BaL 6.06.15 - Nielsen: Symphony no. 3

[LeMartinPecheur]

I find this kind of approach, which stresses the value of various critical approaches rather than trying to place one kind of approach over another, very helpful, and one that resonates with me.

Interesting thoughts about about discontinuities, which feels very post structuralist, seeing the conductor as critic rather than interpreter, and which I hope to use when listening to a couple of versions, including the Blomstedt.
Great post, LMP.

Thank you very much ts. Nobody has ever accused me of being post-structuralist before

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I'm not even sure what it means

[teamsaint]

Thank you very much ts. Nobody has ever accused me of being post-structuralist before

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I'm not even sure what it means

me neither........!!

Actually, if you want a great " In a nutshell" guide to post Structuralist theory, have a look at P 73 here.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=SNy26bx7L5UC&pg=PA36&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=2#v=onepage&q&f=true

Post structuralist critics tend ( amongst many other things) to read a text against itself, and in relation to your post, to search for discontinuity, shifts and breaks in a text, text having a very wide range of meaning that might easily include a musical score. These discontinuities have important implications for what is not said, as much as what is said.

I recommend Peter Barry's book wholeheartedly. It is a classic beginners guide to the scary but amazing world of literary theory, from which much can be learned about how to approach various art forms.

[Don Petter]

Thank you very much ts. Nobody has ever accused me of being post-structuralist before

I'm not even sure what it means

Sitting on the fence?

(But isn't that normal behaviour for Alcedo atthis?)

[richardfinegold]

I thought it was a very good Bal, especially in terms of helping me get my ears around the music. It may not have hit the spot with those types that are obsessed with cd recordings rather than music.

I see no evidence of band wagon jumping. I had a good steer a few months ago from members, towards Schmidt, because I had never really enjoyed the SFSO Blomstedt recordings that I bought around the time of attending Rattle's performance of the Nielsen symphonies with the CBSO around 24 years ago (?). Never understood why. Rattle's concerts burned into my brain and the Decca CDs did not support my experience (even though I never realised).

I recently bought Blomstedt's DRSO EMI cycle, which I enjoy more than the SFSO. Also picked up Berglund's RDO set because at £7.99 it would have been churlish not to (only listened to 2 & 3 and it hasn't ignited).

With a smattering of Horenstein, Rattle, Karajan and Dudamel in various symphonies, the fire kept burning. Looking forward to the Chung that I ordered.

I have come to the conclusion that the SFSO set that I bought years ago has inhibited my Nielsen experience. Can't cry over spilled milk!

The SFSO inhibited your Nielsen experience?? San Francisco is not a city that is known for inspiring any inhibitions....
As per Barbs, I am a little mystified at the level of disapproval directed towards the Blomstedt/SFSO cycle. Perhaps it has been superceded by newer versions--I haven't sampled the ones mentioned--but by any standard it is a fine cycle. I've already stated why I think it was better than than Blomstedt's Danish cycle, and I have great affection for the latter since those lps were my introduction to the Composer.
I think it's great that there are so many Nielsen cycles to discuss and debate, which was not the case when either Blomstedt cycle appeared. And I think it is a finething that we are as conversant with Nielsen's Symphonies as we are with those of Beethoven, Brahms or Mahler.
btw, I find the farmer ploughing the fields analogy pretty ludicrous...

[LeMartinPecheur]

me neither........!!

Actually, if you want a great " In a nutshell" guide to post Structuralist theory, have a look at P 73 here.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=SNy26bx7L5UC&pg=PA36&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=2#v=onepage&q&f=true

Post structuralist critics tend ( amongst many other things) to read a text against itself, and in relation to your post, to search for discontinuity, shifts and breaks in a text, text having a very wide range of meaning that might easily include a musical score. These discontinuities have important implications for what is not said, as much as what is said.

I recommend Peter Barry's book wholeheartedly. It is a classic beginners guide to the scary but amazing world of literary theory, from which much can be learned about how to approach various art forms.

Thanks for the book link ts, I'll (try to find time to) check it out.

