CHAN 10271 Book Cover.qxd 7/2/07 1:12 pm Page 1 CHAN 10271(3) X CHANDOS CLASSICS CHAN 10271 Book Cover.qxd 7/2/07 1:12 pm Page 1 CHAN 10271(3) X CHANDOS CLASSICS CHAN 10271 BOOK.qxd 7/2/07 1:14 pm Page 2 Carl Nielsen (1865–1931) COMPACT DISC ONE Symphony No. 1, Op. 7, FS 16 37:01 in G minor • in g-Moll • en sol mineur 1 I Allegro orgoglioso 10:07 2 II Andante 8:23 3 III Allegro comodo – Andante sostenuto – Tempo I 8:45 4 IV Finale. Allegro con fuoco 9:43 Symphony No. 4, Op. 29, FS 76 ‘The Inextinguishable’ 37:04 Roland Johansson • Lars Hammarteg timpani soloists 5 I Allegro – 11:52 6 II Poco allegretto – 4:59 7 III Poco adagio quasi andante – 10:29 8 IV Allegro – Glorioso – Tempo giusto 9:43 TT 74:13 COMPACT DISC TWO Symphony No. 2, Op. 16, FS 29 Department of Copenhagen Library, The Royal Prints and Photographs, Maps, ‘The Four Temperaments’ 35:32 1 I Allegro collerico 10:30 2 II Allegro comodo e flemmatico 5:26 3 III Andante malincolico 12:14 Carl Nielsen 4 IV Allegro sanguineo – Marziale 7:20 3 CHAN 10271 BOOK.qxd 7/2/07 1:14 pm Page 4 Symphony No. 3, Op. 27, FS 60 Symphony No. 6, FS 116 ‘Sinfonia espansiva’ 42:02 ‘Sinfonia semplice’ 34:52 Solveig Kringelborn soprano 7 I Tempo giusto – Allegro passionato – Karl-Magnus Fredriksson baritone Lento ma non troppo – Tempo I (giusto) 13:12 5 I Allegro espansivo 12:44 8 II Humoreske. Allegretto 4:15 6 II Andante pastorale 11:06 9 III Proposta seria. Adagio 5:55 7 III Allegretto un poco 7:06 10 IV Tema con variazioni 8 IV Finale. Allegro 11:04 Allegro – TT 77:36 Tema. Allegretto un poco – Variazioni I–IX – COMPACT DISC THREE Fanfare 11:26 Symphony No. 5, Op. 50, FS 97 36:45 TT 71:43 Sölve Kingstedt clarinet Daniel Kåse snare drum Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra 1 I Tempo giusto – 10:06 Gennady Rozhdestvensky 2 Adagio non troppo 9:07 3 II Allegro – 6:29 4 Presto – 3:20 5 Andante un poco tranquillo – 4:39 6 Allegro 3:02 4 5 CHAN 10271 BOOK.qxd 7/2/07 1:14 pm Page 6 The first movement is marked Allegro Royal Danish Orchestra until 1906 when he Nielsen: Symphonies orgoglioso (‘proudly’ or ‘haughtily’ – it was became its conductor in succession to Johan originally just Allegro marcato), and its Svendsen. The symphony dates from the same opening idea is bold and assertive. The period as Sibelius’s Second, with which it Just as 1685 saw the coincidence of three to be composed! And there are other less exposition wastes no time, moving quickly shares the distinction of being championed by important musical births (those of Handel, Bach familiar formative influences – Horneman, for from one idea to the next: the second subject, Busoni, no less, in his remarkable New Music and Domenico Scarlatti), so 1865 witnessed the instance, whose music is not much played a marvellously expressive oboe tune, is Concerts in Berlin. (Incidentally, Nielsen’s birth within a few months of each other of the outside Denmark, and Svendsen, too, under marked off from the first, both in character symphony is dedicated to that great pianist two greatest Scandinavian symphonists – Carl whose baton Nielsen had played in the and scoring (it is entirely for wind). And so as and composer.) It is music of distinctive Nielsen and Jean Sibelius. They belonged to the premiere of the First Symphony. But although to counterbalance the weight of the remainder profile, the work more compact and last generation before what one could call the Nielsen works within the received tradition, of the movement, Nielsen marks the concentrated than its predecessor, and more ‘urbanisation’ of music; the last generation for the early symphonies are highly distinctive in exposition for repeat. The slow movement, powerfully argued. Of course it still belongs in which nature was a primary concern (Debussy, language. In Living Music Nielsen wrote, Andante, has a touching freshness and an the tradition of Svendsen, Dvoˇrák and Brahms, Delius, and Mahler were all born in the early the individual style is – to put it briefly – that unbroken flow of melody. Its thinking, for all and it is the last whose shadow looms largest 1860s) and the last to grow up before the stamp an artist imposes on his own work; the its apparently artless Nordic lyricism, is totally in the noble third movement. And, of course, gramophone became a serious cultural force. national stamp is one that a people imprint on organic and its chaste chromaticism contains Brahms is not the only influence: Nielsen is Their symphonies were conceived over much the composer. not the slightest trace of sentimentality. The steeped in the tradition of Danish folksong the same time span (1891–1925) and there The Danish language and Danish folk music third movement fulfils