work is furnished with a title, Sinfonia semplice. True, the title is not of writing with chamber-music-inspired use of the orchestra, atonal tendencies and several found in any of Carl Nielsen’s manuscripts for the work, but he referred to it in the above- simultaneous rhythmic layers. In an interview in Politiken on the day of the premiere, Carl quoted interview in Nationaltidende, where he said of the symphony: “I’ve given it the name Nielsen indeed said very tellingly: ‘Sinfonia semplice’ because it’s mainly in a lighter vein than my other symphonies – there are merry things in it.” In the Politiken interview from the premiere day, he says, explaining “Times change, after all. Where is the new music taking us? What will be left? We don’t why he chose this title: know! You will find this in my little humoresque, which is the second movement of the symphony, and in the last movement.” “It’s […] because in this work I strove for the greatest possible simplicity. This time I’ve composed on the basis of the character of the instruments, have tried to depict them as Besides the discussion of the relationship of the symphony with contemporary modernist independent individualities. I regard the various instruments as persons who lie sleep- tendencies, the programme music issue also arises in connection with the Sixth Sym- ing, and whom I have to awaken to life.” phony. Several of Carl Nielsen’s statements stress unambiguously that the symphony has programmatic features; while he has at the same time claimed the opposite. In an inter- In that sense the symphony joins the series of late works, from and including the wind view in Politiken of 3rd April 1925 the composer confirms that the symphony is an example quintet, which work towards this goal. of absolute music. On 9th December, two days before the premiere, the humoresque is on The title of the third movement, Proposta seria, refers in accordance with the structure the other hand expounded as detailed programme music. Carl Nielsen says for example in of the movement to the Italian Baroque designation for a fugue subject, proposta. The last Nationaltidende: movement is formed as variations on a theme, which after an orchestral introduction is

30 31 ushered in by the bassoon. On the subject of this finale, which after the two central move- Orchestral MUSIC by Jørgen I. Jensen ments resumes the use of the whole orchestra, Carl Nielsen said according to the violinist and orchestral musician Thorvald Nielsen that the ninth variation with tuba and percussion is death knocking on the door, and that he wanted to defy death with the concluding While Carl Nielsen lived his everyday musical life was rooted in the world of the theatre, fanfare of the movement. Here we can glimpse a parallel to Anton Schindler’s well-known and especially that of the Royal Danish Theatre in Copenhagen. From 1889 until 1905 he story that Beethoven regarded the beginning of his Fifth Symphony as an expression of fate was employed as a violinist in the Royal Danish Orchestra – the house orchestra of the knocking at the door. But like Schindler’s story, Thorvald Nielsen’s cannot be confirmed by national theatre. Even at that time he took on occasional conducting tasks, and in the years any statement from the composer himself. from 1908 until 1914 he was a regular conductor at the Royal Theatre. The atmosphere surrounding his activities as a conductor was never completely calm, and several times he went through stormy periods at the theatre, often with much discussion of his activities in the press. He resigned in 1914, but continued to write stage music. Besides his two operas Saul and David (1898–1901) and Masquerade (1905–06), he wrote music for many plays. This was partly because in Copenhagen, until just two years ago, opera and drama be- longed in the same theatre and were played on the same stages. It was thus very reasonable to use the large house orchestra for performances of plays. Masquerade is viewed by many people as the Danish national opera. The libretto was written by the Danish literary scholar Vilhelm Andersen after a comedy by Ludvig Holberg from the eighteenth century. Holberg played – and still plays – a quite central role as a Danish writer of comedies; his statue stands in front of the Royal Theatre. many people thought that it was blasphemy to turn one of his texts into an opera. But the many red lights and full houses after the premiere said something quite different. With this work Carl Nielsen’s music began in earnest to reach out to the general public. Most of Masquerade was composed in 1905 – in a strange fit of inspiration, a state of weightlessness at which even Carl Nielsen himself expressed surprise many times later. Pre- sumably this came from Vilhelm Andersen’s emphasis on the Dionysian aspect in Holberg. The overture was finished in 22 days, just before the premiere in 1906. At the same time it was a Mozart year – the 150th anniversary of the birth of the master. So the same year Carl Nielsen wrote a significant and later very well-known essay on Mozart, in which he put Mozart before Beethoven, who had otherwise been the great composer-hero of the nineteenth century. This too rubbed off on Masquerade, which takes place in 18th-century Copenhagen. Or it may be that Carl Nielsen’s musical experience with the opera gave him a new view of Mozart.

