by Abram Chipman
The Complete Nielsen Symphonies
Unicorn's integral recording under Ole Schmidt is a major addition to the Danish master's discography.
WHEN ROBERT SIMPSON'S excellent book Carl Nielsen: Symphonist first appeared in 1952. the enterprising record buyer could just begin to acquire all six of the composer's symphonies, as done by the Danish State Radio Orchestra (though under several conductors and for a variety of labels). At that time Simpson himself, as he admits in a recorded talk that accompanies Unicorn's new integral cycle of the symphonies, had yet to hear a performance of the Sixth, composed a quarter-century earlier! Perhaps that accounts for the book's under estimation of the work, but Simpson does redeem him self (and it) by the more flattering comments on the disc.
Despite a flurry of interest in the mid-Sixties. Nielsen's fate has not improved much over the past generation. He has yet to acquire a strong "cult," and many an otherwise well-stocked music library in our metropolitan areas is negligent about acquiring scores, or even recordings, of his output.
Though Nielsen wrote effectively in many forms, it is the symphonies to which his reputation has been most closely linked, and it is through the symphonies that most listeners first approach him. Indeed, among twentieth-century symphonists, I feel that only Mahler and Sibelius achieved a more exalted level of imagination and visionary grandeur. I find the Nielsen set more interesting than that of Prokofiev, whose creative genius flowered more in other forms. They are more consistently inspired and concentrated in structure than the Shostakovich fifteen. The Vaughan Williams canon I love as dearly, but while both he and Nielsen took a couple of symphonies to hit their mature (if wholly dissimilar) stride, the Dane didn't live long enough to suffer the gradual tapering off that afflicted the Briton's last three efforts.
Simpson has argued that this body of music is unique in the twentieth-century repertory for the lucid and enormously dramatic use of progressive tonality, in which warring pairs or consecutive sequences of key centers provide the element of psychological conflict and spiritual evolution. Additionally these scores have an element of rhythmic drive (though by no means monolithic) approached among leading modern composers only by Stravinsky and Bartok, and by no symphonists in this century. Furthermore, Nielsen was a magnificent orchestrator, most obviously but not exclusively in the new and daring uses he found for percussion.
Now we have the first Nielsen cycle on discs, an idealistic project made possible by financial assistance from what appears and cultural and business leadership. The box comes with an entertaining set of essays on the composer and photos showing him at about the time each symphony was writ ten (they are duplicated on the labels of the corresponding records). Then there is that bonus disc on which Simpson traces, with brief excerpts dubbed from these recordings, the structural principles of each of the six pieces, though one might cavil at his single-minded emphasis on the tonal argument.
The one-disc-per-symphony format is a bit extravagant; no work runs more than forty minutes, and some are barely half an hour. Other versions have found room for filler works, or even full-side couplings. But the spreading out of these grooves is justified by the depth and range of the sonics. In fact, climactic passages for brass and percussion are quite highly modulated in these pressings, and the reader should be forewarned that only cartridges of high trackability will manage them without breakup.
The sound is clear and rich. The brasses are excitingly spread. The string sound unfortunately is under nourished on the violin end in contrast to the posh double-bass tone. This may be a function of the orchestra used, for I frequently note this problem in LSO recordings done under a variety of circumstances.
(These sessions were held at London's Church of St. Giles, Barbican, with Simpson as musical adviser.) Indeed, my major musical disappointment is the choice of the LSO, which displays periodic slapdash articulation from the strings; loud and heavy, rather than shining and crisp, brass tone; and minor looseness of ensemble. But there are also some really fine sounds from the horns, and much of the first-desk woodwind work is sensitive and stylish. In sum, then, hardly a "provincial" level of execution, but it could have been better.
And what of conductor Ole Schmidt? He is a forty seven-year-old Dane of sound musical instincts with a deep sympathy for the aural coloration, the lilt, and the large sweeping line of a Nielsen symphony, and a more than passable, if not virtuosic, control of the orchestra.
(That LSO discipline problem is not unrelated to who happens to be waving the stick.) His tempo choices are mostly moderate, which is okay except in the middle movements of Nos. 2 and 4, where one needs more clear contrast between light intermezzo and genuine slow section. Though not bracingly incisive, the rhythms are se cure and regular, and phrases are rarely overbearing and exaggerated. Thus the calm and logical classicism of the music has a chance to speak its own piece. I wouldn't call these interpretations brilliant, but they are solid and they breathe naturally, and I think they will stand the test of time and repeated hearing.
Now to the individual works.
Symphony No. 1 (1892)
If early Sibelius sounds somewhat like Tchaikovsky, then this germinal piece shows an influence of, believe it or not, Bruckner! I am impressed by the pounding and swirling ostinatos in the finale and the recurrent chorale-like passages for winds and brass in the last two movements. Yet there is a galvanic, whirlwind quality of impetuosity in much of this score that is already prime Nielsen.
