"Nielsen's first instrument was the violin. He was playing a miniature fiddle in his father's village band and composing dance tunes for it by the age of nine. In his teens Nielsen played bugle and trombone with the Odense regimental band. He therefore knew stringed and brass instruments inside out, so it is interesting that some of his most distinctive and treasured contributions to the solo instrumental repertory are for the woodwin family.
"It all started with the Wind Quintet. Apparently Nielsen was talking on the telephone to a friend, in whose house four members of the Copenhagen Wind Quintet were rehearsing Mozart's Sinfonia for wind instruments and orchestra. Hearing the performers discussing - or occasionally arguing over - details gave Nielsen the idea for a new piece, in which the kind of intimate dialogue one firneds in the chamber music of Mozart and Haydn might be translated into contemporary Danish terms.
"At first Nielsen seems to have seen the work as a relaxation after composing the Fifth Symphony (1921-2), but the Quintet soon acquired a life of its own. Light and humorous in flavour, the Quintet is also a sophisticated piece of musical construction, with something of Haydn's ability to surprise the ear while maintaining an underlying sense of what Nielsen's contemporary Sibelius called 'profound logic'.
"After an opening movement which sounds like an animated but essentially convivial instrumental conversation comes a beautifully stylised Minuet, in which Mozartian poise and the contours of Danish folk music are combined without a hint of contrivance. A shadow falls across the following Præludium, with its astringent harmonies and the melancholy tang of the cor anglais (temporarily replacing the brightly pastoral oboe); but the mood brightens with a Lutheran hymn in 3/4 composed by Nielsen himself: 'My Jesus, make my heart to love Thee'. In the following variations such harmonious togetherness gives way to individualism - sometimes good-natured, sometimes less so. The ensemble comes back together at the end for a return of the hymn, now in 4/4; it is as though something of the essence of this tune has changed through being pulled apart by the players.
"Writing the Wind Quintet changed Nielsen's attitude to orchestration. While composing the the Sixth Symphony (1924-5), he remarked, 'I think through the instruments - as though I had crept inside them.' And after the success of the Wind Quintet's premier, Nielsen announced his intention of composing a concerto for each member of the Copenhagen Wind Quintet. Alas, he had only written two - for flute and clarinet - when he died aged 66." (From the liner notes.)
Performers: Berliner Philharmoniker, Simon Rattle, Sabine Meyer, Emmanuel Pahud
1. Flute Concerto: I. Allegro Moderato
2. Flute Concerto: II. Allegretto
3. Clarinet Concerto: I. Allegretto Un Poco
4. Clarinet Concerto: II. Poco Adagio
5. Clarinet Concerto: III. Allegro Non Troppo
6. Clarinet Concerto: IV. Allegro Vivace
7. Wind Quintet In A Major, Op.43: I. Allegro Ben Moderato
8. Wind Quintet In A Major, Op.43: II. Menuet
9. Wind Quintet In A Major, Op.43: III. Praeludium: Adagio
10. Wind Quintet In A Major, Op.43: IV. Tema Con Variazioni: Un Poco Andantino
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