Favourite Nielsen Symphonies

[oliver sudden]

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).

…

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).

The wind concertos (like the wind quintet) seem to me to be a particularly interesting and extreme example of a sort of instrumental characterisation he was striving for more and more later in his career but which perhaps he didn’t have the toolbox to bring off coherently. Of course characterisation is the whole raison d’être of the second symphony but that’s at the level of the whole instrumental apparatus… in the later things you have individual instruments taking a stand against everything else that’s going on, whether it’s the timpani in 4, the snare drum in 5 and the clarinet concerto, or the trombone in 6 and the flute concerto. Very effective and dramatic but perhaps at the price of coherence? But the incoherence is fascinating for me, even (especially!) when it’s unsatisfying.

And yes, Sibelius is quite a different business, even in 4 and 7 when things don’t gel in the way they do in the other symphonies.

[Pulcinella]

Number 4 is a favourite for BBC MM: it has featured THREE times.

Volume 15, Number 12: BBCSO/Vanska (Proms performance, on DVD)
Volume 9, Number 9: BBCNOW/Sakari
Volume 25, Number 9: Halle/Elder

Three others have made one appearance each.

Symphony 1: Volume 14, Number 11: Ulster O/Fürst
Symphony 2: Volume 1, Number 3: BBCSO/A Davis
Symphony 5: Volume 21, Number 11: BBCNOW/Søndergård

[LMcD]

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

I once had a Finnish work colleague who insisted that I say 'Nordic' when discussing Sibelius.

[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.

Thanks Stokowski in 1967 live ! Luisi’s set continues to enthrall me though.

[Master Jacques]

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.

Quite: I am reminded by your conversion of Robert Simpson's. In the first edition of his highly-influential book on Nielsen he completely dismissed the 6th with sad bemusement, putting its failure (after the first movement) down to the composer's physical decline.

In the second edition Simpson scrapped all this, in favour of a revealing analysis of the work which evaluated it as the crown of the composer's life - it takes an open mind - and a good writer - to be able to do that. For what it's worth, I think of the 6th as Nielsen's crowning glory too, at least as polemics, with its fascinating, disintegrating and modernist trio of movements after the magnificently complex and assured opening one.

[oliver sudden]

Quite: I am reminded by your conversion of Robert Simpson's. In the first edition of his highly-influential book on Nielsen he completely dismissed the 6th with sad bemusement, putting its failure (after the first movement) down to the composer's physical decline.

In the second edition Simpson scrapped all this, in favour of a revealing analysis of the work which evaluated it as the crown of the composer's life - it takes an open mind - and a good writer - to be able to do that. For what it's worth, I think of the 6th as Nielsen's crowning glory too, at least as polemics, with its fascinating, disintegrating and modernist trio of movements after the magnificently complex and assured opening one.

I am nowhere near my copy of the Simpson but must as soon as possible investigate which edition it is! (And acquire the other.)

Does he mention his change of heart in the second edition?

[Master Jacques]

I am nowhere near my copy of the Simpson but must as soon as possible investigate which edition it is! (And acquire the other.)

Does he mention his change of heart in the second edition?

He does indeed - it's the biggest 'mea culpa' I've ever read, from one of the most honest and straight-talking in the business. The 1979 (Kahn and Averell) edition, not the 1952 original.

"My first impression of No.6, based only on score-reading (at that time I had not heard it played) were regretfully (and regrettably) set out in the first edition of this book. The disappointment conveyed there persisted even after many hearings of the symphony, but gradually this feeling evaporated as the music became increasingly convincing and impressive and ceased to appear to embody a descent from objectivity to unworthy subjectivity. Eventually it was completely persuasive as a masterpiece, though I could not explain why this was so..."

Simpson goes on to explain that his problem was that the 6th did not fit into the schema of 'progressive tonality' on which he based his thesis about Nielsen's symphonic thought, working at deeper levels. And he then goes on to analyse (brilliantly) what is there, and why it works, rather than blaming the symphony for what isn't.

The 2nd edition almost amounts to a new book, in this chapter and elsewhere also.

[Pulcinella]

BBC MM's favourite is number 4, The inextinguishable, which has featured three times on its cover CDs; numbers 1, 2, and 5 have featured once each.

Just streamed number 6 (Danish National SO/Fabio Luisi): seems anything but Semplice to me.

[oliver sudden]

He does indeed - it's the biggest 'mea culpa' I've ever read, from one of the most honest and straight-talking in the business. The 1979 (Kahn and Averell) edition, not the 1952 original.