There is no other Nielsen First in the current domestic catalogue, though the 1952 Thomas Jensen/Danish State Radio Orchestra disc, which in its London mono format long held the field to itself, is now available in England as Eclipse ECS 570, coupled with the Fifth. One could be forgiven for sticking loyally to it even after two stereo versions appeared-and disappeared-in the mid-Sixties. Ormandy ( Columbia) made cuts and took breathless tempos, the better to squeeze onto one side.
But that did give room for two valuable premieres: the little tone poem Pan and Syrinx and the Rhapsodic Over ture, along with the popular Helios Overture (another Brucknerian piece in spots). Previn (RCA) was in no rush, but his reading seemed to grope haltingly through what seemed an uncomfortable idiom to orchestra (LSO) and conductor.
The LSO has evidently warmed up to the piece since then, and Schmidt guides them through a relaxed but purposeful and organized performance.
Symphony No. 2 (1902)
In The Four Temperaments Nielsen made a better "differential diagnostician" than Hindemith, whose portray al in his Theme and Variations of the choleric, phlegmatic, melancholic, and sanguine personality types was less vivid and recognizable than in the work at hand.
Still, a stereo recording of the Hindemith work is long overdue and might make an entertaining coupling for the next Nielsen Second anybody wants to record. The symphony can fit on one side, as RCA showed with its now discontinued version by Morton Gould and the Chicago Symphony. The work's earliest recording, a dullish Jensen reading on HMV 78s, was briefly reissued on a ten-inch LP, and the original Vox format of the Garaguly/Tivoli Concert Orchestra version had room on its twelve-inch stereo sides for the Little Suite for strings.
All current listings take a full disc for the symphony.
Garaguly (Turnabout TV-S 34049) is still a fine bargain, despite slightly older sound, as it is no less attractively played (despite some rough tone) than its competition and has just the right contrasts of weight, pacing, and ac cent to balance the Allegro comodo e flemmatico second movement with the ensuing Andante malinconico.
Bernstein (Columbia M 32779) is too broad and nuanced in both, while Schmidt does a splendidly shaped final Allegro sanguineo and really burns his way through the opening Allegro collerico, except for the flaccid attacks on the jabbing sforzandos that propel this section to its fast coda.
The beginning of the second movement is a minor disaster of rhythm and ensemble in the new version, but the long drum roll in the middle of the Andante malinconico sounds to best advantage here. Simpson explains that Nielsen wanted the timpani hit by a birch twig, which can sound on records like "a man gargling with iron fillings," an apt description of the effect on the Bernstein. A compromise was found between this and ordinary drumsticks, which Garaguly seems to use, and produces a perfect soft rustle.
Symphony No. 3 (1911)
The Sinfonia Espansiva
I find the most beautiful and passionately lyrical of the cycle, and not only because of the wordless human voices in the second movement. Until now, oddly, this was the only Nielsen symphony never recorded outside Denmark. Its first appearance in the catalogues was Erik Tuxen's 78-rpm set with the Danish State Radio Orchestra, later transferred to a London LP, a gentle, smooth reading of velvety and distant sonic ambience. John Frandsen did the work with the same orchestra in the mid-Fifties, and that rather brash and superficial interpretation was available here on Epic.
The Columbia stereo version by Bernstein and the Royal Danish Orchestra (MS 6769) followed in 1965. It remains one of the truly spectacular and intensely compelling Nielsen performances on disc, even if some have raised eyebrows at the closeup sonics and at Bernstein's enormously scaled reading of the finale, which is marked only allegro, not the allegro espansivo of the first movement. But that slow tempo must have swayed the natives, for Schmidt's reading comes close to it. Elsewhere the new performance is strong and flowing too, but I do wish that Schmidt had some of Bernstein's skill at pointing up the wry and eerie woodwind effects in the third movement.
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Unicorn Is Here
Unicorn records are hardly unfamiliar to American collectors, since a number have been issued here by Nonesuch-most notably, of course, the Horenstein Mahler and Nielsen recordings.
