BBC SO/Oramo Nielsen 5 tonight 10/04/15

[jayne lee wilson]

Quick alert for this live Nielsen 5 from the Barbican tonight, just after 2030... Maestro Oramo has just completed a very fine Nielsen Cycle in Stockholm...
He's decided to follow the Nielsen with Ravel's Bolero..**poker-face**.... what could the link possibly be?

[jayne lee wilson]

The outstanding Nielsen conductor of his generation is in town for a live 5th, having just completed his own recorded cycle...
Well, "Carlnielsen" never did draw the crowds much...

The performance began with an immediate grip on the listener - an apprehensive pulse, a focussed, flowing line. But suddenly more urgent as the side-drum entered, very aggressive from the start. My cat froze, stared at a loudspeaker, then dashed from the room. The playing here became frighteningly intense - winds wild as the wind, strings savagely articulated, the rattling robotic orchestral mechanism finally disintegrating in a tonal desert. Then a breathtaking contrast after bleakness as the adagio began, the strings with gorgeous tonal breadth but striking intensity. The brasses swooped in confident of their triumph; NO! said the drummer, menacingly, torrentially, destructive; the tumult was almost Ivesian, the climax utterly overwhelming...
In the hushed loveliness of the coda, the side-drum wouldn't go quietly - "I'm still here..." it hissed, a loud whisper in the dark, an unignorable ghost; oh whistle and I'll come to you...

The allegro swept in with terrific speed, power and purpose - articulation from the BBCSO only just controlled, wildly on-the-edge; beautifully-judged relaxation of pulse and mood before the presto fugue crept in, which grew to a climax of such demonic intensity that the last shattering chord had an almost self-destructive power - before the tranquillo, arriving as a balm to our exhaustion. Amid stillness and beauty, did we, or conductor and players possibly have anything left? Oh, yes: the allegro surged back, first pinning me to my chair then pulling me out of it, to feed a final, stunningly physical crescendo - they really nailed that one!

A performance of unusual intensity and clarity, every mood and episode sharply defined, fully expressed, that echt-Nielsonian marking of tempo giusto seeming to become the sole preserve of this performance. Well, at least for the duration...
I've never heard the work better played or interpreted, live or on record. An archetype - and hopefully a legend.

"NIELSEN'S 5TH".. it should be as iconic a phrase for the 20th century as Beethoven's for the 19th... why hasn't it ever quite become so?
I sometimes feel our civilisation, our culture is late in most of the worst ways. Cynical, relativist, spoilt-for-choice. But then, Nielsen had told us that, in his 6th. In 1925...

***
Oh, Ravel's Bolero...
I surprised myself by sitting through it (having reflected, as the final bars of the Nielsen raised me up, that "NOTHING can follow this!") , and (slightly guiltily) actually enjoying it... well, I had been injecting side-drum into both arms for a half-hour or so. I guess neither experience really spoke to other - but you had to admire (and share in) the easy polish and panache of the BBCSO and Oramo, throwing off a joyful lap of honour to celebrate their Nielsonian Tragedy and Triumph.

(BBCR3 HDs at 320kbps, direct off iPlayer.
Excellent dynamic range, exceptional bass weight and fullness tonight.)

[Historian]

Thank you for this review, which I feel captured the mood of a thrilling performance. The more I hear Nielsen's 5th, the more I like it.

[Alison]

What a fine concert, an unusual but winning programme.

The BBCSO must be Britain's most improved orchestra: I like Jayne's polish and panache comment.

[jayne lee wilson]

Excellent review here from David Nice...

http://www.theartsdesk.com/classical-music/toradze-bbcso-oramo-barbican

"...for me, THE greatest of symphonic finales, including Mahler..."

You better you bet!

Good to hear that the side-drum was as startling for him in the hall (in the 1st movement coda as well) as it was for me here at home - really fine relay on HDs. And what a great connection he makes between the clarinet solo in that Nielsen 5 coda and the bluesy sound of it in Bolero. It is striking - once someone points it out!

Bolero - Variations on a Theme of Carl Nielsen...

I'll never doubt you again, Maestro Oramo!

[teamsaint]

Excellent review here from David Nice...

http://www.theartsdesk.com/classical-music/toradze-bbcso-oramo-barbican

"...for me, THE greatest of symphonic finales, including Mahler..."

You better you bet!

Good to hear that the side-drum was as startling for him in the hall (in the 1st movement coda as well) as it was for me here at home - really fine relay on HDs. And what a great connection he makes between the clarinet solo in that Nielsen 5 coda and the bluesy sound of it in Bolero. It is striking - once someone points it out!

