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Carl Nielsen, Wordsmith


randyhersom

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"National feeling, which up to now was regarded as something lofty and beautiful, has instead become like a spiritual syphilis that has destroyed the brains, and it grins out through the empty eye sockets with moronic hate."

I'd read that quote on an old Turnabout (Vox single disk label) recording of Nielsen's Symphony #4, The Inextinguisable by Igor Markevitch. Lost the LP somehow, always wanted to find it again, as much for the liner notes and that amazing quote as for the excellent music.

Google rocks!

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Also floating around (at least I have it) is a BBC tv documentary produced by Robert Simpson called "Espansiva". Horenstein provides the soundtrack and is questioned by Simpson about N. There are interviews with N's 2 daughters and ending with a performance of the first half of the 5th Sym conducted by Horenstein. Great stuff.

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  • 2 months later...

Musical Events

Inextinguishable

The fiery rhythms of Carl Nielsen.

by Alex Ross, New Yorker

February 25, 2008

080225_r17090_p465.jpg

Conductors are rediscovering the music of Nielsen,

a Danish composer whose symphonies have the brute strength of Beethoven’s.

The great Danish composer Carl Nielsen once imagined that music had a voice, and that it spoke in these terms: “I live tenfold more intensely than any living thing, and die a thousandfold deeper. I love the vast surface of silence; and it is my chief delight to break it.” True to that eloquent boast, Nielsen’s works often begin with pure musical action, suggestive of bodies in motion and of forces unleashed. The First Symphony, from 1892, starts with a pair of curt chords, bright C major and darker-hued G minor, which land on the ears like a one-two punch. The Third, from two decades later, begins with the note A blasting repeatedly in various registers and accelerating until a takeoff tempo is achieved. The Fourth, subtitled “The Inextinguishable,” written during the First World War, is a melee from the first measure; the Fifth, from the early twenties, emerges from silence with an eerily oscillating interval, then builds to an anarchic climax in which a snare drum improvises against the orchestral mass. With these bolt-from-the-blue beginnings, Nielsen was undoubtedly modelling himself on the ultimate symphonic forebear, the Beethoven of the “Eroica” and the Fifth. Nielsen’s music seldom resembles Beethoven’s directly, but it weighs in with the same brute strength.

Given the blazing individuality of Nielsen’s voice, it’s puzzling that he has yet to find a firm place in the international repertory. He is ubiquitous in his native Denmark, where he holds the place of National Composer-Hero; he is a mainstay throughout the Nordic countries and, to a lesser extent, in Britain. For American orchestras, however, he remains a tough sell, despite periodic attempts to whip up the same enthusiasm that has long attended his contemporaries Mahler and Sibelius. Leonard Bernstein tried to set off a Nielsen fad at the New York Philharmonic in the nineteen-sixties, but it didn’t quite take. Orchestral players, percussionists excepted, tend to groan a little when Nielsen shows up on their music stands; his habit of writing furiously fast figures, and then passing them from one section to another, relay style, can make even an ensemble of virtuosos sound like a mess. Audiences, for their part, often go away from Nielsen performances pleased but a little dazed, not sure what hit them.

Lately, though, Nielsen has been gaining ground, as notable younger conductors join longtime advocates like Herbert Blomstedt and Simon Rattle in preaching his virtues. Paavo Järvi, the music director of the Cincinnati Symphony, has made a strong recording of the Fifth, pointedly pairing it with Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring.” Gustavo Dudamel also recently conducted the Fifth at the Gothenburg Symphony. And, earlier this month, Alan Gilbert delivered a miniature manifesto by presenting two Nielsen symphonies back to back—the Second, with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Third, with the orchestra of the Curtis Institute of Music. Gilbert’s efforts are of particular interest because the conductor will become the music director of the New York Philharmonic in the fall of 2009. From that historic perch, Gilbert might be able to complete the job that Bernstein left unfinished, and make Nielsen famous in a city that already moves to his helter-skelter tempo.