the role of a scherzo, and his directness of utterance owes much to are other parallels: both were born into certainly lend his melodic style a distinctive though in form it is more complex than are the it. relatively modest backgrounds, and both were flavour or tang. usual scherzo and trio. What appears to be a The Four Temperaments is not programme violinists and conductors. Nielsen always retained a strong affection trio is little more than the development of an music as such but its basic inspiration comes Nielsen was in his mid-twenties at the time for the First Symphony – and rightly so! Its idea that followed the second theme, and that from an extramusical impulse. The subtitle he composed Symphony No. 1 in 1891–92, prodigality of invention and generosity of is poised between the two basic tonalities of alludes to a set of caricatures Nielsen had the same age as Sibelius at the time of feeling have an unfailing power to astonish. the symphony. The melodic lines on which the seen in a village inn in Zealand. The first Kullervo. While there are echoes of Already in this work we see evidence of Finale, Allegro con fuoco, launches us, hover movement portrays the choleric temperament Tchaikovsky and even Bruckner in the Kullervo Nielsen’s early awareness of the role of key in between the chords of G minor and C minor, and is a taut sonata form design, brilliantly Symphony, Nielsen’s First is more mainstream. the symphonic argument, and a first glimpse of and unleash a momentum which seems quite dramatic and strongly held together. As There are resonances of both Dvoˇrák and the ‘progressive tonality’ that was to become a irresistible. Nielsen himself put it: Brahms. One must remember that at this time hallmark of his thinking. The work begins in Almost a decade separates Symphony The choleric man was on horseback; he had a Brahms’s Fourth Symphony and Dvoˇrák’s G minor but progresses to a different key, No. 2 ‘The Four Temperaments’ (1901– 02) long sword in his hand, with which he slashed Symphony in G major were ‘contemporary C major – indeed, at one stage he had even from Symphony No. 1. In spite of his growing wildly at the empty air, his eyes were nearly music’ and the ‘New World’ Symphony had yet thought of calling the work ‘Symphony in C’. celebrity, Nielsen remained a member of the rolling out of his head, his hair flew madly round 6 7 CHAN 10271 BOOK.qxd 7/2/07 1:14 pm Page 8 his face, and this was so full of fury and devilish breath in rough syncopations: but this is soon time, thanks to his friendship with the Swedish effectively in Min fynske barndom (My hate that involuntarily I burst into laughter. forgotten, and even if the music turns to minor, his composer-conductor Wilhelm Stenhammar. It Childhood on Funen). In the second movement, Allegro comodo e cheery, rather superficial nature still asserts itself. would seem, then, that he was poised for an In later life Nielsen wrote of the Sinfonia flemmatico, depicting the phlegmatic This is a rondo, yet at its end the confident international breakthrough. But the First World espansiva as expressing, in its first movement, temperament, he visualised stride (in A major) is tempered by the War put paid to that, and the success that was ‘a strong tension which is completely a youngster of about seventeen or eighteen, of experiences that the intervening episodes his due did not in the end arrive until the late eradicated in the idyllic calm of the second’. an uncommonly lovable disposition, whose have presented; the character of our hero is 1940s and early 1950s. For, after the symphonic waltz into which the inclination is to relax in the sun and idle his time deeper and his confidence has a truer ring. The opening of the symphony is first movement evolves, the Andante pastorale away while the birds sing, and the fish glide The best part of another decade separates electrifying, like nothing else in all music. is distinguished by its serenity and repose, noiselessly through the water. It is impossible to The Four Temperaments from Symphony There is a tutti unison on A, repeated through untroubled save by the gentlest of clouds. At scold him, for everything idyllic and heavenly in No. 3 ‘Sinfonia espansiva’ (1910–11). The fourteen bars in a rapid accelerando which the point at which the music is furthest nature was to be found in him. His expression is intervening years had seen the composition of has the effect of heightening tension, like a removed from A major, and from the happy but not self-complacent, rather with a hint the opera Maskarade, the Fourth String powerful stutter, before it unleashes a veritable subdominant (D minor) in which it began, of quiet melancholy.