Giacinto Scelsi - Complete Works for Flute & Clarinet

"Receiving an education appropriate to his noble birth, he displayed from childhood an exceptional musical sensibility but had no professional training, learning only the rudiments of traditional harmony from Giacinto Sallustio. Lengthy periods abroad kept him from any direct influence of Italian music between the wars; his wanderings took him to Geneve, where he studied under Egon Koehler (a musician whose ideas related to those of Scriabin, and who thus provided Scelsi with a most congenial apprenticeship), and to Vienna, where he worked on 12-note serial technique with Walter Klein (1935-36). In 1951 he settled in Rome, where chiefly as a member of the 'Nuova Consonanza' association, he organized concerts of contemporary music. He wrote a number of musical-philosophical essays - mostly unpublished, except for those contributed in 1943-45 to 'La Suisse contemporaine' - and three collections of poetry in French, published in Paris in 1949, 1954 and 1962.

"Since music is, for Scelsi, an intuitive link with the transcendental and involves the annulment of creative individuality (like in Asia's religions), the countless changes in style contributing to the non-professional features of his vast output should be regarded as pure phenomena, which merely embody a spiritual process substantially unchanging.

"To explore another -third- dimension - the depth of sound (in contrast to the other two dimensions pitch and duration) Scelsi wrote several pieces for wind-instruments (1953-58): 'Quays' and 'Pwyll' for flute, 'Preghiera per un ombra', 'Tre studi' and 'Ixor' for clarinet, 'Tre pezzi' for the instruments: trumpet, saxophone, horn as well as trombone.

"By the 1950s, as outwardly instanced in his abandonment of conventional for exotic or esoteric titles, Scelsi turned increasingly towards the asceticism of eastern art. Technically this involved a significant modification of the unrelieved motivic procedures previously characterizing his music. Such a modification reached an extreme point in the intriguing 'Quattro pezzi (su una nota sola)' for orchestra (1959) as well as in 'Ko-Lho' for flute & clarinet (1966), each piece being based on a single note held throughout, with attention focused on its smallest variations of rhythm, dynamics or pitch in a manner that suggests comparison with meditative practice.

"Moreover, the micro-intervallic writing so poignantly exploited in these works - and further developed, chiefly in compositions for strings, such as his last three quartets, 'Xnoybis', 'L'âme ouverte' - gave way to that inclusion of sound material outside the tempered system which in due led him to make use even of clusters ('Action music' for piano) and 'musique concrète' ('Prânam I' for voice, 12 instruments and tape). Not until the 80s people became occupied with his work especially in Germany where he gained nearly cultic adoration - in contrast to his homeland Italy where only radical circles supported his music. The interest of foreign composers such as Ligeti, Feldman and Nono ended his lifelong isolation.

"'Piccola Suite' (1953). This piece is not a fusion of the sonority of the two instruments as in 'Ko-Lho' but a highly virtuoso (1st and 3rd movement) combination of two independent solo parts based on Scelsi's principle of variations (see also 'Pwyll'). Despite this independence, the audience experiences the development of a true dialogue in a fascinating manner. The pastoral final movement is perhaps the most reminiscent of a suite: traditionally written as a melody with accompaniment, it has a very calming effect after the agitating music of the preceding movements.

"'Quays' was written in 1953. It is possible to perform 'Quays' with either the alto or normal flute. Both versions have been authorized by the composer. On this recording I choose the version with the normal flute because of its brightness in ornamental passages.

"The main compositional idea involves the 'principle of central tones', in this case the notes B, C, and D are used (in all octaves). 'Quays' can be divided into several sections. The slow, calm beginning is soon followed by a more active and dramatic middle section.

"'Preghiera per un'ombra' (1954) ('Prayer for a Shadow'). The unusually concrete title describes the situation of the musician playing this piece: driven by the heat of the music, to the limits of what is technically possible. The work lives from rapid changes in register, creating at times the effect of a polyphonic piece.

"'Pwyll', composed in 1954 for flute, is closely connected to Scelsi's piano compositions, especially to his 'Suite No. 10, Ka'. It is based on Scelsi's technique of variation. The insistent repetition of a single tone figure is not to be confused with stereotype repetition; it is above all the new creation, translation, revelation, of a previously hidden dimension.

