"But so far as larger forms such as the symphony are concerned, it was his employment in the Royal Opera Orchestra from 1889 that gave him the material basis and his scholarship-funded travels in Europe from 1890-91 that provided the decisive inspiration. In the course of that study-trip he began to sense the kind of orchestral music he wanted to write (emulating the likes of Beethoven and Brahms) and also the kind he didn't (essentially anything that smacked of self-indulgence of gratuitous effect).
"Two 'upbeats' preceded the symphony he finally set to work on in the summer of 1891. One was a complete symphonic first movement, composed in 1888 and named (not by Nielsen himself, it seems) 'Symphonic Rhapsody', for its delayed first performance. Despite its athletic, swinging triple-time motion, which was to become a hallmark of several of his mature symphonies, he agreed with some of the critics that this piece was not strong enough to stand alone, and he made no more than a concept - but an ambitious one - for a symphony with the programme 'From earth you have come; to earth you shall return'.
"Nielsen's definitive 'First Symphony', which took shape over a period of two and a half years, is far removed from such grandiose ambitions, or indeed from any kind of programme (he was highly amused when a well-meaning lady interpreted his idiosyncratic designation for the first movement, 'orgoglioso' - 'proudly' - as meaning 'organ-like'). Thoroughly classical in its proportions and discipline, the work owes much to the benchmark of Schumann, widely adopted by symphonists all over Europe at the time. At the same time it displays affinities with the fieriness of Berlioz - the very opening bars are a close cousin to the 'Orgy of the Brigands' from the Frenchman's 'Harold in Italy' Symphony, also with the lyrical tone of Grieg, and with the rhythmic vitality of Grieg's fellow-Norwegian Johan Svendsen, who conducted the première on 14th March 1894.
"In his review of that performance, Charles Kjerulf, the most influential Danish critic of the time, summed up the symphony's character as 'a child playing with dynamite'. The dynamite is perhaps most clearly to be found in the compact, propulsive rhythmical units of the first movement, which carry something close to a Beethovian generative force. In fact Nielsen had recently been so impressed with Beethoven's Fifth that he had set himself the task of writing out its first movement from memory, in full score. The childlike quality surfaces especially at movements when the pace slackens and pastoral relaxation takes over, as it does most obviously in the second movement - a deeply felt 'Andante', but one that conveys a sense of wonder at the beauty of the world, rather than projecting individualistic soul-states.
"Next comes a scherzo-substitute, somewhat Brahmsian in its initially easy-going character, though as it proceeds the tone darkens. In fact, this third movement functions as a kind of crucible, in which the symphony's musical constituents are as it were melted down and reshaped, with implications not only for the dramatic contrasts in the middle of the movement but also for the ultimate destination of the finale.
"Nominally in G minor, the symphony might have concluded quite conventionally in G major, or even placed the entire last movement entirely in that key. In fact Nielsen's finale works round to a coda in C major, making this possibly the first ever symphony to end in a key other than its home tonic. This phenomenon generally known as 'progressive tonality', is not something Nielsen worked out with scientific precision - though with hindsight the destination tonality reflects harmonic relationships subtly implanted earlier in the work, all the way back to its opening chord. Rather, it is the technical manifestation of a sense of adventure and a refusal to be tied down that are there for all to hear and that would lead Nielsen into all sort of mould-breaking advnetures in his later symphonies.
"In 1906, at the halfway point between his Second and Third Symphonies, Nielsen scored a national triumph with his comic opera 'Maskarade' - an immensely tuneful and heart-warming score that soon came to be recognized as the Danish national opera 'par excellence'. Then in December the following year his song 'Jens vejmand' ('Jens the Road-mender') suddenly became a smash hit after its first public performance. Nielsen had already resigned his post as second violinist in the Royal Opera Orchestra, and early in 1908 he was appointed assistant conductor, a post he would hold until June 1914.
"He was clearly coming into his prime as composer, performer and national icon, and his growing recognition brought with it increasingly regular commissions for incidental music and cantatas. There was even a measure of international success. In the autumn of 1906 the Chicago Symphony Orchestra udner Frederick Stock successfully performed his First Symphony. Interest in neighbouring Sweden and Norway was on the ride, and Nielsen gained an influential Czech supporter in the shape of the author Max Brod, who sang his praises in the German musical press and who perceptively noted an affinity - entirely coincidental - with his compatriot and friend Leoš Janáček.
