"The Dane's Third Symphony (1911) celebrated a conglomeration of positive values - freedom, creative energy, oneness with Nature, and, in the finale, what Nielsen himself dubbed the 'healthy morale' of the ordinary working man - all under the umbrella title of 'Sinfonia espansiva'. At its core, his next symphony, 'The Inextinguishable' (1914-16) is a defence of those same values against elements that threaten their very existence. By the time of its composition, Europe was being torn apart by a war in which Denmark remained neutral but which caused Nielsen to question the 'national feeling' he had previously regarded as wholesome and which he now likened to a 'kind of spiritual syphilis'. There were conflicts, too, in his personal life. His marriage, to the prominent sculptress Ann-Marie Brodersen, was entireing a period of turmoil, brought about by the revelation of his infidelities; and on 30th May 1914 he resigned his position as assistant conductor at the Royal Opera in Copenhagen, thereby becoming a freelance musician for more or less the first time in over twenty years. For all these reasons Nielsen felt compelled to re-examine his values as a composer and human being, and in this respect 'The Inextinguishable' is a classic mid-life-crisis piece.
"On 3rd May 1914, Carl Nielsen wrote in a state of high agitation to his wife: 'I have an idea for a new work, which has no programme but which is meant to express what we understand by the life-urge or life-manifestation; that's to say: everything that moves, that craves life, that can be called neither good nor evil, neither high nor low, neither great nor small, but simply: 'That which is life' or 'That which craves life' - I mean, no definite idea about anything 'grandiose' or 'fine and delicate' or about warm or cold (powerful maybe) but simply Life and Movement, but varied, very varied, but holding together, and as though always flowing in one large movement, in a single stream. I need a word or a short title to say it all.'
"The word he was looking for was 'Inextinguishable'. But he was not to find it until he had completed the symphony nearly two years after that semi-coherent outburst of enthusiasm. His thoughts crystallised in a short preface to the score: 'With the title 'The Inextinguishable' the composer has sought to indicate in one word what only music has the power to express in full: 'The Elemental Will of Life'. Music -is- Life and, like it, inextinguishable.' And in 1920 Nielsen sent his Dutch composer-conductor friend Julius Röntgen an explanatory note that further clarified his intentions: 'If the whole world was destroyed, Nature would once again begin to beget new life and push forward with the strong and fine forces that are to be found in the very stuff of existence... These 'inextinguishable' forces are what I have tried to represent.'
"In Danish 'Det Uudslukkelige' is a neuter noun, non an adjectival description. So we should think of this not as a hubristic Inextinguishable Symphony, but rather as one whose subject matter is That which is Inextinguishable. Nielsen might almost as well have named it the Life Force, as Bernard Shaw put it, or 'élan vital', in a formulation popularised around the time of its composition by the philosopher Henri Bergson.
"The turbulence of the opening bars immediately suggests how much is at stake, as the strings and woodwin view with one another and brass and timpani strive to maintain law and order. When this tumult subsides, a long-drawn clarinet theme in winding Sibelian thirds seems to come from another world ('not quite like me', as once Nielsen remarked). Rather than remaining merely a haven for escapist reverie, this theme will prove highly adaptable, marking out its Darwinian fitness for eventual survival.
"In the pastoral-idyllic slow movement the woodwind behave as an idealised village band, charmingly not quite sure whether they should be playing two or three beats to the bar. Here, one senses, are the values of simplicity and openness the symphony needs to defend. The tensely dramatic third movement then begins with a passionate accompanied recitative for the violins, soaring over timpani and lower strings, 'like an eagle on the wind' according to the composer; succeeding contrasts between passionate declamation and hymn-like serenity are eventually swallowed up in a radiant climax. In the finale, launched by a torrent of string scales in the manner of Beethoven's third 'Leonora' Overture, the element of antagonism resurfaces. Two sets of timpani, spatially separated, battle it out with the rest of the orchestra, before the triumphant return of the first movement's Sibelian clarinet theme, no blazened across the entire orchestra in searing affirmation.
"After its enthusiastically received première on 1st February 1916, 'The Inextinguishable' rapidly established itself as a milestone in the Nordic symphonic repertoire, one that was frequently called upon to conduct. During these years he was living an itinerant life, hoping to re-cement his marriage but for the time being excluded from the family home in Copenhagen. In between major symphonic projects, much of his energy was devoted to a lavish staging of 'Aladdin', which demanded some 90 minutes of incidental music, and his representation of its polarities of Good and Evil, as well as its oriental setting, gave him new impetus for symphonic explorations (witness the music for 'The Market at Ispahan', which he composed for four discrete mini-orchestras in four different keys).
"For the 'Fifth Symphony' we have no preliminary statements of the kind Nielsen wrestly with apropos 'The Inextinguishable'. But he did reflect with hindsight on its content. Interviews for a Copenhagen newspaper just before the première on 24th January 1922, he was asked about the meaning of his new work. Using terms echoed by composers down the ages, he responded cagily: 'Long explanations and indications as to what music 'represents' are just evil; they distract the listener.' Pressed as to whether the Great War had affected his composition, he again deflected the question, replying that although he was not conscious of any such influence, 'One thing is certain: not one of us is the same as we were before the war. So maybe so!'