Nielsen, who was born in 1865, grew up in a poor but happy home on Funen, Denmark’s second-largest island. He worked variously as a goose-herder, a cowherd, a wedding musician, and a military bugler before winning a scholarship to the Royal Danish Conservatory, in Copenhagen. His major pieces—which include not only the six symphonies but the operas “Saul and David” and “Maskarade,” a beloved Wind Quintet, and concertos for violin, flute, and clarinet—are grounded in ruddy, earthy, insistently singable melodies; more than a few of his songs have entered Danish folk tradition. (When the composer turned sixty, in 1925, a national holiday was declared, and he woke to find a brass band playing outside his window in Copenhagen.)

With savage concentration, Nielsen proceeds to hack apart, reshape, mash together, and rev up his catchy little tunes. In this respect, he resembles Charles Ives, the master of musical collisions, and, more distantly, the neoclassical Stravinsky. He is at his most daring in the Sixth Symphony, which is almost an act of compositional surrealism: naïve pastoral melodies disintegrate, dissonances unnerve like midnight alarms, waltzes are interrupted in wild polyrhythmic episodes, trombones and tuba issue mocking bleats, the percussion rattles around with sinister glee. At times, the work is positively morbid in tone—the late British composer Robert Simpson, a Nielsen devotee, thought that the piercing discords in the first movement were depictions of heart attacks that Nielsen had lately suffered—but the symphony fights its way to a bracingly comical, carnivalesque conclusion, ending on a Bronx cheer of a bassoon note. As in the case of Janácek and Bartók, the other leading folk-modernists of the early twentieth century, Nielsen seamlessly fused his “peasant” and “urban” selves. His habit of flattening the third and seventh notes of the major scale harks back to folk modes, yet it also allows for rapid-fire modulations and polymorphous key schemes.

Players need to believe fervently in this music if they are to bring it fully to life. Each phrase must trigger the next in a kind of chain reaction. The difference is clear when you go from, say, the Berlin Philharmonic’s solemn, square-footed 1981 recording of the Fourth Symphony, under the direction of Herbert von Karajan, to a series of live recordings that the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra made in the nineteen-fifties. The conductors—Thomas Jensen, Launy Grøndahl, Erik Tuxen—aren’t household names, but they elicit playing of reckless passion. (The disks appear on the Danacord label and are available through ArkivMusic.com or Amazon download. There is also an outstanding CD of the Second and the Fourth on RCA, with Jean Martinon and Morton Gould conducting the Chicago Symphony.) Jensen’s reading of the Fourth is simply one of the most viscerally exciting orchestral recordings ever made. During the timpani duel in the finale, a kind of animal frenzy takes over, the entire orchestra seemingly possessed by the composer’s personal motto: “Music is life, and, like life, inextinguishable.”

American orchestral players might have to live for a month in one-room Danish cottages to enter fully into the spirit of Nielsen’s music. But Alan Gilbert demonstrates that it’s possible to obtain arrestingly idiomatic performances after a few days of rehearsal. The first qualification that this conductor brings to bear is the flexible precision of his beat; he indicates tempi with uncommon clarity, yet is hardly metronomic in his approach. His rhythmic mastery was apparent as he led the Philadelphia Orchestra through the first movement of the Second Symphony, which repeatedly teases the ears with metrical ambiguities: the first theme of the movement is in 2/4 time, the second is in 3/4, and the tension between them persists up until the final bars. Gilbert handled the tricky syncopated shifts so that they came across not as awkward transitions but as intensifications, fresh bolts of energy. The achievement was especially remarkable given that musicians often have trouble hearing each other on the stage of Verizon Hall, the acoustically uneven space where the orchestra has been playing since 2001.

