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CARL NIELSEN ON RECORD VINTAGE AND HISTORIC RECORDINGS DACOCD 801-830 30 CD Thomas Jensen Launy Grøndahl Erik Tuxen Carl Nielsen (1865-1931) is the central figure in Wagner’s operas. Danish music after the Romantic period. Through Similarly, his approach to thematic development his music, his writings and his strong personality and to structure seems to have been strongly he exerted a decisive influence on 20th-century influenced by his admiration for Beethoven’s and Danish music and musical aesthetics, and he was, Franck’s chamber music and symphonies. Fairly moreover, a source of inspiration for composers early on, however, he discovered his own in the other Scandinavian countries. He absorbed personal and unmistakable style, which he later and reformulated the best features of the musical developed relatively undisturbed within its own heritage, and he composed in nearly all genres. premises. His six symphonies are milestones in his Nielsen started out from the Classical harmony of compositorial output. the 18th and early 19th centuries, with its In the 20th-century Nielsen’s music has often preference for triads in the tonic and related keys been described as a reaction against the high and and for a relatively fast harmonic rhythm, and late Romantic style; but this description is these elements clearly marked his entire output. incorrect, since it throws less light on the music But during the 1890s he developed his harmony, than on the fact that later generations adopted the apparently independently, to what might be called stylistic ideals of Nielsen, and since Nielsen “extended tonality”, where all 12 semitones could himself denied the possibility of revolution in art. be used within a tonally centred scale. Nielsen It was more in his attitude to music and to used chromaticisms not in terms of the Romantic musical craftsmanship that he differed from many idiom, as leading notes related to diatonic notes contemporary composers and became a source of and as expressive melodic anticipations, but as inspiration for posterity. It is of course possible to autonomous entities directly related to the tonic. trace in Nielsen’s compositions until around 1900 This made possible the use of virtually all triads the influence of contemporary composers akin to within the key without obscuring the tonic, and him in some way. His early songs show a logical hence a rapid transition between keys. Above all, but deeply personal connection with the Danish his use of major and minor 3rds and 7ths as Lieder tradition of Heise and Lange-Müller. His nearly equals gives his music a characteristic harmonic and contrapuntal style matured under major-minor bearing together with a Mixolydian the influence of J. P. E. Hartmann’s and Brahms’s colouring. A growing tendency of adding strokes chamber and piano music, Grieg’s piano pieces of modal tonality may be observed, as for and especially Johan Svendsen’s orchestral instance in the Sinfonia espansiva, and in later works, and as a result of his own studies of 16th works there are frequent polytonal and at times and 17th-century polyphony. His suddenly atonal passages. Nielsen’s “extended tonality” increasing use from the 1890s of chromaticism in was primarily a melodic phenomenon, a means to the middle voices was no doubt the result of his more intensive expression; it is in evidence in the first-hand knowledge (as a second violinist) of songs opp. 4 and 6 and (especially) 10, where the subdued warmth of the diminished 7th often phrasing in the later ones. Similarly, the rhythmic appears at lyric climaxes. But since the “extended driving elements, originally tied to his melody, tonality” was used in conjunction with a became an independent factor, as in the four last Classically orientated harmonic rhythm based on symphonies. From the beginning his structural triads, the music was criticized from a Romantic technique was marked by a concentration on point of view for relying excessively on implicit motivic treatment, especially in the string quartets harmony. and the symphonies, and he deliberately chose Because of the fundamental role played in short and concise developing motifs rather than Nielsen’s music by melodic and driving long, flowering themes, especially as main ideas. (rhythmic) elements, his harmony at times His early developed sense of contrapuntal texture became a direct function of melody, as is clearly was no doubt strengthened by his many years of heard in the latent unisono of the melodic- experience as a second violinist and chamber rhythmic progression of the first 137 bars of the musician, and was consolidated through Orla Sinfonia espansiva. It is evident from Nielsen’s Rosenhoff’s teaching and through his own studies manuscripts that he often conceived themes and of polyphony. His delight in objective factual motifs as unharmonized melodies; this applied knowledge and thorough craftsmanship, generally to all his songs, but can also be seen in characteristic