BaL 19.12.15 - Nielsen: Symphony no. 6

[Ferretfancy]

I think there's a germ of an idea for a radio programme there, Bbm! An expert compares extracts from various recordings of a piece... coming up with a suggestion for the best one to choose. Could be called... oh, I don't know... 'Constructing a Collection'...? Could catch on!

What a great idea! Perhaps the programme might manage to play the extracts at the same subjective level, unlike the procedure in the current BAL. The Sibelius1 review was technically one of the worst I have heard, with a hopelessly bad balance between the critic's voice and the music examples. Enthusiastic comments on performance and recording mean nothing unless the dynamics are a reasonable match. I think I'll give up BAL, although they do get it right for chamber or instrumental music, but oh! how orchestral works suffer because of bad engineering at BH

[jayne lee wilson]

Yes - that level discrepancy is very off-putting... volume UP for the excerpts, DOWN for the comments...tiresome. Like ff with the Sibelius, I thought the Nielsen excerpts were sonically compromised too.

I was disappointed in this BaL, despite usually enjoying SJ's work. If you're going to run with the critical herd and choose SFSO/Blomstedt yet again, at least have the wit and originality to compare it to his earlier DRSO account. Which to my ears sounds fresher, more spontaneously expressive and a great deal more colourful orchestrally, off the Japanese EMI Forte release. More vivid acoustic presence too. I say this having bought two copies of the SFSO 6th, the D-Decca years ago and, this year, the original 1980s German issue of the 1/6 coupling - which sounded disappointingly identical.

It was almost too easy to pick out Oramo as well, c/w No.2 and acclaimed everywhere as a great Nielsen disc. Missing out Storgards was puzzling, darkly exploratory and very original reading that it is, in (for Nielsen) unusually rich, smooth & full sound. It's a subtle grower of a reading that sounds almost too understated for the first 4'30 or so, but then...
Noting SJ's praise for Gilbert - a very lyrical, beautiful recording I admire very much - it's a shame he didn't spend more time on that. He seemed a bit too keen to "pick a winner". "By a whisker" from Oramo? Hmm.... I put the finale of Oramo's 24/96 WAV on straight after the Blomstedt CD - a different sonic league, the orchestra, and my room, seemed to expand around me...glorious.

Haven't gotten around to Paavo Jarvi's 6th yet, but to judge from the first 2 symphonies, lively, very detailed & responsive readings may be just a little compromised by a slightly dry, airless acoustic.... but - it's early days, they did come to life more at higher-than usual volumes, and I'm still obsessed with Sallinen - CPO's stunning recordings in that set would put MOST others to shame!.

[Alison]

Nielsen 6 BBCSO/Oramo on New Years Day Afternoon on 3.

[Barbirollians]

Stokowski conducted the Nielsen 6th just once in his career, for a 1965 BBC Maida Vale broadcast with the New Philharmonia. During the interval, Deryck Cooke asked him what he thought of the work and Stokowski freely admitted he didn't understand it. Even Cooke himself said it was "a particular strange symphony," as can be heard in their interview in this You Tube upload ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wr1E11dIoCQ

The Nielsen performance was issued on a BBC Legends CD and can still be obtained via Amazon, at a starting price of £3.23, despite it being "unavailable" ...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stokowski-co.../dp/B000056P0P

Stokowski may not have understood it but it is a performance that really holds the attention . Amazing that he only conducted this and the excellent performance of the Tippett on the same CD once.

[seabright]

Stokowski may not have understood it but it is a performance that really holds the attention . Amazing that he only conducted this and the excellent performance of the Tippett on the same CD once.

Like so much else one would like to hear, Stokowski's Nielsen 6th is on You Tube ... However, I don't know the work well enough to express an opinion on his performance ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrfuLkdTTrE&t=330s

Here is the aforementioned Storgards / BBC PO recording ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCmtlyCN4Pg

And we may as well throw in Horenstein / Halle while we're about it ... This one sounds pretty good to me ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCr1oS7mprU

[seabright]

CRQ Editions have just reissued a coupling of the two Nielsen symphonies which Stokowski conducted just once each in his entire life - the 6th in the aforementioned BBC studio broadcast in 1965 and the 2nd two years later in Copenhagen. The "Sinfonia Semplice" was a work which he confessed to Deryck Cooke he didn't really understand. Even so, one critic wrote that "despite some notably brisk tempos, Stokowski's performance works." In the case of "The Four Temperaments," he had the Danish music critics reaching for their superlatives, so no worries there. The CRQ release is download only and here's the link ...

https://crqeditions.bandcamp.com/album/crq-587-stokowski-conducts-nielsen-2-and-6-plus-bonus