Bolero - Variations on a Theme of Carl Nielsen...

I'll never doubt you again, Maestro Oramo!

and once somebody points THAT out, then your ear is drawn to at least two other hints of Jazz/blues in the Adagio, one at the very start.

I played this back to back with the LSO / Schmidt performance from 1974, with Jayne's thoughts and David Nice's review to hand.

One of the more noticeable differences between the two : that " Rattling Robotic mechanism" which you mention as breaking down, the robotic pulse , is very dominant while it lasts , and gives this part of the performance a real sense of an inexorable march towards...well, whatever is coming up.

Does anybody else hear substantial Dvorak influence in the Presto section? Sounds to me at times like the Furiant from the Czech suite dragged forward 40 years harmonically, and via the calamities of the early twentieth century.

Thanks for your thoughts Jayne, appreciated as ever.

[jayne lee wilson]

Cheers ts...
I guess it will take a BaL on a Nielsen Symphony to awaken any further enthusiasm for his marvellous music around here...maybe not even that...
Tant pis, c'est La Vie...

[HighlandDougie]

Having finally found the time to listen to the concert in its entirety, I wholly agree with all that has been written by Jayne, Historian, Alison and TS. Apart from "Basher" Toradze's occasional liberties with the Prokofiev (I'm sure it was all right on the night but I'd get a bit tired of that exaggerated accelerando on repeated hearing), it was pretty much as good as it gets. The Nielsen was an even finer performance than the Stockholm one released by BIS. I was at the previous concert of the Nielsen cycle and thought that the Fourth was pretty damn good but this Fifth was even finer (as good as Thomas Søndergård and the BBC NOW from last year's Proms which I found to be quite exceptional). While my visits to London usually coincide with LSO concerts, for some reason it has tended to be the BBC SO over the last year. With the right conductor (Sakari Oramo, Semyon Bychkov, Marc Minkowski ....), they are as good as any of the other London-based orchestras. While it's part of their public service 'mission' to be more adventurous with their concert programming (and their commissioning of new works), we all benefit from it so long may it continue.

[Alain Maréchal]

I am as baffled by the Nielsen neglect as you are, Jayne. I first heard a Nielsen symphony (Espansiva) in my teenage years, was bowled over (petanqued a better image perhaps, nothing calm and green about it) and promptly set about finding all the recordings I could, attending every performance (not many in those days, so not too costly), boring everybody with my new enthusiasm, and wondering why there was little response. (If you think the UK was unresponsive, Belgium and France totally ignored him apart from one conductor whose career seemed to disappear). I have remained constant while he went in and out of fashion. Perhaps we should be grateful he has not become too popular, to be ruined by mundane performances. I will try to listen to that concert again, but Iplayer can be erratic here.

"NIELSEN'S 5TH".. it should be as iconic a phrase for the 20th century as Beethoven's for the 19th... why hasn't it ever quite become so?

Robert Simpson had the same thought and did his best on the BBC and in print, but not even he could do the trick. ( I have somewhere a tape of a broadcast of @Sir Oluf, he rides@ introduced by RS - at one point the performance breaks down, and a disembodied voice says @start again at letter D@. Which they do; clearly not noticed before broadcast).

an afterthought- have you noticed how many conductors record one, perhaps two symphonies, and then leave well alone? In many cases they show no feeling for the idiom and perhaps know it (although that doesn't stop some conductors going on to a cycle - I'll let you guess to whom I refer) but in the case of Markevich, a completely idiomatic No 4, and nothing else. I have a personal theory about the success of Nielsen recordings: a Danish Orchestra brings an extra something. I think the word is autochthony.

[Barbirollians]

Barbirolli also only recorded No4 (jolly well too ) not sure if he conducted any of the others . Kubelik as I recall only No 5 .

Look forward to catching up with this .

[Alain Maréchal]

Kubelik as I recall only No 5 .

Moreover, not a deliberate studio choice: it is a Danish Radio recording of the performance he gave on receiving a cultural prize.

[BBMmk2]

Damn! I missed it!

[teamsaint]

Damn! I missed it!

No need to worry, BBM

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05pr72v

Enjoy.
And listen out for the Dvoraky bits in the Presto section.....!!

[BBMmk2]

No need to worry, BBM

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05pr72v

Enjoy.
And listen out for the Dvoraky bits in the Presto section.....!!

Funnily enoughI have the BIS set of Neilsen's orchestral music on now! :)