What I thought I was saying (perhaps I was wrong - I understand that post-structurally I don't have any right to claim understanding of my own output) was about the way symphonies set up some sort of clash, collision, that has to be worked out and resolved. As I understand it, one of sonata form's first big things was that you got moved away from the tonic key to somewhere foreign like the gosh, yikes, the dominant but then the nice composer worked out how to get back to the tonic so everyone was happy again.

Of course, pretty quickly people got used to, bored by, being taken to the dominant so composers went to other strange places, maybe via even stranger ones, and woosh in no time at all you've got the Tristan-chord, pan-chromaticism, Scriabin, early Schoenberg and total chaos And along the way a great deal of the sense of orderly departure and return as a way to end symphonies got lost.

Nielsen liked starting symphonies with a harmonic problem, what might be called a piece of 'harmonic grit' (Robert Simpson's term, maybe?) in the mechanism, that takes about 40 mins to work out via extended musical 'faffing around' (my term) to reach a proper tonic resolution. So through his symphonies there is a lot unintegrated, disruptive stuff that is really going to take some fixing. And boy, what I take to be the punch of N's symphonies is that when he reaches his big final tonics he really shouts about it to let us know he's pretty pleased, and we already 'know' that he's entitled to be chuffed because we've been harmonically, rhythmically or stylistically uncomfortable with him all along the way.

My original post was (intended to be) about whether a conductor emphasizes the 'grit', disruptions etc, or whether he starts to 'integrate' them almost as they arrive. I read Blomstedt as leaning a bit too much to the latter, whereas if you emphasize the grit you get a 'better' feeling of having achieved something important at the end of the work when the whole ####in' orchestra is telling us ffff that we're finally home

Nielsen in a Nutshell (or for Dummies?) by LMP?

[rauschwerk]

Rauschwerk: do you mean that Blomstedt hasn't done it for you in 4 & 6, or that you'd be feeling that you as reviewer and we as audience needed a change?

The latter. Many in the audience might find it hard to accept that Blomstedt could be that good!

[LeMartinPecheur]

Many in the audience might find it hard to accept that Blomstedt could be that good!

Oh dear, back to the root issue of just a few postings above...

[LeMartinPecheur]

Sitting on the fence?

(But isn't that normal behaviour for Alcedo atthis?)

Damn, you've got me DP! Always have, always will...

My war-cry is Compromise at all costs!

[LeMartinPecheur]

Thank you very much ts. Nobody has ever accused me of being post-structuralist before

I'm not even sure what it means

Thanks again ts for the link. Fings is much clearer now. I fink

I don't think I was being post-structuralist because if Carl Nielsen read my scribbles I'd be really hoping, maybe even expecting, that he'd agree with me. Something like "Yes, that harmonic grit thing is what really bugs me and gets me composing, and I have to find a way round it. Glad you like how I did it in the 3rd and how I celebrated."

Whereas it seems that reaction to a true post-structuralist critique (p73, "textual subconscious"; "evidence of what is repressed or glossed over") would be denial, or at best "B*gg*r me, I hadn't realised I did that."

In short, what I was on about was conscious processes, how we experience music and what the composer intended us to experience. Music as something happening to us in real time.

Seeemples

[HighlandDougie]

Nielsen liked starting symphonies with a harmonic problem, what might be called a piece of 'harmonic grit' (Robert Simpson's term, maybe?) in the mechanism, that takes about 40 mins to work out via extended musical 'faffing around' (my term) to reach a proper tonic resolution. So through his symphonies there is a lot unintegrated, disruptive stuff that is really going to take some fixing. And boy, what I take to be the punch of N's symphonies is that when he reaches his big final tonics he really shouts about it to let us know he's pretty pleased, and we already 'know' that he's entitled to be chuffed because we've been harmonically, rhythmically or stylistically uncomfortable with him all along the way.

My original post was (intended to be) about whether a conductor emphasizes the 'grit', disruptions etc, or whether he starts to 'integrate' them almost as they arrive. I read Blomstedt as leaning a bit too much to the latter, whereas if you emphasize the grit you get a 'better' feeling of having achieved something important at the end of the work when the whole ####in' orchestra is telling us ffff that we're finally home

Nielsen in a Nutshell (or for Dummies?) by LMP?

essence of Nielsen's symphonies in two paragraphs (apart maybe from the 6th): well done that man.

