I first encountered Carl Nielsen’s music at the age of 13, courtesy of Paavo Berglund’s masterly recording of the composer’s Symphony No. 6. It was love at first hearing. Since then a lot of things have changed. Quite a few composers I loved then are barely tolerable to me now; my enthusiasm for others has since been tempered by a more soberly critical spirit. But my adoration of Carl Nielsen’s music has remained steadfast for the past quarter of a century. If anything, my appreciation for his genius, for the humanity of his art only increases with each passing year.
What is it about Nielsen’s music that is so special? It is the restlessness of the man’s spirit, his eagerness to explore, his readiness to roam ever further beyond the horizon. Whereas his great Scandinavian contemporary Jean Sibelius seemed to have spent his entire career retracing his steps with each symphony and tone poem in the hope of making the ascent towards the summit of his elusive perfection better still, Nielsen sought to venture through different paths with each new score, tearing up the maps from prior journeys, and guided by his unquenchable thirst for aesthetic wanderlust. “Give us something else, give us something new,” he once stated, “and let us feel that we are still alive, instead of constantly going around in deedless admiration for the conventional.”
His body of work contains a multitude of genres—concerti, chamber music, songs, solo instrumental works, and brilliant operas which rank with the best of the 20th century’s—but his six symphonies are perhaps the backbone of his kaleidoscopic art. Each one documents a remarkable stylistic leap from the last; taken cumulatively, the evolution from the youthful buoyancy of Nielsen’s Symphony No. 1 to the unsettlingly dark, embittered grotesquerie of his final “Sinfonia semplice” is dramatic to behold.
Because of the wide disparities in texture, mood, and form, his symphonic cycle are a formidable challenge for any single conductor to render. That has not stopped them from trying. Beginning in the 1970s with his fellow countryman Ole Schmidt, many conductors have attempted to wrangle together these multifaceted scores. (A couple—Leonard Bernstein and Chung Myung-Whun—attempted to do so, but left their cycles incomplete for varying reasons.) But unlike Sibelius, who counted on the support of a network of powerful admirers, critics, and conductors in England and America, appreciation of Nielsen remained largely confined to Scandinavia. Consequently, his symphonies arrived relatively late to records and international recognition of his importance continues to lag behind other composers of his generation. At least here in Los Angeles, his music—save for the Wind Quintet—is rarely performed.
Fortunately, despite all that, Nielsen’s symphonies do not lack for excellent recordings. Schmidt’s aforementioned cycle comes to mind. But two of the finest cycles of his symphonies came along during the sesquicentennial of his birth in 2015. While the pioneering recordings by Danish conductors such as Thomas Jensen, Erik Tuxen, and Launy Grøndahl ring with an authenticity that demand the attention of dedicated Nielsenites, these newest recordings not only interpretively hold up on their own, but the sheer polish of their orchestral execution would have dazzled the composer had he lived to hear them. Nielsen is a first-class composer whose music demands to be played by first-class orchestras.
The following is a brief overview of these recordings from 2015, ranked in order of personal preference.
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra/John Storgårds [Chandos]: The Icelandic conductor’s set is perhaps the most consistently satisfying with respect to persuasiveness of interpretation and excellence in sound. Storgårds’ Nielsen is brawny, square-jawed, and muscular, leaping from height to height. He is at his best in the first three symphonies, where his clear-eyed approach fits well with the unbuttoned, open air mood of the composer’s pre-World War I music. His recording of the Symphony No. 1 is a delight, one of the best since André Previn’s; while the surging power of his “The Four Temperaments” ranks comfortably with Morton Gould’s. In the final two symphonies, however, Storgårds tends towards the prosaic. Though still very fine recordings, his rendering of the Symphony No. 5 lacks that last spark of wildness, of primal energy that fuels the best performances by Bernstein, Tuxen, and Kondrashin, among others. Additionally, the cavalcade of unsettling ironies in the Symphony No. 6 are presented at times with poker-faced plainness, their incongruous edges smoothed out. Nevertheless, both recordings are still quite good. The Chandos sound, as usual, is bold and splashy, with a sonic perspective that seems to sit the listener face-to-face with the orchestra. Insightful and informative liner notes by David Fanning round out this superb set.
Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra/Sakari Oramo [BIS]: Oramo, on the other hand, is at his best in the last three Nielsen symphonies. His Symphony No. 6 might be the very best ever committed to records; more than earning its favorable rank alongside the splendid recordings of this tricky work by Schmidt, Berglund, Jensen, Jascha Horenstein, and Tor Mann. Like Berglund, Oramo seems to regard the composer’s final symphony as proto-Shostakovichian, highlighting the streak of disillusionment and anger that courses throughout. The Royal Stockholm brass are superb as are its winds, which chatter vividly in the “Humoreske.” Oramo’s “Inextinguishable” and Symphony No. 5 would be among the very best if not for the somewhat shallow, boxy sound that BIS unfortunately imposed upon these performances (and which was subsequently much improved in this cycle’s later installments). Nevertheless, Oramo’s razor-sharp dynamic contrasts and general sympathy for Nielsen’s late idiom shine through despite these drawbacks. The early symphonies are also excellent, but it is in the late scores where Oramo is most in his element.
Various soloists; New York Philharmonic Orchestra/Alan Gilbert [Danacord]: It is sad to report that the New York Philharmonic’s first complete Nielsen cycle ended up being a bit of a bungled opportunity. The orchestra, to be sure, is gorgeous: Powerful and noble brass, characterful winds, sleek strings, all of them blended into a rich, oaken tone that amply highlight Nielsen’s debt to Beethoven and Brahms. Danacord’s production is as good as one can find these days, with a spacious sonic perspective that balances ensemble blend with telling individual textural detail. The problem, however, is the cipher helming the podium. Gilbert, at least in my personal experience and estimation, is one of the blandest, most boring conductors alive today. His autopilot cruise through Nielsen’s symphonies is especially woeful in the last three. Simply put, Gilbert’s anonymous run-through of these scores, which demand a level of interpretive verve and direction that is simply missing here, can often be a cheerless slog for the listener to endure. Fortunately, he is not all bad. Gilbert’s hands-off approach is less of an impediment in the early symphonies, where at least the orchestra is allowed to sing out beautifully. Shockingly, the “Sinfonia espansiva” somehow manages to rouse him out from his usual somnambulism, drawing from him a performance which unfurls with a majestic, unforced brilliance and a natural sense of pacing that places it among the very best recordings of that work. He also proves to be a sensitive partner for his soloists in the Nielsen concerti, all of which are excellent; the Violin Concerto with Nikolaj Znaider might be my favorite recording of all.
Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra/Paavo Järvi [RCA/Sony]: Decent, but somewhat faceless performances in OK sound. Especially disappointing given that his father Neeme recorded a very fine cycle for DG some 30 years ago. Admittedly, I have not listened to this set again since early 2016, so if given another listening to today I may, perhaps, feel differently enough to revise my opinion. Suffice to say that Oramo and Storgårds keep me coming back. Even Gilbert does once in awhile (especially for the concerti). But not Järvi fils. [EDIT 12/12/19: Sometimes I’m just full of it. Having reacquainted myself with this set over the past few days, I’m struggling to understand why these recordings failed to move me back in 2016. Aside from the graininess and occasional garishness of the production, the performances themselves are masterly. Paavo Järvi’s Nielsen is some of the most gripping I’ve ever heard, with especially splendid recordings of Symphonies Nos. 2, 4, and 5. The latter is easily one of the finest on records, its last movement bounding dynamically from the inertness of its predecessor. (The only quibble I have is one that crops up in even the best recordings of the work: A much too reticent snare drummer at the end of the first movement. For a truly terrifyingly wild take on that solo, listen to the classic Jascha Horenstein recording on Unicorn, or the otherwise forgettable reading by Adrian Leaper on Naxos.) From now on this cycle will be ranked alongside Schmidt, Storgårds, and Oramo among my personal favorites.]
London Symphony Orchestra/Sir Colin Davis [LSO Live]: Davis’ Nielsen is a dry, loveless affair. The sound from the Barbican is expectedly horrid. With his utter lack of aptitude or sympathy for these works, you have to wonder why the conductor even bothered to perform, much less record them.
A Nielsen cycle for our time: A photograph of my personal copy of John Storgårds’ excellent Nielsen symphony cycle for Chandos.