"'Tre studi' (1954) is a well-rounded cycle of three pieces written for the E-flat clarinet. Scelsi consciously abstains from using the extreme range of the E-flat clarinet so as to achieve a greater flexibility in sonority. The lively first movement is characterized by large leaps of upward-moving intervals. The second movement shows clear references to the first movement but the narrow tonal range is further differentiated by quarter-tones and glissandi and intensified by an exceedingly virtuoso middle section. The very spirited third movement is a synthesis of the two other movements; it swings between calm and, in contrast to the first movement - a more agitated movement, which also integrates the quarter-tones and the glissandi of the second movement.

"'Rucke di guck' (1957). Similar in its conception to the 'Piccola Suite' (except for the last movement), Scelsi intensifies the virtuoso character and sharpness of the music by using the piccolo flute and oboe (here in a recording with piccolo flute and E-flat clarinet), pushing the musicians to the limits of what is technically possible.

"In addition to the orchestral piece 'Quattro pezzi', 'Ko-Lho' (1966) indisputably marks the pinnacle of Scelsi's career. The work is a synthesis of early working methods and his new orientation toward microtonality. Despite its calm, flowing character it is chracterized by an extremely differentiated rhythm that Scelsi gradually abandons in favour of a complex sonority, which he achieves with microtonality and an emphasis on shaping the individual tone (crescendi, vibrati, glissandi, tremoli).

"In 'Xnoybis' (1964) this development becomes quite clear. The first movement contains rhythmic subtleties similar to 'Ko-Lho'. The second movement has a flowing quality; instead of whole-tone trills Scelsi introduces quarter-tone tremoli in a rhythmic pattern. The tonal range of the third movement is limited, ranging only from C' to F''. Here Scelsi replaces the quarter-tone tremoli with tremoli and vibrati of different timbres.

"In 'L'âme ailée' (1974) a further step is taken in this direction. Scelsi once again restricts the register of the instruments, eliminates the rhythmic details (there is now only a pulsating quarter beat), and further reduces the tonal range to that of just one second.

"The small tonal tange, the lengthening of time values, as well as the variability in the dynamics create an effect of force and counterforce. This development of space within the passage of time is related to alap, the slow introduction of Indian ragas.

"'L'âme ouverte' (1974) is even more radical. The player is instructed to count the beats created between two neighbouring tones! In pure physical terms, however, this contradicts Scelsi's use of quarter and eighth tones. In our recording we have chosen to play a version with audible beats.

"A few words about the arrangement of the work 'Xnoybis', 'L'âme ailée' and 'L'âme ouverte' for flute and clarinet. These pieces place high technical demands on the solo violinist, requiring, for example, opposing dynamics, glissandi, vibrati, quarter and eighth-tones to be played simultaneously on two strings. This certainly justifies and arrangement for two instruments - in our case flute and clarinet in B - especially since Scelsi had already investigated the 'third dimension', microtonal sonority, with wind instruments, for example in 'Ko-Lho', written for flute and clarinet.

"'Maknongan' (1976) pour un instrument grave ou voix de basse. One of Scelsi's most ascetic pieces. It demands a complete immersion in one note (G-sharp), the differentiation of the finest nuances in sonority, and clearly shows Scelsi's interest in the abundant overtones in instruments with a deep range as well as voices (also recognizable in leaps to the next higher octave). Glissandi and quarter-tones lead the piece to its final note, G.

"'Krishna e Radha' is a joint composition originated in recorded improvisations of Giacinto Scelsi and Carin Levine. Scelsi entitled the piece 'Krishna e Radha'. Krishna e Radha are two characters described in the ancient Hinduistic Gita-Govinda poems from 1100 B.C. This piece should be performed with alight playfulness - conveying two musicians casually enjoying an evening in the company of their instruments and one another." (Stefan Fischer, tr. Anne Heritage. From the liner notes.)