of his relationship with his connection with the opera Maskarade and surroundings and also expressed in his writings, several instrumental works, such as the First and found its musical expression in structure. He Third Symphonies. His melody was increasingly often advised his students to study counterpoint, characterized by economy and balance in the use “not in order to become learned and complicated, of intervals, and he is well known for his remark but on the contrary to achieve greater strength and that “one must show the sated that the melodic simplicity”. This is noticeable in his piano music, interval of a 3rd should be considered a gift from for example in the independent motivic and God, a 4th an experience, and a 5th the supreme rhythmic treatment of the left hand, unusual for happiness. Thoughtless over-indulgence the period. Similarly, while the emphasis in his undermines health” (quoted in the article instrumental music shifted from chamber pieces “Musikalske Problemer” (“Musical problems”) in to orchestral (especially symphonic) works, its his book Levende Musik (Living Music) 1925). linear structure and polyphony became The repetition of a note or an interval, and the increasingly predominant, resulting in a figurative replaying of a central note (the somewhat more restrained colouring. Perhaps this “perihelic principle”) are typical of his melodic is one of the main reasons why his music was for writing. a long time not appreciated abroad, where other In Nielsen’s instrumental music the phrasing stylistic ideas prevailed. The homophonic evolved from a traditional four-bar symmetry in sections are often more traditionally orchestrated the early works to the use of metrically free than the linear ones, and from the Third Symphony onwards, with the development of that the dominance of compositions in small group polyphony, the music is characterized by forms and for chamber ensemble in the years up an increasing concordance of orchestration and to about 1900 is thereafter replaced by the texture. dominance of orchestral music and of simple While Nielsen generally used strophic form in his strophic songs. Although he had composed his vocal music, he developed a dynamic approach to first orchestral piece in 1888 (first performed in symphonic form early on. Starting from the 1893 under the title of Symphonic Rhapsody traditional sonata form he transformed it towards and very much inspired by the orchestral style of a personal episodic form. By means of intensive Johan Svendsen), Nielsen had in his early years motivic treatment and the development of linear concentrated on songs and chamber music. But structure, he linked his musical progression in gradually, and parallel to his employment as a increasingly large structural sections which are violinist in the Royal Orchestra under Svendsen’s directly adjacent but at once separated by and baton, he became aware of his gifts as a united through large curves of tension. Here again symphonic composer. Nielsen’s First Symphony the Third Symphony is the central work. In his was begun in Berlin in the autumn 1890, while he search for unity in both texture and structure, he was still composing his string quartet in F minor. developed a capacity both for contrapuntal Both works are characterized by a symphonic synthesis of themes (especially in slow urge, and especially the First Symphony is movements) and for the derivation and variation marked by a strong motivic concentration of motifs together with motivic and thematic inspired by Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. In his metamorphosis. This striving for cyclical diary of the 1st of November, 1890, Nielsen coherence is increasingly clearly reinforced in the wrote: “I have begun to memorize the C minor so symphonic works by that particular tonal that I can write it down from memory; I don’t disposition which from a dynamic point of view know if it is possible for me, but I shall try. The is called “progressive tonality” or “emergent more one studies that symphony, the greater it tonality” (Robert Simpson), and from a static becomes. One might think that that score had point of view the “principle of interlocking tonal come down from Heaven!” (Nielsen’s Beethoven- structures” (Graham George), and which is the essays are still kept among his musical formal result of the melodically determined manuscripts). In his diary of the 20th December, “extended tonality” which Nielsen developed 1890, Nielsen wrote: “I have made a good start early in his career. on the Finale of the symphony.” Nielsen’s First It is not surprising to note that in Nielsen’s Symphony (FS 16) was given its first compositions the various musical genres run performance on Wednesday the 14th of March, somewhat parallel to his career as a musician 1894, in Copenhagen as the opening number of (violinist, chamber musician, orchestral violinist, the first self-supporting concert given by the conductor, free-lance composer).

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