Favourite Nielsen Symphonies

[Barbirollians]

First love of Nielsen came from the CBSO/Rattle 4 then that splendid SfSO/Blomstedt set supplemented by Barbirolli in 4 and 5 live and Lenny’s famous 3 and 5 .

I continue to be absolutely bowled over by Luisi’s set as were the Gramophone reviewers . Wonder whether partly it may be due to breathtakingly fine recordings.

What are your favourites ?

[oliver sudden]

The Ole Schmidt set of course. Yes, obviously the Lenny 3. And as you mention, the live Barbirolli 4. (‘Can we take the demisemiquavers a bit slower?’ ‘Of course not, then people will hear what you’re playing!’…or words to that effect.)

[pastoralguy]

For me, the third is a wonderful piece although, imho, it goes downhill after the first movement. The fourth is a work I loath, mainly due to the fact that, as a last desk second fiddle player, I had to sit under the timpani whilst the players knocked seven bells out of them! Even with ear protection it was pretty unbearable. I did ask the players if they could be a bit less enthusiastic for the second performance but, alas, that just goaded them on!

[Serial_Apologist]

No 4 "The Inextinguishable" is my favourite among the six - not having heard many different versions I don't have a favourite performance or recording. For me it is the work in which Nielsen succeeded in knitting together the various influences from his earlier music into one coherent persuasive whole. Nos 1 and 2 are still too beholden to Brahms and Dvorak stylistically; No 3 wears its Beethoven too obviously; in No 5 the composer just pushed too hard to force square pegs into round holes and in the end was forced to resort to bombast for final solution. Its hollowness (was Nielsen a naif optimist in denial?) blows apart in the Sixth, where he chose to ditch his insistence on his own glorious aesthetic isolation and acknowledge others had something to say about the contemporary condition in valid musical terms, resulting in a work that sounds at times much closer to contemporaries such as Hindemith and Shostakovitch. Other late Nielsen works in this vein which suggested even more powerfully the possibility of a personal stylistic and formal reconciliation, one which appeared capable of cohering the opposing currents of atonality/serialism and Neo-Classicism into a new synthesis of the kind attempted with less success a quarter century down the line by Tippett, in his own late symphonies. It would have entailed a massive inner struggle given how profoundly fixed Nielsen seemed to have been immured in self-image of creative colossus, even without the physical decline that brought about his death.

I've always felt very much in two minds about Nielsen's music - even more than Sibelius, who really does come across as if hewn from the land, (pace all those who right know the wrongness of comparing these two because they both happen to be "Scandinavians")

[CallMePaul]

After hearing the 5th on the radio back in the 70s, I bought the Decca Eclipse (remember that label?) version of the 1st and 5th symphonies with thomas Jensen conducting the Danish State Radio Orchestra. I later bought the first Blomstst set on CD, where he conducted the Royal Danish Orchestra (I think I got the orchestra right) in all 6 symphonies. I heard all six with John Storgards conducting the BB C Phil at the Bridgewater Hall some years ago and have wondered about acquiring that set too (also his sibelius cycle which I also heard live). The fifth remains my favourite of his symphonies but I also like the 4th and 6th - less keen on the earlier ones.

[HighlandDougie]

I seem to remember that the first time I saw Simon Rattle was with the Hallé in the 4th - that might well be false memory syndrome (it was almost 50 years ago). Anyway, these days Fabio Luisi's DG cycle is what I find myself reaching for, although I seem to have accumulated rather a lot of Nielsen symphonies on LP and CD. Launy Grøndahl's 4th, although I think that he might have tinkered with the orchestration, Erik Tuxen's 5th, Myung-Whun Chung's 3rd, Sakari Oramo's 6th. The list goes on and on. Ole Schmidt, while pretty good, can be a bit rough and ready, although that is possibly not a bad thing.

[oliver sudden]

For me there are two distinct tendencies across the set of six. Broadly speaking, as he goes on the symphonies do more and more individual things but do them less successfully! 4 is surely the sweet spot although I’m extremely fond of 2 and 3 and I have to admire the ambition of 5 even though I rarely find it genuinely satisfying.

I don’t know what he’s getting at with 6. In the second movement I feel more as though he’s sending modernism up than embracing it. And what a strange way to end a symphonic career, bassoons ff on their bottom Bb. But the best bits of the piece are extraordinary.

(I wouldn’t call Sibelius Scandinavian, myself…)

[LMcD]

I seem to remember that the first time I saw Simon Rattle was with the Hallé in the 4th - that might well be false memory syndrome (it was almost 50 years ago). Anyway, these days Fabio Luisi's DG cycle is what I find myself reaching for, although I seem to have accumulated rather a lot of Nielsen symphonies on LP and CD. Launy Grøndahl's 4th, although I think that he might have tinkered with the orchestration, Erik Tuxen's 5th, Myung-Whun Chung's 3rd, Sakari Oramo's 6th. The list goes on and on. Ole Schmidt, while pretty good, can be a bit rough and ready, although that is possibly not a bad thing.

No. 3 with Herbert Blomstedt and the San Francisco Symphony.