Performers: Ebony-Duo

1. Piccola Suite: I. 

2. Piccola Suite: II. 

3. Piccola Suite: III. 

4. Piccola Suite: IV. 

5. Quays

6. Preghiera Per Un'ombra

7. Pwyll

8. Rucke Di Guck: I. 

9. Rucke Di Guck: II. 

10. Rucke Di Guck: III. 

11. Ko-Lho: I. 

12. Ko-Lho: II. 

13. Tre Studi: I. 

14. Tre Studi: II. 

15. Tre Studi: III. 

16. Xnoybis: I. 

17. Xnoybis: II. 

18. Xnoybis: III. 

19. Krishna E Radha

20. Maknongan

21. L'âme Ouverte

22. L'âme Ailée

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Veljo Tormis - Litany to Thunder

"This startling record begins with two sopranos and a gentle piano sounding for all the world like Enya singing Satie; two tracks later we have a hair-raising chorus and drum hurling curses upon iron (which makes the tools of work and war). It's all the work of Estonian composer Veljo Tormis, who uses simple, even primitive melodies and ancient folk poetry (perhaps too simple for some listeners, especially those who understand no Finnish or Estonian) with exciting, sometimes atonal but always accessible accompaniment for chorus and/or instruments. The results can be plaintive and calm or vigorous, even feral. The effect is rather like Orff's 'Carmina Burana' with less symphonic glamour but more musical substance. The most entertaining piece on the disc is 'The Bishop and the Pagan', which retells (in a way) the story of St. Henry, who was martyred on a frozen lake in 1158 by an angry peasant with an ax. An alto and two tenors sing a medieval Latin poem in praise of Henry to a very chantlike melody in parallel fifths; meanwhile, baritones and basses pound out (softly at first) an ancient Finnish lyric told from the peasant's point of view. (You can guess how things end up.) The highlight is when the Henry trio is reduced to a wordless on-pitch howling while the peasant's chant is at its strongest - followed by a surprisingly witty ending. Not coincidentally, the next piece on the record, 'Litany to Thunder', depicts the sacrifice of an ox to the god of thunder and rain. Frankly, it's terrifying." (Review by Matthew Westphal via Amazon. See here.)

"Ultimate recording. Deep concern for the fate of my tiny homeland, my people and our culture have keyed my creative work. I hope this CD succeeds in expressing those feelings." (Veljo Tormis. From his website.)

Performers: Eesti Filharmoonia Kammerkoor, Tõnu Kaljuste

1. How Can I Recognize My Home

2. Singing Aboard Ship

3. Curse Upon Iron

4. The Singer's Childhood

5. Songs Of The Ancient Sea

6. The Bishop And The Pagan

7. Litany To Thunder

8. The Lost Geese

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Veljo Tormis - Choral Music

"Imagine this: a post-war totalitarian Britain, where creative artists are housed in their own discrete, genre-defined communities, looked after by the authorities but subtle contained and controlled too. One tenement, somewhere flanking central London and suburbia, has been for decades the shared address of writers and poets - Drabble, McEwan and Amis Jr. occupying one storey, Larkin and Amis Sr. two miscreants together on the fifth floor a while many years back.

"A few minutes' walk away, in a slightly grubbier block of flats, are the state-housed composers. Harris Bristwistle shares, somewhat tensely, a landing with Richard Rodeny Bennet, and together they tolerate the keyboard vamping, up the stairwell and through prefap ceilings, of Michael Nyman one storey below. It is not the happiest of musical communities, but there have been some good parties there over the years.

"Hard to imagine, yes: but the bricks-and-mortar reality is a 150-minute plane ride away, just west of St. Petersburg and a ferry shuttle across the Gulf of Finland from Helsinki. Tallinn's No. 7 Lauteri Street is the residential block of the Estonian Composers' Union. And here, under one roof, lived for several decades many of the country's musical elite - at least until the end of Soviet rule in 1991. Neeme Järvi used to live there, and Arvo Pärt's first wife still does. Her neighbour, sharing a stark, functional landing of stone floor and iron stair balustrades, is one of Estonia's most illustrious figures. Within national boundaries he is widely celebrated - though not in lifestyle a 'celebrity' - and in composer-terms he is an Estonian household name in such a way that only one composer can claim in Britain, Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber.

"Internationally, Arvo Pärt, an émigré since 1980, may be Estonia's most famous living composer. But Veljo Tormis - five years his senior and his one-time teacher - is the composer Estonia cherishes most on home turf. In November 2000 no fewer than fifty-five choirs marked his seventieth birthday in a concert in Tallinn; and within a period of two months around his August birthday a further twenty-three concerts were given in honour across Estonia.