At the same time, Gilbert produced a performance rich in emotion—and this was heartening to encounter in a conductor who has sometimes been criticized for being too cool in his approach. The Second is subtitled “The Four Temperaments,” the four movements illustrating the choleric, phlegmatic, melancholic, and sanguine moods. The melancholy movement opens with a forty-seven-bar melodic paragraph that should unfold as a single legato phrase. Gilbert displayed another aspect of his exceptional baton technique: he swept his arms in wide, flowing, yet rhythmically incisive motions, drawing out intense lyricism while keeping the ensemble impeccably unified. (Young conductors are often discouraged from waving their arms excessively, because the beat is easily lost.) Gilbert practiced the same art on the students of the Curtis Symphony, who gave a startlingly polished concert at Carnegie Hall on February 12th; in the slow movement of the Third Symphony, the strings spoke in strikingly unanimous, heartfelt phrases. The missing element was feistiness; the Curtis players sounded, oddly, too professional. Gilbert might have reminded them of another of Nielsen’s aphorisms: that great artists give their era a black eye.

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There's a lot of B.S. in that Ross/Nielsen piece, and he doesn't even mention what probably is the main thing about Nielsen's musical language (and the chief subject of Robert Simpson's fine Nielsen book) -- long-range, storytelling harmonic tension/conflict. In fact, that's almost certainly the reason why Nielsen's music hasn't caught on with the American subscription-concert public (a question that Ross raises and drops). While the surface of Nielsen's music is not forbiddingly modern, you need to listen to him in a concentrated, long-range manner or you don't get what's up. (Much of the American subscription-concert public tends, I believe, to listen in a "choice moments" manner.) The same could be said of Bruckner as of Nielsen in this regard (Bruckner being the subject of another fine Simpson book), but at least the sound of Bruckner tells you that something important is afoot; Nielsen music, by contrast, has little or no "aura" to it, just its intense purposefulness, and sometimes even that is masked by apparent geniality.

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Nielsen (especially the 4th and 5th) is regularly programmed in the UK both in concerts and broadcasting; there are several cycles of the symphonies available and plenty of this other music.

He seems to have little trouble attracting we superficial listeners and is far from the exclusive preserve of the intelligensia.

The third symphony is every bit as bucolic as any contemporary piece of musical pastoralism.

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Nielsen (especially the 4th and 5th) is regularly programmed in the UK both in concerts and broadcasting; there are several cycles of the symphonies available and plenty of this other music.

He seems to have little trouble attracting we superficial listeners and is far from the exclusive preserve of the intelligensia.

The third symphony is every bit as bucolic as any contemporary piece of musical pastoralism.

Nothing you've ever said here makes me think that you're a superficial listener. Nor do I think that following the close argument of Nielsen's best music is "the exclusive preserve of the intelligentsia," any more than following the close argument of Beethoven or Schubert's music would be.

On the other hand, if you mean by "The third symphony is every bit as bucolic as any contemporary piece of musical pastoralism" that the Nielsen Third is merely a piece of musical pastoralism or that it's not much different (in nature and quality) than other other contemporary pieces of musical pastoralism, I disagree a lot.

Here is the beginning of Robert Simpson's chapter on the Third, which cuts off much too soon but may be enough to convey his drift. Yes, that curtailed final sentence does look as though it's going to support the "Nielsen the ordinary guy speaking directly to other ordinary guys, and that's that" approach, but that is not where Simpson is going:

"The period before the First World War found Nielsen at the
height of his musical powers and the two main works of the
years 1910-11, the Sinfonia espansiva and the violin Concerto,
express to the full that warm and sunny aspect of him that has
led to the popular over-simplification of the comparison
between him and Sibelius: the Finn is said to be 'grim' and
the Dane 'genial.' As in all popular generalizations, there is
some truth in this; Nielsen's personality is far more approach­
able than Sibelius's, but the Danish composer's fifth and
sixth Symphonies and his clarinet Concerto are in some ways
tougher in fibre even than such a work as the concentrated
fourth Symphony of Sibelius. It is undoubtedly the popularity of The Four Temperaments, and perhaps to a slightly
greater extent the Espansiva, that has given rise to the impression
that Nielsen's music is always smiling. In relation to the rest
of Scandinavia, the Danish atmosphere might almost be called
Mediterranean, and the third Symphony completely sums up
this attractive side of the country and its generous, hospitable
people. Besides this, the work has an enormous vigour and its
title betokens the composer's now full consciousness of his own
powers; he feels now not only a keen interest in the temperaments and characters of his fellows; he understands that this is
not a mere feeling of sympathy, but one of actual identity of
purpose. He realizes what he at first only sensed, that he and
his music are dependent on and of value to the ordinary…"