"As so many composers have discovered, these evasive tactics left the Fifth Symphony defenceless against critics eager to supply their own interpretations. Some related the extraordinarily vivid drama of the piece to his music for 'Aladdin', hearing pastoral dream-world and Arabian marches in the first movement of the symphony. And one of Nielsen's staunchest supporters found himself thoroughly repelled, calling the work a 'Sinfonie filmatique', this dirty trenches-music [...] this clenched first in the face of a defenceless, novelty snobbish, titillation-sick public [...] who lovingly lick the hand stained with the blood of their own noses!' Two years later in Stockholm, a large section of the audience walked out, in protest at the cacophony of the first movement, while a proportion of the remainder tried to hiss down the performance.
"Few among those early listeners could have guessed that Nielsen's Fifth Symphony would one day mark his posthumous international breakthrough - which can be dated quite precisely to the 1950 Edinburgh Festival - and go on to be hailed as one of the greatest symphonies of the twentieth century (not least by the celebrated Mahler scholar and broadcaster Deryck Cooke).
"Nielsen did in fact leave a few more sporadic clues as to his preoccupations while composing the work. These all have to do with primordial oppositions. At the end of his pencil draft score he wrote the motto: 'Dark, resting forces - Awakened forces', which could apply equally well to the contrast between the two main sections of the first movement and to that between the two movements themselves. He told a confidant that it was 'something very primitive I wanted to express: the division of dark and light, the battle between evil and good. A title such as 'Dreams and Deeds' could maybe sum up the inner picture I had in front of my eyes when composing.' And to his newspaper interviewer he explained that the symphony was ultimately concerned with the same elemental opposition as in his previous three, namely 'resting forces in contrast to active ones'.
"If 'The Inextinguishable' enshrined a conflict between Nielsen's essentially positive outlook on life and fearsome odds stacked against it, the Fifth Symphony revisits this arena with an even more comprehensive symphonic mastery.
"The first movement falls into two large sections. Nielsen's 'resting forces' express themselves initially as a kind of wandering indifference. He once described this state as 'Vegetative Nature', and the title 'Vegetative' actually stands at the head of his pencil draft score. Pairs of bassoons, and later horns, flutes and clarinets, drift aimlessly around an oscillating viola line that waits at first passively, then more anxiously, for something to happen. That line reacts to shivers on the cymbal as the wandering melody transfers to strings. An increasing sense of foreboding is registered by harsh accents in the cellos, and a kind of paralysis gradually steals over the music. The stage is set for the entrance of the side drum. From this point the struggle between conflicting forces ebbs and flows, eventually reaching stalemate and dying away under stabbing repeated notes on violins and celesta.
"As if waking from a bad dream, a warm G major tune breaks in on violas and cellos, supported by bassoons and horns. This unfolds in two glorious waves of increasingly contrapuntal activity, reaching an ecstatic climax. However, what promises to be a similarly positive third wave is soon clutched by fearful reminisces, and a mounting sense of alarm takes over. Woodwind and strings hurl what Nielsen called the 'evil motif' - a transformation of the violas' wave line - at one another, and at the high point the side drum returns at an unrelated faster tempo, with the instruction to disturb the orchestra at all costs. Pandemonium ensues, until a tidal wave of G major engulfs all the combatants and a battle-scarred tranquility concludes the first movement.
"The second movement begins with what the pioneering Nielsen scholar Robert Simpson aptly called 'a fount of regenerative energy'. At first this music seems to be irresistable in its onward sweep, but eventually it too succumbs to a terrifying loss of energy. That this has happened without the presence of the first movement's obvious tokens of ill-will - such as the percussion, the skirling clarinet and the dinning side drum - is all the more disheartening. The implication is that an even greater effort of will-power than in the first movement will be needed in order to regain a positive frame of mind.
"Nielsen's strategy is first of all to let evil forces rip, which he does in a fugue from hell that starts quietly on the violins but soon develops a nightmarish momentum and eventually blows itself to smithereens. The air having finally been cleared, another fugue begins, again on the violins but this time slowly and calmly transofrming the opening theme of the second movement and thinking its way through to enlightenment. It only remains for the 'fount of energy' to return and to find a way to avoid its previous path to ruin. This having been achieved, along with the revelation of the key of E flat major (also the key of the magnificent conclusion to the recent Fifth Symphony by Nielsen's Finnish neighbour, Sibelius) the final pages hold the banner of the Life Force triumphantly aloft. (David Fanning, 2013. From the liner notes.)
Performers: Kungliga Filharmonikerna, Sakari Oramo
1. Symphony No. 4, Op. 29, FS 76 'Det Uudslukkelige': I. Allegro –
2. Symphony No. 4, Op. 29, FS 76 'Det Uudslukkelige': II. Poco Allegretto –
3. Symphony No. 4, Op. 29, FS 76 'Det Uudslukkelige': III. Poco Adagio Quasi Andante –
4. Symphony No. 4, Op. 29, FS 76 'Det Uudslukkelige': IV. Allegro
5. Symphony No. 5, Op. 50 FS 97: I. Tempo Giusto –
6. Symphony No. 5, Op. 50 FS 97: II. Allegro – Presto – Andante Un Poco Tranquillo – Allegro
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