Carl Nielsen, Symphony No. 4 "The Inextinguishable", Symphony No. 1, New York Philharmonic, Alan Gilbert

Who would have predicted at the turn of the 19th century what was to come in the 20th? Looking back now, we see an incredibly varied 100 years, with innovations piled one upon the other. Yet it is no longer shocking as it once was found, the newness now mostly familiar, the music appreciated more and more for the brilliance encountered.

Danish composer Carl Nielsen came along in the beginning of the period and was a force for the new, one of the brooms that swept out the excesses of romanticism, yet did something with that legacy in the process that was totally unprecedented. He refashioned it in his own image, made it a force for modernism that had neither precursors or followers in the direct sense. Nielsen was a school of one.

His symphonies, all six, take their place in the pantheon of remarkable cycles. Happily, the New York Philharmonic under Alan Gilbert have embarked on the journey to realize the cycle today in new recordings. The second volume, with the Symphony No. 4 "The Inextinguishable" and the Symphony No. 1 (DaCapo 6.220624) has just come out. It is seminal, I would say.

The New York Philharmonic had a great Nielsen interpreter in Leonard Bernstein last century. Now it has Alan Gilbert.

The first symphony is up there as one of the boldest first symphonies around. Comparisons with Brahms' and Mahler's firsts come to mind. All three entered the fray with a remarkably mature first, having all the seeds in place for their fully blown later works, yet retaining a self-contained completeness that sets them apart as marvels in their own right.

Nielsen's first is the most romantic, perhaps, of all the Danish master wrote. Yet thematically there is something very originally Nielsenian about it. It sings in the hands of Gilbert and the New Yorkers. The flow and differentiation of voices puts this one on a par with the very best on disk. You forget that the first is necessarily a prelude of even more "characteristic" Nielsen symphonies. And with a work of this dynamic beauty one should hear it on its own terms.

On the other hand the 4th, the "Inextinguishable", gives us the fully realized Nielsen, which you could say also of his 3rd, 5th and 6th. It is a late romanticism so totally original that it does not synch with the others, partially because it is drenched with Nielsen's very own modernism. It is all quite involved on a tonal-harmonic level. It creates lush carpets of mystery and a sometimes semaphoric, signalling melodic structure that comes out of the orchestra like an impassioned, urgent communication, yet relates to the overall arc of the symphonic game plan in the most organic sense. Like Nielsen's use of the snare drum in the 5th, the 4th has some passages for timpani that function melodically and dramatically. And of course that is only a part of the lucidly urgent singing quality of Nielsen's later symphonies.

There is a Northern feel in Nielsen's best music that has no real counterparts. Sibelius may come the closest, but he had a lyric quality that Nielsen has in a different but parallel way, but of course Nielsen pushed his music much farther away from a derivative romanticism into modern territory. Sibelius had his own romanticism, and it pretty much stayed put inside that in its own original way. Nielsen takes more risks in his later symphonies and they pay off every time, virtually speaking.

Alan Gilbert's Fourth is a triumph. There is strongly defined part writing that Gilbert realizes vividly, and a dramatic push on the edge of the ecstatic that this version captures beautifully.

It is a one-four coupling of great strength and ruggedly craggy beauty. There is no better Fourth out there to my mind, though many good ones. Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic give us Nielsen in all his glory. The First is given all its due; the Fourth shines like a beacon.

Very recommended.

Knudage Riisager, The Symphonic Edition Volume 2

As anybody who reads my blogs recognizes, I cover both assimilated "names" as well as those less well-known, essentially because I am convinced that in 100 years some may have great credence among musical cognoscenti. Of course not all. But I feel that it is in part my duty to listen to as much "good" music coming our way and then to cover things that are worth considering on any number of levels.

In that light Knudage Riisager (1897-1974) was not a composer I knew very well when I received a copy of his second volume of The Symphonic Edition (Dacapo 8.226147). It's a collection of world premiere recordings of his symphonic works from the 1920s and 1930s, as performed abily and convincingly by Bo Holten conducting the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra.

A Danish composer with something of the pluck of Nielsen and orchestration sense of a Sibelius, he is front and center in five substantial works for the volume. All have a weighty seriousness though also a kind of effervescence that brings them out of late romantic territory and more into a Scandinavian tonal modern-impressionist realm, though please understand these labels are just ready approximations.

The liner notes quote a critic as remarking on the premiere of his Third Symphony that Riisager proffers a "music of surprise and caprices." I can see how in 1932 that might have been the experience. Looking back with so many years between then and now, the caprices are absolutely a factor, but surprises perhaps less--only because the syntax of music has had so many permutations since then, it's harder to be taken unprepared. It is on the syntax level though that Riisager gives originality to the proceedings. No individual theme or orchestral motive is so distinctive as to characterize a melodically unforgettable moment (and some have a definite Nielsenian flavor to them), yet it is the juxtaposition, the endless asymmetrical discourse that has novelty and appeal, even today.

As one listens repeatedly to "T-DOXC" (1926), "Symphony No. 2" (1927), "Concerto for Orchestra" (1931), "Primavera, Concert Overture" (1934), and "Sinfonia (Symphony No. 3)"(1935) one is left with a feeling that here was a composer that produced very solid scores in that era, that had a certain way about him, but had not yet attained the sort of brilliance of some of his more illustrious forebears. Now I do not know his later work, so perhaps there are further developments which bring full identity to his music.

In the meantime this is music worth hearing, of especial interest to Scandonaviaphiles and those who like to become acquainted with less-known composers of the early modern period. I am glad to have it and will continue listening with absorption. Perhaps you will too.