The whole book can be accessed here, for a fee (don't know how much):

http://www.questia.com/library/book/carl-n...ert-simpson.jsp

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Simon Phillippo in the Musical Times, writing about Robert Simpson's view of Nielsen in a way that I hope touches upon my point about the close-argument nature of Nielsen's musical language:

"Unlike Schenker's conception of a tonal composition as the `composing-out' of the triadic Ursatz, for Simpson such a work need not form the expression of a single key, but may form a progression from one to another. All attention is fixed on the 'middleground' of a tonal structure, which, rather than indicating the unity and coherence of a composition, is best thought of as the deepest aspect of a work's 'evolutionary' content. This is true even in his analysis of classical music, where 'momentum' is the result of `destroying the original tonic by means of a screwing-up of tension', creating 'a sense of travelling.' In the opening tutti of Nielsen's Third Symphony, the tritonal excursion `from one end of the tonal world to the other' is described as 'a vivid expression of energy.' Herein lies Simpson's connection between tonality and dynamic movement.

"[simpson's] assumptions of teleology lead him to class even a progressive-tonal outcome as inevitable. Of Nielsen's Second Symphony he wrote, `The touches of A major and G major near the beginning ... serve to hint, in turn, at the end of the whole symphony,' and in the Fifth he similarly hunts down 'justification' for the E flat ending, despite his remark that much of the symphony deals with `the problems raised by not deciding in advance exactly where the music was to go.'"

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I like Simpson's way of writing, Larry. I haven't a clue what the other bloke is on about!

I think I'm reacting against this sentence of yours - 'Much of the American subscription-concert public tends, I believe, to listen in a "choice moments" manner.' Probably not your intention, but it comes across as rather dismissive of the ordinary listener.

Classical music (music in general) can be listened to in all sorts of ways - it can be closely analysed by those with a deep understanding of musical theory; or accessed by the listener who is just moved by music without really understanding the technicalities of how it works.

I suspect that most listeners to concerts and records fall into 'the listener who is just moved by music without really understanding the technicalities of how it works' category - I know I do. I've a rough idea about basic forms, can hear key changes without being able to name them but my technical understanding does not go much further. So although I would not recognise the "long-range, storytelling harmonic tension/conflict" consciously (although I do recall reading sleeve notes about Nielsen's 'progressive tonality' many years ago), I suspect my brain picks up on the effects Nielsen intended that to have subconsciously. I'd imagine the same is true of a general European audience and I'd be most surprised if an American non-expert but inquisitive audience did not do the same.

I'm not dismissing the work of the academic musical analyst - the work they do is vital to aid general understanding, the development of future musicians and composers and - when written with the clarity of your Simpson example - can be illuminating to the main body of listeners. I just think that often in their judgements (rather than in their technical analysis) they miss the wood for the trees, mistaking the technical innovations or complexities of the music for what really counts - the ability to express or represent something that can move the public.

Which is one reason why there is such a gap between what musical academics say is worthwhile in music from the mid-20thC music onwards and that which communicates with the audience at large. The academic approach puts a premium on technical accomplishment, innovation; but when this is divorced from a language that the bulk of listeners can be moved by then you get this chasm.

Which is not an argument against obscure, progressive, innovative avant-garde music. Merely that the criteria used to praise a great avant-gardist working for a minority academic audience just has no application in the wider arena, where other qualities are of far greater significance.