"2000 was the year Tormis chose, perhaps unusually for a composer, to retire. He now describes himself - even on his Tallinn apartment's doorbell - as 'Composer Emeritus', but he remains fully engaged with a lifelong evangelism for his country's folk-song tradition. Alongside an almost music, shamanic status in Estonia, he is the passionate and practical torch-bearer for folk-singing revival - from kindergarten to pensioner homes - and the integration of an ancient cultural inheritance into thoroughly moden, post-Soviet lives.

"'We must stop treating our own song culture as a museum exhibit or as tourist exotica meant for a chosen few', he wrote in his 1972 manifesto 'Folk Song and Us'. That pamphlet, apart from cleverly aligning personal artistic credo with a certain line-towing Soviet political correctness, was above all a love-letter to Estonia's ancient runic songs, 'regilaul'. This was the folk heritage Tormis had become interested in during the previous decade - duple-metered, single-voiced songs, with alliterative non-rhyming texts and the call-response pattern of soloist and chorus.

"'Regilaul', Tormis wrote, 'is our people's oldest, unique, most highly evolved and complete creation throughout the centuries, an expression of the people's creative genius [...] ancient folks song can be, and indeed is, independent art, not merely as an ornamentation. As important as its aesthetic worth is its ethical value. For regilaul embodies the life values of working people which have evolved over thousands of years. Why should we now abandon this heritage to oblivion or scorn it as archaic?'

"Tormis's father was a Lutheran music teacher and church organist, and from early on he was steeped in Estonia's rich, essentially Germanic, song culture. Early twentieth-century folk revivalism was all part of this, stemming from Estonia's 'National Awakening' in the nineteenth century and the country's first United Song Festival in 1869. Composers from the generation before him, such as Cyrillus Kreek and Mart Saar, created a new body of choral folk-song arrangements, more sentimental and rounded than regilaul's rugged terrain. Much Estonian folk song 'collecting' went on in the early decades of the twentieth century too - an important ethnographical exercise similar to that of Vaughan Williams, Grainger and Cecil Sharp in Britain, and Bartók and Kodály in Hungary and Romania. So Veljo Tormis's towering achievement has been, in the last four decades, to bring back to life this 'primeval' heritage - what he calls his 'musical mother-tongue' - within the broader context of his country's proud and vibrant singing culture. With means as varied as entry-level school songbooks, articles, lectures and several hundred choral arrangements of great character and sophistication, Tormis approaches his ninth decade optimistic that ancient Estonian song will hold its own in the consciousness of younger generations otherwise bombarded by globally homogenized pop culture.

"Less that two decades on from gaining independence, Estonia's capital is a tourist-friendly place of gentrified lanes, towers, turrets and themed taverns just the right side of tacky - a medieval fantasy made affordably real for plane-loads of beered-up, low-fare, stag-weekenders. But for Veljo Tormis, Tallinn is something much more complex, a city of foreign occupation and influence, of imposed political regimes and cultural dictat. Born in the middle of Estonia's twenty-two years of self-rule (1918-40), Tormis subsequently witnessed as a boy the to-and-fro of wartime annexation (Soviet 1940-41, German 1941-44) and then the enforced stability of the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic from 1944 to 1991.

"The central paradox then, of a man whose life's work has been almost entirely devoted to defining Estonian musical nationhood is that he is a Soviet artist, the product of a regime dedicated strictly to 'Russifying' its satellite peoples. After teenage studies in organ, conducting and composition in Tallinn, it was the -Moscow- Conservatoire that gave Tormis his rigorous, formative training in the early 1950s. He was present at Prokofiev's funeral in 1953. His teacher was Vissarion Shebalin, and fellow classmates included Rodion Shchedrin, Edison Denisov and Gennady Rozhdestvensky. Shostakovich was Chairman of the Jury for his graduation portfolio in 1956. And there are KGB files on Tormis from 1960 to 1989.

"Tormis the Soviet, Tormis the folk nationalist: the two don't immediately sit well together. But just as Shostakovich famously walked the tightrope of official censure over many decades, Tormis cleverly managed the balancing act too. He learnt early on, in 1948 from his organ teacher Edgar Arro, that a certain kind of nationalism found favour in Moscow, that the right tunes used in the right ways actually fitted with the anti-formalist policies of Socialist Realism. In the same way, the extraordinary phenomenon of Estonian Song Festivals - said to attract nearly a third of the entire population every five years to Tallinn's stadium-like Song Festival Field - was enthusatically adopted in Soviet times. This huge statement of sung nationalism, born in 1869 of German-Swiss origins and the driving force of independence in the late 1980s, became in Soviet Estonia a useful tool of massed cultural (and therefore political) communication.