32 33 In the international perspective, one can say that with his work Carl Nielsen truly was generally well received – at all events it was mentioned in most of the reviews. Nor can it latched on to a particular Classicist current amidst the widespread Late Romantic attitudes be denied that Carl Nielsen succeeded in taking a different musical path from Masquerade, in European music at the turn of the century. Music full of sophistication, playfulness, the for example in some of the harmonies. A reviewer remarked in particular on what he called sheer joy of music-making, acuity, humour and pointedness had already begun to emerge “the pedal point of the chirpy oboe tone, which reflects the enchantments of Fairyland.” at the end of the century, and made its mark even more clearly over the next few years. In the next work, Snefrid, we are back among Carl Nielsen’s earliest works. True, in 1889 Typically this new – or “young” Classicism (Busoni’s expression) – had its breakthrough he had written a couple of pieces for a production at the Dagmar Theatre, but Snefrid was still in one-movement works, opera overtures or symphonic poems. One thinks of character- to become his first true -theatre music that could also be performed in concerts. The work istic individual works like Nikolaus von Reznicek’s overture to Donna Anna (1894) or, after was written in 1893, just after Carl Nielsen’s Symphony No. 1 from the previous year. He had Masquerade, Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari’s overture to Il segreto di Susanna (1909). One thinks of so to speak just made his entry on the stage as a composer, achieved his breakthrough, and Busoni’s comic operas after 1910; and of course – first and foremost – of Richard Strauss, was only now finding his own style. For that reason there is a kind of lustre of originality over not only Der Rosenkavalier from 1910, but also his witty, sophisticated and shrewd points in the pieces from Snefrid, especially in the slow -lyrical passages. Of the third of the pieces, the some of the early symphonic poems. love music, Carl Nielsen wrote in a letter that he had played it for an acquaintance: “he sim- In one fell swoop Carl Nielsen’s overture to Masquerade has to open the door to great ply blushed at the sensual character of the music ...” However, we can also find words from festivity and high comedy. In the fast movement it has both animated narrative and playful the up-and-coming young composer saying quite the opposite: he claimed that the high, counterpoint, expressing a unity of endless energy and great lightness in the Dionysian great music he wanted to write would be the opposite of sensuality. Snefrid is thus the expres- rebirth of the century of Enlightenment. sion of a duality in the period. On the one hand it reached outwards towards the sensual, on The Dance of the Cockerels from Masquerade is one of Carl Nielsen’s most popular the other it aspires upwards towards the high ideals. Once more this matches the attitudes of pieces. It belongs to Act Three of the opera, the festivities at the big masked ball which the contemporary Symbolist poets. The prelude to Snefrid in a piano arrangement was in fact brings all the participants together, high and low, young and old. The dance is in 3/4 time printed in a contemporary literary periodical called Ungt Blod (‘Young Blood’). – not like a waltz, perhaps rather like a Polonaise. We hear the proud cockerel strutting Carl Nielsen’s first opera Saul and David has no overture, but it does have an independ- around among the clucking hens. In the trio comes an eruptive, stereophonic episode ent prelude to Act Two. The opera combines an intense psychological portrait of the vacil- where trumpets, bassoons, flutes and horns cry out to one another – like young cockerels lating Saul with a more oratorio-like monumental style. The prelude to Act Two precedes squabbling over the hens. a scene in the King’s hall where David plays for Saul, and where a messenger brings the Oddly enough Carl Nielsen had to write the next work, the prelude to Sir Oluf, and all news of the great giant of the Philistines, Goliath. The prelude announces a world of both the other stage music for the piece, at the same time as he was rehearsing Masquerade. The internal and external -struggle. The brisk, piercing dissonance for three trumpets attracted theatre wanted to celebrate the Danish national poet Holger Drachmann’s 60th birthday, attention at the time and was discussed in most of the reviews. It is based on a linear prin- and this was to be done with a play by Drachmann himself based on the ballad motif so often ciple on the first three notes, where two thirds that lead to a horn fifth in the second and used in the Danish tradition about Sir Oluf and his meeting with the elf-maidens, also known third trumpet are combined with a simple ascending melody in the first trumpet. from Niels W. Gade’s The Elf King’s Daughter. The rehearsals of the two works also coincided; The prelude was performed separately before the premiere of the opera, conducted by in his diary we see that for several days Carl Nielsen was rehearsing both works, one in the Johan Svendsen, who was a warm supporter of the work. At the premiere of the whole opera morning and the other in the afternoon. The play was not a success, but Carl Nielsen’s music Carl Nielsen himself conducted.