[teamsaint]

Thanks again ts for the link. Fings is much clearer now. I fink

I don't think I was being post-structuralist because if Carl Nielsen read my scribbles I'd be really hoping, maybe even expecting, that he'd agree with me. Something like "Yes, that harmonic grit thing is what really bugs me and gets me composing, and I have to find a way round it. Glad you like how I did it in the 3rd and how I celebrated."

Whereas it seems that reaction to a true post-structuralist critique (p73, "textual subconscious"; "evidence of what is repressed or glossed over") would be denial, or at best "B*gg*r me, I hadn't realised I did that."

In short, what I was on about was conscious processes, how we experience music and what the composer intended us to experience. Music as something happening to us in real time.

Seeemples

I don't think I will venture into an attempt at PS techniques applied to Nielsen. it's hard enough with books......but the discontinuity thing IS interesting.
Suffice to say, if an approach gets me gets me/us thinking differently about music, then it has value.
And your thoughts got me thinking along the lines of " conductor as critic", ( as well as the points about harmonic grit) and has enthused me ( further) to devote some valuable time to different recordings with various thoughts from this thread in mind.

[BBMmk2]

A famous pianist I know, who is on the Chandos artist rosta, said to me look out for the Storgards cycle! That I will do, but as I have said earlier, I have two more days to wait for the first hearing of the BIS box!

[Bryn]

A famous pianist I know, who is on the Chandos artist rosta, said to me look out for the Storgards cycle! That I will do, but as I have said earlier, I have two more says to wait for the first hearing of the BIS box!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05xqdsc

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05y5ykq

and the 3rd and 6th on Tuesday 16th June.

All the symphonies, with the forces featured in the Radio 3 associated recordings issued on Chandos, were broadcast during Afternoon on 3 in the last week of February this year:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05302mq

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05303ml

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05303mn

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05303ms

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05303mv

[LeMartinPecheur]

essence of Nielsen's symphonies in two paragraphs (apart maybe from the 6th): well done that man.

HD, thank you very kindly!

Well, the 6th is certainly a funny bunny. And why not when the little bit of harmonic grit that N was dealing with was the slightly discordant detail that he'd discovered he was dying pretty soon? (He was 'only' 66 when he went.) Changed his perspectives, personal and musical, a teeny bit...

It's really interesting to read Robert Simpson's 1st and 2nd thoughts about the 6th. In the first edition of his book (Carl Nielsen - Symphonist, 1952) he just didn't get it at all, and pretty much concluded that CN had completely "lost it". Circa 1974, in connection with writing notes for the Schmidt cycle, he suddenly got it and completely rewrote the chapter on the work - "I am glad of the chance to make amends for having misrepresented a masterpiece for so long." (Preface to 2nd edition c.1979.)

So critics/analysts do occasionally get it wrong...and the best of them are brave enough to 'fess up and shed light for us all

[jayne lee wilson]

Really excellent BaL from someone who evidently knows and loves his Nielsen, and the Espansiva, both well and wisely... and whose reviews and blogs I've often enjoyed. Mellor's comments were very clear, direct and always focussed on the music itself.

Haven't heard the Chung for a few years - it came up well in the excerpts, as did Gilbert and Oramo, which last I still preferred in the finale to Chung - but then I've still got a crush...
Otherwise my ear was most taken with Ehrling; and Serov in the pastorale, who did well in the recent Gramo Collection too (The one that Layton was so dismissive of..! Should note though that Layton praised Serov's feel for sound and idiom elsewhere in the cycle).

But having found to my own surprise that there are nine versions here already - Chung, Schmidt, Schonwandt, Blomstedt x 2, Bernstein, Kuchar (on disc), then Gilbert and Oramo as downloads, I'll not be rushing to add to them....

I noticed that, with the happy exception of the NYPO/Gilbert, I seem to favour the one I've just bought ...