"The cultural isolation of Soviet-era Eastern-bloc composers led inevitably to a skewed perspective of recent music history. Tormis recalls how the official textbooks stopped with Grieg, and how as a student in Moscow he obtained access to scores of Debussy and Stravinsky as if they were contraband from the decadent West. Later he flirted unenthusiastically with twelve-tone composition technique - though it was Arvo Pärt who became the first Soviet composer to out himself as a serialist with 'Nekrolog' in 1959. The turning-point of Tormis's musical discovery was a rare trip beyond Estonian borders to Hungary in 1962. There, he took the opportunity to buy dozens of scores by Bartók and Kodály, and to study the integration of folk material within their own individual musical voices. From this point, Tormis began to specialize more and more in folk-song-derived choral writing. His output to this point included sonatas, overtures, an epic cantata on the story of Kalevipoeg. From the mid-1960s onwards, apart from some film scores and music theatre works, the Tormis catalogue is almost exclusively music for choirs. Few composers have been so committed to one genre, medium or instrument - Corelli's writing for violin and Chopin's for piano are two other such cases. And Tormis's choral specialism marks him out from Bartók, Kodály, Vaughan Williams and Grainger, whose pioneering interest in folk song was ultimately less purist for their use of only the tunes in instrumental or orchestral works. For Tormis, the words and the music are inseparable.

"With the exception of the second Ernst Enno setting, which was one of the last pieces Tormis wrote before retirement, the works on this disc divide neatly into two: those written before the mid-sixties are 'original' settings, and those written afterwards are arrangements of folk material.

"The two settings of Ernst Enno (1875-1934) effectively bookend Tormis's career. The first was composed when he was only eighteen and is a simple, lifting 6/8 pastoral dedicated to his girlfriend of the time. The second was written in 1998, and is dedicated to his wife of all the intervening decades, Lea. Constructed, superficially, from the same simple materials - the 6/8 metre, the parallel thirds and triadic harmony - this is a work of infinitely greater scope and sophistication. Free of folk song, but imbued with all its influence, this near-final act of pure creation links back to the start with craftsmanship and control.

"The first of  the three 'Kalevipoeg' songs, 'O, my gentle tender mother', was written in 1954 as a tribute to Tormis's mother. She had died the year before while he was away studing in Moscow, so his choice of text and musical response to the disturbing, bitter twist near the end - a suitable anguished climax - is poignant.

"The other two settings of texts from Kreutzwald's nineteenth-century national legend, 'Kalevipoeg' (Kalev's Son), were written in 1960. In 'Daughters of the Meadow Matron', with its rustic calls and charming alto patter, we hear Tormis properly finding his folk-art voice for the first time. With only limited harmonic and melodic range, he creates real character through texture and refined textual essence instead. This is the case, too, with 'The wave rolls', where a satisfying, dramatic architecture is built on the simple foundation of repeated bass patterns.

"'Autumn landscapes', seven settings of poems by Viivi Luik (born 1946), is the last freely composed work on this disc before Tormis's full folk song conversion. Written two years after his visit to Hungary, there is an indebtedness to Kodály, a wider harmonic and textural palette, and greater confidence with colouristic effects such as glissandi, 'parlando' and feather-light staccato.

"In 1966-7 Tormis full found his way into a distinctive folk-song style with the five-part, twenty-nine-song 'Calendar Songs' cycle. His next large project ebgan with a musical-anthropoligical visit to north-western Latvia with some students from Tartu University. This 'expedition', as Tormis calls it, triggered a fascination with tiny, ever-declining populations of kindred Finno-Ugric peoples. The 1969 visit to Livonia was followed the following year by visits to Votia and Izhoria, regions mostly in modern-day Russia near the Estonian border. Eventually, a complete cycle of fifty-one songs 'Unustatud rahvad' ('Forgotten peoples'), compiled between 1970 and 1989, comprised 'Livonian heritage', 'Votic wedding songs', 'Izhorian epic', 'Ingrian evenings', 'Vepsian paths and 'Karelian destiny'. As a vast project of ethnographic, musicological preservation it was some of Tormis's most imaginative writing. 'Livonian heritage''s opening song, 'Walking the birds', is a five-minute drama of drone-based incantation and atmosphere. The other songs contain much vivid nature depiction, and evocations of something primevally connected to the land.