[richardfinegold]

The Fourth was my first encounter with Nielsen , at a summer concert with the Detroit Symphony led by Sixten Ehrling, a former conductor of the orchestra who was a strong advocate of all Scandinavian music. I still remember the violence of the tympani. The Blomstedt/ Danish Radio Symphony was released in the States on EMI budget label and I snapped it up and that was my only Nielsen for years. When my LPs were destroyed a few years later I probably didn’t hear any Nielsen unless it was on the radio until the Blomstedt/SFSO cycle came out.
The 2 Blomstedt cycles are my yardstick. I am probably the only dissenter here regarding Luisi. Luisi admitted that he didn’t know Nielsen’s music prior to recording these and I think it shows. There are some good things and some really un idiomatic patches and they alternate throughout.

[Roslynmuse]

No 3 was the first I heard and got to know, and although it is a while since I last heard it, I still feel affection for it. No 5 is the one I both admire and enjoy (if that is the right word) - the opening mistiness and the later violence then transformed into something very special. I remember hearing it in Liverpool with Andrew Davies c 1988 and it was stupendous. No 4 on the other hand I have never taken to - I haven't even found it a particularly memorable piece. No 6 is baffling to me (like the flute and clarinet concertos, whose splintered structures seem to get in the way of whatever musical ideas are there. I have accompanied both many times and can see on the page a certain logic, but it doesn't translate into a satisfactory aural experience). I heard some of Storgards' BBC Phil cycle in concert and remember the sense of ??? that accompanied No 6. No 1 and No 2 are enjoyable enough on their own terms.

For me, though, I never have the same sense of completeness from Nielsen as I do from Sibelius (who was in any case a very different sort of composer).

[Barbirollians]

Illuminating responses all - thanks . Funnily enough it’s no 2 rather than any of the others I have had most difficulty getting my head round.

[richardfinegold]

No 3 was the first I heard and got to know, and although it is a while since I last heard it, I still feel affection for it. No 5 is the one I both admire and enjoy (if that is the right word) - the opening mistiness and the later violence then transformed into something very special. I remember hearing it in Liverpool with Andrew Davies c 1988 and it was stupendous. No 4 on the other hand I have never taken to - I haven't even found it a particularly memorable piece. No 6 is baffling to me (like the flute and clarinet concertos, whose splintered structures seem to get in the way of whatever musical ideas are there. I have accompanied both many times and can see on the page a certain logic, but it doesn't translate into a satisfactory aural experience). I heard some of Storgards' BBC Phil cycle in concert and remember the sense of ??? that accompanied No 6. No 1 and No 2 are enjoyable enough on their own terms.

For me, though, I never have the same sense of completeness from Nielsen as I do from Sibelius (who was in any case a very different sort of composer).

I always view the Sixth as some sort of failed experiment but I do enjoy the raspberries that he blows

[LMcD]

I always view the Sixth as some sort of failed experiment but I do enjoy the raspberries that he blows

Spot on!

[HighlandDougie]

I am probably the only dissenter here regarding Luisi. Luisi admitted that he didn’t know Nielsen’s music prior to recording these and I think it shows. There are some good things and some really un idiomatic patches and they alternate throughout.

Part of what's so compelling about the Luisi cycle is that sense of discovery (like Solti and the Elgar symphonies) but it is by no means perfect. I'm not sure what is 'unidiomatic' or 'idiomatic' Nielsen. Danish conductors do seem to grasp his music more certainly than others, although Blomstedt (Swedish) and Oramo (Finnish) deserve more than honourable mentions, as does Tor Mann (also Swedish). There was a very good cycle conducted by Thomas Dausgaard and the BBC Scottish Symphony which I have as off-air files. His cycle with the Seattle Symphony didn't quite get to its end before Covid put paid to the relationship between conductor and orchestra. Excellent recording quality, which is certainly the case with Luisi. I have the Danacord 30 CD box of 'Vintage and Historical' recordings of Nielsen which makes for some interesting listening. And I would wave a flag for the 6th, which I found hard to grasp, avoided for years but then it all seemed to click.

[richardfinegold]

I’d have to re listen to the Luisi cycle to give chapter and verse of the awkward sounding bits and I’m not inclined to do so. The one that lodged in my memory was the last movement of the Second, where he , for me seemed not to convey the arrogance of the character type that Nielsen stated that he meant to portray. Ymmv.
Regarding the Sixth it took me a few listens over many years to come to grips with it and what I think is Nielsen’s attempt to explore, and then kick to the curb, the new world of dissonance. I think it’s just too clever for the average listener; it’s sort of an inside joke. So perhaps failure isn’t the right term, but it’s obscure.
Denmark isn’t a big country; something like 4 million people. Perhaps I’m f.o.s. but I believe that all the Scandinavian countries share a few sensibilities, and yes I understand that there are significant linguistic and cultural differences between them. I previously mentioned the conductor Sixten Ehrling, who championed all Scandinavian music as if it was a distinct cultural entity. So I do think that Blomstedt, for example, has a leg up on Luisi in Nielsen, although certainly Nielsen is an “international “ composer as the likes of Leonard Bernstein demonstrated. I think Luisi is a fabulous musician and I would hope that he will re visit Nielsen at a later point in his career when he has acquired greater familiarity.