But as we first noted last December, Unicorn now has official U.S. distribution, through H.N.H. Distributors, Box 222, Evanston, Illinois 60204. As a result, many recordings from the Unicorn catalogue are appearing here for the first time. Several of these have been (or will shortly be) reviewed separately Among the other listings there is, unsurprisingly, British music of all persuasions: a pair of Havergal Brian symphonies (RHS 313); Robert Simpson's powerful Third Symphony, conducted by Horenstein (UNS 225); and for Bernard Herrmann fans his complete opera Wuthering Heights (UNB 400, four discs) and the cantata Moby Dick (UNS 255), both con ducted by the composer. Unicorn has three discs de voted to the contemporary Polish composer Andrzej Panufnik, who has been attracting some attention hereabouts lately: the Universal Prayer conducted by Stokowski (RHS 305), four orchestral works con ducted by Horenstein (RHS 306). and the Sinfonia Sacra and Sinfonia Rustica conducted by the com poser (RHS 315). There is also a good deal of piano and chamber music, the only recording of the Buckner Requiem (UNS 210), the English-language Gotterdammerung Act III under Reginald Goodall reviewed so enthusiastically by David Hamilton in February 1974 (UNS 245 /6, two discs), and of course a fair amount of Furtwangler material not otherwise available.
K.F.
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Symphony No. 4 (1916)
As I indicated in my November 1974 'review of the Mehta recording of this masterpiece, there have been several good versions, but none wholly definitive.
Schmidt doesn't solve the problem, for he is too somber and heavy in the intermezzo-like Poco allegretto second movement and he could have a tauter line in the following Poco adagio. The outer movements are powerful and without serious blemish in the engineering.
Symphony No. 5 (1922)
Music has little to convey the timeless quality of nature quite as the opening of this symphony does. Following the songful Adagio comes the famous struggle with the forces of a lower order of life, symbolized by the snare drum, which must play "as if at all costs to stop the progress of the music." Where else has conflict at all levels and in all dimensions been as keenly depicted? The last of the work's two movements is a swaggering dance of victory, twice interrupted by fugues, the first of which has an absurd cat-chasing-its-tail quality that introduces the satirist in Nielsen that was to flower so fully in the Sixth Symphony.
The Fifth's initial recording was by Tuxen for HMV, appearing to my knowledge only on 78s. Fine as that was, the later Jensen London LP (now available in Eng land, as noted, coupled with the First) was even more tough and massive and quite spectacularly engineered, even by today's standards. The first stereo issue of the symphony was Bernstein's volatile and kinetic reading with the New York Philharmonic ( Columbia MS 6414).
Then Nonesuch issued the 1969 Unicorn version by Horenstein (H 71236). apparently the first to use the original version (though the differences I've been able to detect are not terribly major). That release was a great event because of the soaring nobility of the performance the late, great conductor elicited from the New Philharmonia. Recently London issued a straightforward but dryish account by Kletzki and the Suisse Romande (CS 6699), which was no big improvement sonically over that label's older mono Jensen.
Here now is Schmidt, like Horenstein using the urtext (and also much of the same production crew), giving his most emotionally inflected interpretation, with percussionist Michael Frye really drumming up one of the most terrifying assaults in the work's phonographic history. The contrast between the two British-made recordings is instructive: With Schmidt, one is experiencing from inside a surging torrent of human anguish; with Horenstein, one is a mute and transfixed spectator at some unfolding cosmic event.
Symphony No. 6 (1925)
Sinjonia Semplice is an ironic title for a work of bitter disillusionment, biting anger, and nose-thumbing mockery, but no decline in technical mastery, as Simpson has belatedly recognized. I don't know whether Bart6k ever heard this work, but Nielsen's slow movement could have been the model for the corresponding section of the Hungarian composer's Divertimento for Strings.
As in the case of the First Symphony, the two stereo recordings thus far issued have left me sticking to a mono version by Jensen in Mercury's old Tono series.
Ormandy's deleted Columbia effort is slick and over bearing and seems to miss the point of the music in every measure, while Landau and his Westchester Symphony (Turnabout TV-S 34182) are simply over their heads technically.
Fortunately Schmidt matches the cold and deft precision timing of Jensen. and the more naturally balanced miking of the new recording lets us hear those icy little bells in true perspective, rather than like something one would note in a department-store elevator-the effect on the old Danish LP. The interpretation on Unicorn, dignified and understated, lets every moment make its intended effect, whether in the inane graciousness of the finale's waltz tune or the irreverent trombone slides of the Humoresque. A crowning masterpiece, given its due at last.
Nielsen: Symphonies (6). London Symphony Orchestra, Ole Schmidt, cond. [Ingolf Gabold and Antony Hodgson, prod.] UNICORN RHS 324/30, $47.98 (seven discs, manual sequence; includes introduction to the symphonies by Robert Simpson).
Symphonies: No. 1, in G minor, Op. 7: No. 2. Op. 16 (The Four Temperaments): No. 3, Op. 27 (Sinfonia Espansiva) (with Jill Gomez. soprano; Brian Rayner Cook. baritone): No. 4. Op. 29 (The Inextinguishable); No. 5. Op. 50; No. 6 (Sinfonia Semplice).
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(High Fidelity, Apr. 1975)
Also see:
A Pelleas Cast That's All-French and All-Good (review, HF mag Apr. 1975)