"The looping repetitions of the fourth Livonian song, 'Wee winkie mouse', are heard again in the Ingrian song 'Singing aboard ship' (1983). Here the verses keep on coming from the alto soloist and chorus, as they describe the exodus of young men conscripted to fight, while their sweethearts stay behind weeping on the shore.

"Again, in the 'Three Estonian game songs' (1972), Tormis takes three regilaul melodies of limited melodic range and weaves something mesmeric out of their repetitive, haunting spirit. The 5/8 ostinato of bass paired thirds is a masterly touch in 'The grindstone game' - its nagging, mechanical quality finally overwhelming the dogged tune. Masterly too is the sonorous spacing of Tormis's characteristically parallel chords in 'The finger-binding game'. And with such simple means - the shifting oscillation of adjacent triads - 'The ship game' is given a dream, swaying character and rich harmonic scope.

"In complete contrast to the compact, largely un-embellished four-part settings of 'Four Estonian lullabies' (1989), 'Childhood memory (Herding calls)' is an expansive, dramatic treatment of Tormis's chosen material. 'On small ancient Estonian farmsteads', he writes, 'it was customary to have children herd the cattle. They called out to neighbours' children and so kept in touch on woody pastures. Everybody had his or her token melodies which varied according to the time of day, weather and mood.' This is Tormis's most honest, even sentimental tribute to a rustic childhood - in memory of his sister, and based on herding motifs by the singer Aino Tamm and composer Miina Härma.

"Tormis has said that he is 'more a mediator than a creator' - that 'it is not I who makes use of folk music, but folk music that makes use of me'. It is surely this appealing humility that has enabled the arranger-composer's interventions to be judged so well - allowing the musical personality of one not to smother those of nameless millions that came before him and which, through these melodies, still live on." (Meurig Bowen, 2008. From the liner notes.)

Performers: Holst Singers, Stephen Layton

1. Two Songs To Words By Ernst Enno: Early Summer's Fairy Tale

2. Two Songs To Words By Ernst Enno: Soundlessly Somewhere Murmurings Homeward

3. Three Estonian Game Songs: The Grindstone Game

4. Three Estonian Game Songs: The Finger-Binding Game

5. Three Estonian Game Songs: The Ship Game

6. Three Songs From The Epic 'Kalev's Son': O, My Gentle Tender Mother

7. Three Songs From The Epic 'Kalev's Son': Daughters Of The Meadow Matron

8. Three Songs From The Epic 'Kalev's Son': The Wave Rolls

9. Livonian Heritage: Waking The Birds

10. Livonian Heritage: At Pasture

11. Livonian Heritage: Shrovetide

12. Livonian Heritage: Wee Winkie Mouse (Lullaby)

13. Livonian Heritage: Sang The Father, Sang The Son

14. Singing Aboard Ship

15. Autumn Landscapes: It Is Late Summer

16. Autumn Landscapes: Clouds Are Racing

17. Autumn Landscapes: Pale Light

18. Autumn Landscapes: Painfully Red Are The Leaves

19. Autumn Landscapes: Wind Over The Barrens

20. Autumn Landscapes: Cold Autumn Night

21. Autumn Landscapes: Heather

22. Four Estonian Lullabies: I Sing For My Child

23. Four Estonian Lullabies: It's Time For The Little Berry To Sleep

24. Four Estonian Lullabies: Let The Cradle Swing!

25. Four Estonian Lullabies: Lulling

26. Childhood Memory (Herding Calls)

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Scandinavian Choir Music

"The Norwegian Trond Kverno studied sacred music, musical theory and choral conducting. He is a professional organist, teaches at the Oslo Conservatoire and made a name in his country in the field of religious vocal music. He was from 1976 to 1978 member of the liturgical commision, with the task of improving the liturgical handbooks of the Church of Norway. The hymn 'Ave Maris Stella' is structured into different parts. The six-part writing is distributed, in particular at the beginning and at the end of the piece, into a three-part female choir and a three-part corresponding male choir.