"Curiously, Nielsen had very little contact with his symphonic opposite number and exact contemporary in Finland, Jean Sibelius. Nevertheless, not least among many significant musical impressions in these years was Sibelius's Second Symphony, whose influence may well be reflected in the long pedal-points and intense high string writing in the second movement of the 'Sinfonia espansiva'. Such ideas are one obvious aspect of 'expansiveness'. But Nielsen's idea with his unusual title is embodied above all in the character of the first movement.
"In later life Nielsen wrote three programme notes for the piece. The nearest he came to explaining his concept of the 'expansive' was in March 1931, seven months before his death: 'The first movement was meant as a burst of energy and life-affirmation thrown out into the wide world, which we humans not only desire to know in all its multifarious effects, but which we want to conquer and make our own.' To express that urge, Nielsen hit on a vigorous, muscular triple-time pulse that ultimately goes back to the first movement of Beethoven's 'Eroica', from where it passed down to him through Schumann's 'Rhenish' Symphony and Brahms's Third. Nielsen himself had adumbrated it in his 'Symphonic Rhapsody'. This kind of writing, with its highly arched thematic contours, its thrusting rhythms and propulsive harmony, gives the sensation of being composed as if in the future tense - always urgently looking forward. A significant operatic counterpart is the opening scene of Nielsen's biblical opera 'Saul and David', where exactly this musical character depicts the Israelites anxiously awaiting the delayed arrival of the prophet Samuel.
"In complete contrast to the phenomenal energy of the 'Allegro espansivo', the pastoral slow movement evokes the rolling countryside of Nielsen's native island of Funen. Here, in the concluding stages, vocalises for solo soprano and baritone are added to heighten the sense of lyrical ecstasy, expressed in a fragment of text found in Nielsen's draft score: 'All thoughts have vanished: I am lying beneath the heavens.' As he put it in one of his programme notes, the presence of the voices is 'only to highlight the peaceful atmosphere you might imagine in Paradise before the Fall'.
"In the third movement the opposed forces so far encountered are held in an uneasy balance, the moods being poised 'between dream and wakefulness', as a pupil of Nielsen put it in an analysis that came out - with the composer's approval - soon after the first published score. As so often with Nielsen, this stage of the symphony is something of a melting-pot, in which difficult issues are worked out - here notably in some convulsive fugal writing - that will enable the finale to consolidate, rather than having to fight all its battles from scratch.
"Originally headed 'pomposo' - which in Nielsen's understanding stood for grandeur but not self-aggrandisement - this finale is in fact a remarkable non-conflictual affair, at least by comparison with its counterparts in the Fourth and Fifth Symphonies. The music strides out, in the composer's words, as 'a hymn to work and the healthy enjoyment of daily life', in which the 'the orchestra sings its introductory theme in so commonplace a fashion that you might well call it 'healthy-popular''. The conclusion comes 'like a man who, uninterestingly [in the sense of undermonstratively], but healthily and at his ease, reaches the goal of his travels'.
"The première of the 'Sinfonia espansiva' took place in Copenhagen on 28th February 1912, in a concert that also included Nielsen's new Violin Concerto. The event was a triumph, not only delighting his uspporters but also winning over those Danish critics who had previously been sceptical of his abilities, and the symphony went on to enjoy many performances in different countries, often under the composer's own baton. Two months after the première, Nielsen conducted it in Amsterdam. During the most restful parts of the finale, he asked the famous Concertgebouw Orchestra to play as 'boringly' as possible, and he stretched lazily to make his point. The musicians immediately imitated his gesture, and everyone burst out laughing. 'Bravo, gentlemen,' said Nielsen. 'I see we understand eachother.' And the laughter resumed. (David Fanning, 2014. From the liner notes.)
Performers: Kungliga Filharmonikerna, Sakari Oramo
1. Symphony No. 1 In G Minor, Op. 7, FS 16: I. Allegro Orgoglioso
2. Symphony No. 1 In G minor, Op. 7, FS 16: II. Andante
3. Symphony No. 1 In G minor, Op. 7, FS 16: III. Allegro Comodo - Andante Sostenuto - Tempo I
4. Symphony No. 1 In G minor, Op. 7, FS 16: IV. Finale: Allegro Con Fuoco
5. Symphony No. 3, Op. 27, FS 60 'Sinfonia Espansiva': I. Allegro Espansivo
6. Symphony No. 3, Op. 27, FS 60 'Sinfonia Espansiva': II. Andante Pastorale
7. Symphony No. 3, Op. 27, FS 60 'Sinfonia Espansiva': III. Allegretto Un Poco
8. Symphony No. 3, Op. 27, FS 60 'Sinfonia Espansiva': IV. Finale: Allegro
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