557164 bk NielsenUS 08/06/2005 13:55 Page 4 South Jutland Symphony Orchestra The Sønderjyllands Symfoniorkester (South Jutland Symphony Orchestra) was established in 1963, and gives concerts in a region consisting of the southern part of Jutland and South Schleswig (Germany), providing an indispensable part of the regional cultural life. The orchestra consists of 65 permanently employed musicians, and it performs about fifty symphony concerts per year. Other activities include church concerts, performances with the Danish National Opera, open air concerts and a comprehensive programme of concerts aimed at young people. In addition several recordings are issued each year. The orchestra’s repertoire covers the music from the baroque Carl to the contemporary. From 1965 to 1980 the chief conductor was the Hungarian Carl von Garaguly. He was followed, from 1997 to 2003, by the English violinist, Iona Brown, former musical director of the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields, succeeded in 2003 by the present chief conductor, the Swedish musician Niklas Willén. NIELSEN The orchestra has toured in Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, France and the Faroe Islands and played at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival. The rehearsal hall and the administration of the Sønderjyllands Symfoniorkester are in Sønderborg. Aladdin Suite Niklas Willén Pan and Syrinx Niklas Willén is currently Chief Conductor of the South Jutland Symphony Orchestra in Denmark, having previously held positions as Principal Guest Conductor of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and as Chief Conductor of the Sundsvall Chamber Orchestra. In addition to all his conducting engagements he has Saga Dream become a busy recording artist, making CDs with many orchestras, including the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Royal Opera in Stockholm, Göteborg Symphony Orchestra, Malmö Opera, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Norrköping Symfoniorkester, Sundsvall Chamber Orchestra, Royal Scottish Maskarade Overture National Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland. Niklas Willén works regularly with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Swedish Radio Symphony and Swedish Chamber orchestras as well as the other main orchestras and most opera houses in Sweden, Scandinavia and the rest of Helios Overture Europe. South Jutland Symphony Orchestra Niklas Willén 8.557164 4 557164 bk NielsenUS 08/06/2005 13:55 Page 2 Carl Nielsen (1865-1931) decisive close. By contrast the Prelude to Act 2 offers exchanges, and while the Chinese Dance is more Orchestral Works repose before the goings-on shortly to ensue. Its spirited rhythmically, its harmonies are equally, and affectionate melodic contours and pastel-shaded scoring unmistakably, those of Nielsen. The Marketplace in Although he is most highly regarded for his six strings and brass music heard earlier then returns to typify Nielsen’s expression at its most generous and Ispahan is the most famous number in the suite – on symphonies, Carl Nielsen also composed a number of effect the briefest of climaxes, from which this warm-hearted. account of its superimposition of four different musical short orchestral pieces whose musical preoccupations attractive piece quickly withdraws beyond earshot, Despite the success of Maskarade, Nielsen’s ideas, so as to evoke the sensation of sound coming place them as satellites around those larger works. leaving as thoughtful yet elusive an impression as its disenchantment with the workings of an opera house from all sides of the market arena. The vividly dramatic Aside from two operas he wrote prolifically for the title suggests. meant that he composed no more operas. Instead, he Dance of the Prisoners is a reminder of the more theatre, as did his Finnish contemporary Sibelius, and Undoubtedly the finest of Nielsen’s shorter concentrated on incidental music for theatre descriptive passages in some of Nielsen’s symphonies, various instrumental items from these scores have orchestral pieces is the tone poem Pan and Syrinx productions, of which his score to Adam before the Negro Dance rounds off the suite in found an existence outside their original dramatic (FS87), composed during 1917 and 1918, immediately Oehlenschläger’s play Aladdin (FS89) is the most increasingly energetic abandon. context. after the Fourth Symphony and three years before he important. First heard in February 1919 at Very different in its expression is the incidental Of the shorter orchestral works, the most famous is began work on the Fifth Symphony [both Naxos Copenhagen’s Royal Theatre (the commissioner six score for the play Cupid and the Poet (FS150), which the overture Helios (FS32) which Nielsen wrote in 8.550743], whose