34 35 With the work Rhapsodic Overture. A Fantasy Journey to the Faroe Islands, we are near through his art. At the end of the piece the high strings lie close to one another in a disso- the end of Carl Nielsen’s life, after the completion of the sixth and last symphony. It is an nant block of sound. The individual strings must then gradually stop playing with vibrato. occasional composition written for a celebration at the Royal Theatre to mark a visit from The result is a static sound where the reeds become an instrument, the nymph becomes a the Faroe Islands. We hear how the music approaches the remote islands in the Atlantic thing, and love becomes art. and arrives at an old melody well known in Denmark as Påskeklokken kimed mildt (‘Gently When Carl Nielsen was making up his mind at the age of 18 to leave his position as a chimed the Easter bell’). The work is also an example of how Carl Nielsen in his later years regimental band musician in Odense to go to Copenhagen, he spoke to his mother. She touched on many widely differing landscapes, each of which required its own music. referred to Hans Christian Andersen, who had also come from Funen to Copenhagen and In 1908, a few years after Masquerade, the play Willemoes was written to commemo- later became world-famous. Carl too could do that. Towards the end of Carl Nielsen’s life rate the centenary of the death of the Danish naval hero Peter Willemoes at the Battle of the paths of the two Funen men were to cross in the overture to Cupid and the Poet. The Zealand Point. The text was by L.C. Nielsen, with whom Carl Nielsen collaborated several play, celebrating the 125th anniversary of the birth of Hans Christian Andersen, was writ- times. One of the melodies that appeared in the play later became a Folk High School song, ten by Sophus Michaëlis. Carl Nielsen himself was satisfied with his work: he wrote to his Havet omkring Danmark (‘The Sea around Denmark’). Carl Nielsen shared the composition wife that one should never relax when one had to write occasional or commissioned music. of the music with his pupil Emilius Bangert. The only orchestral piece composed solely Of Hans Christian Andersen he said that when he thought of Andersen’s tales, it evoked as- by Carl Nielsen in the play is the prelude to Act Three. It is meant to refer to Willemoes’ sociations of a futuristic – perhaps, to use a later word, surrealistic – painting: “... an old fir love for a young girl at Tranekær on Langeland, the island which has also, because of tree, a spinning top, yes and the neck of a swan”. In this piece Carl Nielsen is quite in tune Grundtvig’s intense youthful love affair there, assumed a special position in the history of with the situation around 1930 and with his own Symphonies 5 and 6. Sophus Michaëlis’ Denmark during the Napoleonic Wars. Hans Christian Andersen Gala Play had its premiere on 12th August at the Odense Theatre. The orchestral piece Pan and Syrinx from 1917-18 is one of Carl Nielsen’s most distinc- Carl Nielsen himself conducted, there in the region of his childhood. The original piece tive works, and has always been so regarded. Among other things that have been pointed became Carl Nielsen’s last orchestral composition. out is a surprising affinity with musical Impressionism – even with Debussy’s well known In the large-scale overture Helios from 1902 we find ourselves at the beginning of Carl piece for solo flute, Syrinx, written five years previously, although Carl Nielsen is unlikely to Nielsen’s great musical ‘sunshine period’, which culminated in Symphony No. 3, nine have known it. But that is only one side of the work. The other is the odd shifts in tempo and years later. If Nielsen chose the Greek word for the sun, it was because the work was written the special alternation between transparent chamber-musical passages and tutti sections. in Greece, and at that time European culture had once more rediscovered ancient Hellas, Here, for the first time, Carl Nielsen uses a relatively large array of exotic percussion; in as expressed for example by the resumption of the Olympic Games of antiquity. the work he is stepping out on new paths after the conclusion of his Symphony no. 4. The The Helios has been of great national importance because it was – and is – the first work points forward all the way to works of the 1920s, especially the Flute Concerto of 1926. music one hears from the Danish Broadcasting Corporation on the radio after the turn of The story of Pan and Syrinx comes from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Pan is attracted to the the year on New Year’s Eve. Especially when the radio was the only broadcasting medium, nymph Syrinx. He pursues her, dancing and bleating. But she is frightened and flees to people were given a sense that with this music they were on their way into a new time. With a woodland lake, where she is transformed into a reed. That is a summary of what Carl their dissonances, the horns at the beginning of the work create a feeling of space and Nielsen writes as a text in the score. But he must also have been thinking about the con- promise: far out in space, the year is turning, the light of the sun will grow. There are also tinuation in Ovid, where Pan makes a flute from the reeds, so that he is united with Syrinx points of contact with the earlier great sunrise music in Denmark, Gade’s morning song

36 37 from The Elf King’s Daughter; as if one sun work is greeting another. The Helios has a mag- d nificent arching form which is even condensed, towards the end of the fast main section, CDs recorded at the Danish Radio Concert Hall from May 1999 through September 2006; into a bright firework display of a fugue. Carl Nielsen himself described the progress of the DVDs recorded live on 2 and 4 November 2000 work in the following words: Recording producers: Claus Due, Preben Iwan and Chris Hazell Sound engineers: Lars S. Christensen, Jørn Jacobsen and Jan Oldrup Silence and darkness – then the sun rises Cameras: Leif Larsen, Kurt Rasmussen, Ivan Kristoffersen and Bjarne Pedersen to joyful songs of praise – Previously released on 8.224126, 8.224156, 8.224169, 6.220518, 2.110403 and 2.110404 wanders its golden way – sinks silently 1999-2006 Dacapo Records, Copenhagen into the sea © 2011 Dacapo Records, Copenhagen Liner notes: Niels Bo Foltmann, Claus Røllum-Larsen, Michael Fjeldsøe, Peter Hauge, Thomas Michelsen and Jørgen I. Jensen English translation: James Manley Proofreader: Svend Ravnkilde Photographs: Denise Burt Graphic design: elevator-design.dk Publisher: Edition Wilhelm Hansen AS, www.ewh.dk The musical material from the Carl Nielsen Edition was used for these recordings Dacapo acknowledge, with gratitude, the financial support of Carl Nielsen og Anne Marie Carl-Nielsens Legat

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Dacapo Records, Denmark’s national record label, was founded in 1986 with the purpose of releasing the best of Danish music past and present. The majority of our recordings are world premieres, and we are dedicated to producing music of the highest international standards.