Sibelius was my first classical love; I only heard Nielsen ten years later. I really enjoy them both, but Sibelius still means more. Is that because I'm failing to recognise Nielsen's "long-range, storytelling harmonic tension/conflict" or am not giving it its due? I don't think so - I think I just respond more to the melody and harmony of Sibelius, the way the music seems to grow organically without broadcasting its underlying form, the overall brooding nature of much of the music (maybe that's what you mean by 'choice moments'?). Nielsen, by contrast, seems more angular with a more overt sense of drama, sudden shifts that Sibelius would take longer to move towards.

And I'd suggest that the non-expert listening public probably tends to prefer one type of music over another for their own reasons of personal taste rather than based on the ability or lack of ability to get beyond 'choice moments'. The ordinary listening public may not have developed musicological skills - but if a composer has done his job well, then a fair bit of what he wants to communicate will get through to a willing listener without those skills.

The analogy I always use is Lincoln (or any other) Cathedral. If you have a knowledge of architecture, medieval history, the liturgy of the Catholic and Anglican Church then you can gain a lifetime's enjoyment and stimulation from that building. But a 9 year old kid can walk through the door and go 'wow!' and he's instantly connected with the major purpose of the building. Many will find visiting such buildings provide an interesting pastime for the future, generally reading up briefly about certain aspects that interest them - history or architecture or whatever. A handful - the expert - will come to know the building in all its constructional intricacy. But the success of the orginal architects, builders, craftsmen lie in the ability to communicate directly with the public. If they'd built something that could only get a reaction from other architechts then I'd say that limits their achievement.

I have a disc by Robert Simpson - not abstract or atonal in any way and clearly extremely well crafted. And yet I recall it left no emotional resonance. Haven't listened to it in years - will have to try it again.

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I like Simpson's way of writing, Larry. I haven't a clue what the other bloke is on about!

I think I'm reacting against this sentence of yours - 'Much of the American subscription-concert public tends, I believe, to listen in a "choice moments" manner.' Probably not your intention, but it comes across as rather dismissive of the ordinary listener.

Classical music (music in general) can be listened to in all sorts of ways - it can be closely analysed by those with a deep understanding of musical theory; or accessed by the listener who is just moved by music without really understanding the technicalities of how it works.

I suspect that most listeners to concerts and records fall into 'the listener who is just moved by music without really understanding the technicalities of how it works' category - I know I do. I've a rough idea about basic forms, can hear key changes without being able to name them but my technical understanding does not go much further. So although I would not recognise the "long-range, storytelling harmonic tension/conflict" consciously (although I do recall reading sleeve notes about Nielsen's 'progressive tonality' many years ago), I suspect my brain picks up on the effects Nielsen intended that to have subconsciously. I'd imagine the same is true of a general European audience and I'd be most surprised if an American non-expert but inquisitive audience did not do the same.

I'm not dismissing the work of the academic musical analyst - the work they do is vital to aid general understanding, the development of future musicians and composers and - when written with the clarity of your Simpson example - can be illuminating to the main body of listeners. I just think that often in their judgements (rather than in their technical analysis) they miss the wood for the trees, mistaking the technical innovations or complexities of the music for what really counts - the ability to express or represent something that can move the public.

Which is one reason why there is such a gap between what musical academics say is worthwhile in music from the mid-20thC music onwards and that which communicates with the audience at large. The academic approach puts a premium on technical accomplishment, innovation; but when this is divorced from a language that the bulk of listeners can be moved by then you get this chasm.

Which is not an argument against obscure, progressive, innovative avant-garde music. Merely that the criteria used to praise a great avant-gardist working for a minority academic audience just has no application in the wider arena, where other qualities are of far greater significance.