radical approach to timbre and years later of Sibelius’s similarly lavish score for received its first airing in Odense during July 1930 and 1904, the result of a journey to Greece with his wife, the texture is anticipated in several respects. At the outset Shakespeare’s The Tempest), the elaborate nature of the is among Nielsen’s last major works, above all, for its sculptress Anne Marie Brodersen. The chief inspiration rustling strings and undulating flute aptly evoke the production made it impossible for Nielsen’s music to be Overture (not published until 1967). A brusque side was the sun rising and setting over the Aegean Sea, and pastoral nature of the Greek myth, combining realised in the way he intended. Overcoming his initial drum stroke initiates a restrained dance, strings and it is this image that opens and closes the piece. Over gentleness and agitation to a telling degree. Percussion, chagrin, he extracted several orchestral items (notably woodwind engaging in harmonically astringent undulating strings, divided horns sound in evocative notably xylophone and tambourine, enter as the musical from the extensive dance sequence in Act Three) for dialogue. Its contrapuntal rigour points to the Baroque polyphony, while upper strings and woodwind outline a expression quickly becomes more animated, subsiding concert performance, and these were finally published influence at work on the composer’s late music, with melodic idea of burnished richness. This rises to a to leave cor anglais and glockenspiel alone in as the Aladdin Suite in 1940. This begins with the the mid-point confrontation of side drum and clarinet serene climax for full orchestra, from which fanfaring thoughtful uncertainty. Timpani and strings gradually Oriental Festival March, its minor tonality evoking a equally a reminder of his modernist influences at this trumpets initiate a striding theme which returns later in make their presence felt as the tension gradually harsh splendour beyond the merely ceremonial. There time. The whole piece encapsulates the unpredictable the piece. After this first appearance, a graceful idea for accumulates, with untuned percussion taking on an follows Aladdin’s Dream and Dance of the Morning idiom that Nielsen pursued, often to the bemusement of woodwind ensues; then, after a further brass entry, obbligato rôle as a brief but raucous climax is reached. Mist, a rapt passage for strings, followed by the gently listeners, during his highly productive last decade. strings begin a lively fugato which draws the full The opening music returns and, beneath a shimmering animated dance with its winsome instrumentation for orchestra into a reprise of the striding theme and its dissonance on violins, a solo cello tapers away into flutes and violins. The Hindu Dance is a graceful associated fanfare. From here the music subsides into its nothingness. number where woodwind engage in delicately wistful Richard Whitehouse initial calm, solo horn and woodwind musing on the Nielsen’s second opera Maskarade (FS39), opening motifs as lower strings effect a return to composed during 1904-6 to a libretto by Vilhelm darkness. Andersen after the play by Ludvig Holberg, was a Composed during 1907 and 1908, the tone poem success at its première in Copenhagen on 11th Saga-drøm (Saga-Dream, FS46) develops the idea of November 1906 and was soon regarded as the Danish musical stasis in subtle and intriguing ways. At the national opera, a status it retains to this day. This opening, sombre yet serene strings evoke a mood of rapt comedy of deceit and mistaken identity frequently has a contemplation, soon to be intensified by the addition of lightness of touch recalling Mozart, not least in the pensive brass and graceful woodwind arabesques. An Overture, which functions as an effervescent curtain- animated motion now takes hold of the strings, over raiser akin to those of Le nozze di Figaro or Così fan which brass continue as before; there ensues a piquant tutte. It bursts into life with a theatrical flourish, beneath dialogue between pizzicato strings and woodwind, which the dancing main theme can clearly be heard. A culminating in the magical passage where solo more piquant melody is shared out between strings and woodwind coalesce, over a held chord on double woodwind, leading to a lively fugato for full orchestra basses, in a cluster of unbarred exchanges, a notational and the climactic return of the main theme. This is feature which aroused much curiosity at the time. The capped by a frenetic coda, bringing the piece to a 8.557164 2 3 8.557164 557164 bk NielsenUS 08/06/2005 13:55 Page 2 Carl Nielsen (1865-1931) decisive close. By contrast the Prelude to Act 2 offers exchanges, and while the Chinese Dance is more Orchestral Works repose before the goings-on shortly to ensue.