Simpson goes on to explain that his problem was that the 6th did not fit into the schema of 'progressive tonality' on which he based his thesis about Nielsen's symphonic thought, working at deeper levels. And he then goes on to analyse (brilliantly) what is there, and why it works, rather than blaming the symphony for what isn't.

The 2nd edition almost amounts to a new book, in this chapter and elsewhere also.

I’m fairly sure my copy is older than 1979 but I look forward to checking!

I’ve always found the progressive tonality aspect of the Simpson analyses a bit frustrating. The bit about Eb major at the end of the 5th ‘frustrating the claims of F major while meeting every other purposeful demand’, or however exactly he put it. Not having absolute pitch I don’t perceive that at any level above the subliminal, so it would be nice to hear something about how the music works at some more perceptible level.

(Although since I don’t quite find that ending satisfying, perhaps he’s accidentally explaining more than I give him credit for…)

[Master Jacques]

I’m fairly sure my copy is older than 1979 but I look forward to checking!

I’ve always found the progressive tonality aspect of the Simpson analyses a bit frustrating. The bit about Eb major at the end of the 5th ‘frustrating the claims of F major while meeting every other purposeful demand’, or however exactly he put it. Not having absolute pitch I don’t perceive that at any level above the subliminal, so it would be nice to hear something about how the music works at some more perceptible level.

(Although since I don’t quite find that ending satisfying, perhaps he’s accidentally explaining more than I give him credit for…)

Yes, it's subliminal for me too, though there does seem to be an unusually strong sense of "objective attained" in several Nielsen symphonies, which the theory helps account for. Simpson's case - that Nielsen was very conscious of tonality progressions, and became very adept at using this feeling as a structural tool - is pretty robust. (I only wish I could get a handle on even one of Simpson's own symphonies, and it's not for want of trying!)

[Aureliano]

Similar to someone else here I have only really got to know (and perhaps come to terms with) symphonies 3 & 5. The 4th has never left much in my memory, but I should give it another go. Just the other day I was thinking I should give the other symphonies a repeat listen so it was good to come across this thread. For the 5th I have always been partial to Berglund and Bournemouth, but probably partly because this is one of the first versions I got to know but also one in which I found the randomised drum the most convincing.

[richardfinegold]

Similar to someone else here I have only really got to know (and perhaps come to terms with) symphonies 3 & 5. The 4th has never left much in my memory, but I should give it another go. Just the other day I was thinking I should give the other symphonies a repeat listen so it was good to come across this thread. For the 5th I have always been partial to Berglund and Bournemouth, but probably partly because this is one of the first versions I got to know but also one in which I found the randomised drum the most convincing.

If nothing else 4 should be memorable for the dueling tympani in the last movement. My first encounter with it was a concert performance and it was quite striking, peaked my curiosity in the work as a whole and since it was my first exposure to Nielsen, the composer in general

[Keraulophone]

My first experience of a Nielsen symphony was being spellbound listening to No.5 played in a large sports hall in Loughborough by the Leistershire Schools Symphony orchestra, c.1977. I hadn't heard anything like it before, nor ever heard playing as confident and accurate from so young an orchestra. Next move was to Sutton Public Library (a great resource back then) to borrow the box set of LPs by LSO/Ole Schmidt. I notice Mr Hurw*tz praising this first ever recorded cycle (Unicorn, 1974) over some more recent efforts by Luisi and others.

[HighlandDougie]

For all his breadth of experience, I can't bring myself to read Mr Hurwitz - my loss, I'm sure, but I have a bit of a prejudice against those who aspire to omniscience (and, I'm tempted to add on this inauspicious day, who are American - with apologies to Richard F). Anyway, the 'Gramophone' review of the CD reissue of Ole Schmidt and the LSO in 1987 (https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/...e-symphonies-2) by Anon (possibly Robert Layton?) is pretty accurate, IMUO. As my copy of the set is in Scotland, I've just listened to the 6th courtesy of Qobuz - which, if not quite in the Sakari Oramo class (my favourite among more recent recordings), is excellent. I'd forgotten how well the recording (Bob Auger) stands up - and how good Schmidt is at steering a course through what can in lesser hands seem like half an hour of waywardness. But it all makes sense - honest!

* as an addendum, I let it play on to the Fourth Symphony, which is also very good. Really well balanced recording and Schmidt keeps it moving without rushing it (a trap into which, inter alia, Thomas Dausgaard tends to fall). LSO timps having a field day.

[Sir Velo]

Extraordinary how may people here continue to cite Hurwitz as some kind of musical higher authority. To me, he is the Nigel Farage of music critics. A nonentity for whom far too much airtime is given.