Sibelius was my first classical love; I only heard Nielsen ten years later. I really enjoy them both, but Sibelius still means more. Is that because I'm failing to recognise Nielsen's "long-range, storytelling harmonic tension/conflict" or am not giving it its due? I don't think so - I think I just respond more to the melody and harmony of Sibelius, the way the music seems to grow organically without broadcasting its underlying form, the overall brooding nature of much of the music (maybe that's what you mean by 'choice moments'?). Nielsen, by contrast, seems more angular with a more overt sense of drama, sudden shifts that Sibelius would take longer to move towards.

And I'd suggest that the non-expert listening public probably tends to prefer one type of music over another for their own reasons of personal taste rather than based on the ability or lack of ability to get beyond 'choice moments'. The ordinary listening public may not have developed musicological skills - but if a composer has done his job well, then a fair bit of what he wants to communicate will get through to a willing listener without those skills.

The analogy I always use is Lincoln (or any other) Cathedral. If you have a knowledge of architecture, medieval history, the liturgy of the Catholic and Anglican Church then you can gain a lifetime's enjoyment and stimulation from that building. But a 9 year old kid can walk through the door and go 'wow!' and he's instantly connected with the major purpose of the building. Many will find visiting such buildings provide an interesting pastime for the future, generally reading up briefly about certain aspects that interest them - history or architecture or whatever. A handful - the expert - will come to know the building in all its constructional intricacy. But the success of the orginal architects, builders, craftsmen lie in the ability to communicate directly with the public. If they'd built something that could only get a reaction from other architechts then I'd say that limits their achievement.

I have a disc by Robert Simpson - not abstract or atonal in any way and clearly extremely well crafted. And yet I recall it left no emotional resonance. Haven't listened to it in years - will have to try it again.

Bev -- It's not a matter of close analysis by "those with a deep understanding of musical theory" versus "the listener who is just moved by music without really understanding the technicalities of how it works." It's a matter of paying attention moment by moment to (as in just plain noticing) the sort of music that works in a fairly urgent, moment-to-moment manner (as I think Nielsen's major works do) -- though not all good music (not even IMO all great music e.g. some Tchiakowsky) does work that way, at least not to the same degree.

You write: "So although I would not recognise the "long-range, storytelling harmonic tension/conflict" consciously (although I do recall reading sleeve notes about Nielsen's 'progressive tonality' many years ago), I suspect my brain picks up on the effects Nielsen intended that to have subconsciously."

I'm sure you do just that. But that's almost certainly because you were paying attention moment by moment and thus coudln't help but feel the effects of Nielsen's "progressive tonality," not because you could put that name onto what you were hearing or break down and tag all its component parts. (I couldn't do that either.)

You write: "I think I'm reacting against this sentence of yours - 'Much of the American subscription-concert public tends, I believe, to listen in a "choice moments" manner.' Probably not your intention, but it comes across as rather dismissive of the ordinary listener."

I could be wrong about that "listen in a 'choice moments" manner' generalization, I could be right. But I said "much of the American subscription-concert public," which is not the same thing as "the ordinary listener." First, "American" -- not British or European. Second, "subscription-concert." I've been part of those audiences on many occasions, and I think I know those people pretty well -- my late father and mother were core members. While such audiences include many "ordinary listeners" (my mother, at heart, was one) who pleasurably pay close attention (and in my book, pleasure of some sort is the sole reason to do that), they also include many people (my father definitely was one of those) who are there on something of a "be there to be seen" or "this is what people like us do on a Saturday night" basis. And I would say that that portion of the American subscription-concert public is not only significant in size but also listens for the "choice moments" that tell them that this is Beethhoven's Fifth, the Pathetique, the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, etc. Those are great works, but ... I hope you see what I mean. About subscription audiences in other countries, I don't have enough direct experience to generalize, though the one time I was in Royal Albert Hall, it seemed pretty clear that the audience was far more diverse, socially and economically, than the audience in Chicago's Orchestra Hall. I'd add that, of course, that there are plenty of ordinary listeners who don't have much if any opportunity to attend subscription concerts.

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