Customer Reviews

Nielsen: Symphony No. 1; Symphony No. 6 'Sinfonia Semplice'

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This CD contains the first and last of Carl Nielsen's six symphonies and is a reissue, at budget price, of one of the CDs in the esteemed set of all the symphonies issued originally in the early 2000s on the da capo label Carl Nielsen: Complete Symphonies (Box Set) . It features a Danish orchestra and conductor who clearly have this music in their blood. The jewel box indicates that this is Volume 1, so we can presume that the other four symphonies will be forthcoming. That is reason for celebration. The performances here are magnificent. They may not be as smooth or grandiloquent as, say, the San Francisco Symphony's recordings done when Herbert Blomstedt was their conductor, but somehow for me they ring truer and more direct in their impact.

The Symphony No. 1, written in the early 1890s, is the work of the twenty-seven year old Nielsen, then playing in the second violin section of the Royal Danish Orchestra. It marks Nielsen out as a true original. There have not been many composers whose uniquely personal sound has appeared so early in their careers. But from the first moments one knows that this music could be by no one other than Nielsen. Although entirely tonal harmonically, Nielsen's management of key relationships is utterly his own. For instance, the opening chord of the symphony is a grand C major triad; it is followed immediately by the movement's main theme which is unabashedly in G minor, a distant key for sure. Yet, that opening C major chord presages the end of the entire symphony as C major is the key in which the work ends. Robert Simpson, in his major work 'Carl Nielsen - Symphonist', claims that this is the first symphony to end in such a distant key from its putative home key. Perhaps so, but it's the journey that Nielsen takes us on that is so fascinating and so satisfying. Mvt 1 is marked 'orgoglioso' ('proud') and it is certainly that. One can picture a stubborn, strong-minded man sticking to his guns through all sorts of travail, the latter depicted by some of the wildest tonal divagations imaginable; surely this is a portrait of the 'inner' Nielsen, who was outwardly a mild-mannered, genial sort. The second movement, Andante, is considerably more serene and romantic, and it sticks to its main key, G major (with occasional forays into G minor), for its entire course. But Nielsen is able to inject some irony by use of naked octaves, one of the composer's fingerprints by which he makes dryly objective comments. In the final moments of the movement Nielsen uses a gently floating triplet figure that is reminiscent of Brahms's similar use of a triplet figure in his Third Symphony. The third movement is a moderately paced Scherzo whose allegro marking is modified by the Italian word 'comodo' ('comfortable'). It has a gentle swinging motion put forth partly by another Nielsen fingerprint, slow alternations in the melodic line of intervals of the third or fourth, almost a kind of slow tremolo. The finale, like the first, opens in C and quickly gravitates to G minor and ultimately winds up in B flat major, G minor's relative major. After a stress-laden development, the movement ends in a triumphant C major. This is an extraordinarily assured first symphony for a young man who was not yet established as a composer.

There could not be greater contrast between the Nielsen's first and last symphonies. Indeed, as one studies the symphonies in chronological order one sees that Nielsen continued to grow and experiment and invent new things right up to the end. The Sixth was written in 1924. Its original subtitle was 'Sinfonia Semplice' (although Nielsen did not include the subtitle in the first publication of the score) and this is surely an example of Nielsenian irony. The symphony is his most complex and probably his most emotionally wrenching. The means by which this occurs is primarily harmonic. Simpson indicates that he initially completely misunderstood the symphony, until he realized that the main thrust of the work is Nielsen's avoidance of the work's inevitable home key; whereas most of Nielsen's symphonies could be described as a search for and final discovery of the work's central key signature, a sort of coming home, in this symphony Nielsen side-slips away from what feels like the home key repeatedly, setting up an angst that is similar in feeling, if not in actual sound, to much of Mahler's symphonic oeuvre. The second movement, labeled 'Humoresque', sounds almost Shostakovian with its derisory caricatures of good humor. The third movement, titled 'Proposta seria' ('Serious Proposition'), starts with what sounds like the beginning of a grandly serene Adagio but it soon becomes apparent that any serenity will be attained only through great effort, if then. It is as if Nielsen is painting in sound the notion of the self-deception that inheres to the maintenance of outward calm. It is of note that this work was written after Nielsen had had a series of heart attacks and was facing his own mortality; indeed he thought it might well be his final work. The finale, a set of nine variations, is a model of melodic, harmonic and orchestrational invention, however idiosyncratic. It aspires to a grand and triumphant finish but the ending - labeled 'Fanfare' - has the feeling of mockery.

These are two symphonies that I don't hesitate to call masterpieces. Thank goodness Nielsen's music is beginning to figure more in concert performances and recordings around the world; more and more people are coming to understand what a genius he was. And the performances here by Michael Schønwandt and the Danish National Symphony Orchestra do the works proud.

Scott Morrison

As the other reviewers have commented, it's hard to find two different symphonies as these. The first sounds at times as if it is imbued with Schumannian tenderness, and at other times with a shimmering oceanic feeling that is for me almost therapeutic.

The last is strange, sometimes a bit of a joke, but certainly captivating.

The other symphonies are quite different again, and should be part of any musically educated person's record collection.

Michael Schonwandt has infused great emotional depth in his interpretation, which I vastly prefer to Neeme Jarvi's.

So given that this is also a bargain, I highly recommend you buy it, but get all symphonies, for goodness sake, this composer is a great genius and Schonwandt does him justice.

Scott Morrison's review is so detailed and accurate that I can only add a side comment. On its first release between 1999 and 2001, British critics were rapturous about Schonwandt's complete symphony cycle, and now that it's available at super budget price form Noaxos, there can be no complaints. The interpretations are enthusiastic and committed; the sound is fine; the orchestra plays very well. But unless you're a Nielsen buff, I would focus on other works than Sym. #1 and #6.

The Nielsen First, as Mr. Morrison notes, sounds amazingly like mature Nielsen in its core sound, but that doesn't save it from being an immature work with little to offer melodically or emotionally. As a symphonist, he matured with Sym. #3, #4, and #5, all of which I was delighted to discover when Leonard Bernstein made his landmark recordings in the mid-to-late Sixties. Schonwandt is smaller in scale and emotional depth, but he's more passionate than his rivals, especially Herbert Blomstedt on both EMI and Decca.

The Sixth should have been the apex of Nielsen's career, but in his late phase the composer developed a quirky idiom that could be called enigmatic -- sample the stuttering bird calls, mock fire siren, and ad lib snare drum in the second movement. Every commentator has assumed that the subtitle "Simplice" is either ironic or a riddlge. To gie him his due, Schowandt dives into the work's strange idiom with enthusiasm, but more than that is required. I'm not sure I've ever heard a reading that fully worked.

In any event, this instlalment in the three-CD series upholds a high standard, but I don't think you need to bother if you already own Bernstein (Sony) and perhaps Stokowski (in the Sixth, on BBC Legends).