"Since the end of the eighties, the Estonian composer Urmas Sisask has devoted himself particularly to sacred music. His 'Benedicto' (1991) is a piece that combines in an attractive way several different styles: medieval polyphony (monastic organa), jazz rhythms or repeated passages in the style of litanies. The piece, which offers many unexpected turns, is a joyful setting of the liturgical text.

"After his studies, Knut Nystedt was for a long time organist and teacher of choral conducting in his native tonw, Oslo. From 1950 to 1990, he toured in the whole world with his choir 'The Norwegian Soloists'. As a composer, he was awarded many prizes. The three settings of the Bible, 'Three Motets', belong to his great œuvre for choir. Choral music fascinates him more and more. He says about himself '[...] It is vocal music that interests [me] increasingly: the human voice has extraordinary possibilities, and a range of expression richer than what has been used until now in choral practice. I therefore immersed myself in a new world of choral sound, as it were a sort of kaleidoscope, in order to discover radically new tone colours.' After 'Thus saith the Lord', a piece of austere, seemingly archaic writing, comes a well-known piece, 'Peace, I leave with you'. The beginning of this piece, a unison in the low range of the women's voices, sung pianissimo, grabs the attention immediately. The tension is sustained all through the piece. 'I will praise thee, O Lord' concludes with élan this short cycle of motets.

"The Estonian Veljo Tormis made his debut in the musical world at the time of the annexing of Estonia by the Soviet Union. Estonians and other ethnic groups, and their languages, were then banned. Tormis bases his compositions on poetical texts of high value, as a manifesto against the Soviet domination of his mother tongue. He takes a keen interest in the Baltico-Finnish tradition. After the closing by the Soviets of the organ class of the Conservatoire, judge too near to the church, Tormis, then a student of the class, changed his orientation and studied choral conducting. During his studies, he was very interested in the national styles that base themselves on folk music. His compositional technique, modern and anti-romantic, leans on these studies and is at the saem times influenced by the music of Carl Orff and Zoltán Kodály. Tormis's choral works were created in collaboration with the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, his close partner for many years. His Finnish choral cycle 'Sügismaastikud' is a setting of seven poems. Each poem is given a particular, extrovert colour. The voices are treated in a very instrumental way, using extended tessituras. Long sustained chords recall organ music. Towards the end of the cycle, a broad orchestral style of writing becomes apparent.

"The Swede Wilhelm Eugen Stenhammar was composer, pianist and conductor of the Göteborg Symphonic Orchestra. He wrote mostly instrumental music. After initial sutdies in Stockholm, he went to Berlin to deepen his knowledge. He was an ardent admirer of Richard Wagner and Anton Bruckner. Later in life, the Nordic style of Carl Nielsen and Jean Sibelius fascinated him. His 'Tre körvisor' (1890) evoke with romantic harmonies but without any trace of kitsch, the poetical images of J.P. Jacobsen. 'September' and 'I Seraillets Have' are charming pictures of nature and peace. 'Havde jeg, o havde jeg en Dattersøn, o ja!' shows itself mischievously ironical.

"'Kung Liljekonvalje' (G. Fröding) and 'Förvårskväll' (R. Jändel) by David Wikander are very popular pieces of the Swedish choral repertoire. The love of detail that the texts betray - a characteristic of Swedish literature and mentality - finds in Wikander's music an adequate rendering.

"Niels V. Gade is the found of the Danish national romantic style. Robert Schumann and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, with whom Gade studied (Mendelssohn Bartholdy even created his First Symphony in Liepzig), were friends and fervent defenders of his music. In 'Morgensang', in C major, Gade develops from passages in unison and in thirds soft but heroic harmonies, characterized by boradly spaced male voices, generally in four parts.

"The Swede Hugo Alfvén still enjoys great popularity in his country and abroad through a handful of his works, in particular his 'Aftonen'. His pieces are typical representatives of a Swedish national romantic music. 'Aftonen', with its impressionistic writing, is an excellent example of his lyrical Nordic style.

"Edvard Grieg, the most famous of Norwegian composers, wrote only a few choral works on sacred texts. His 'Fire Salmer' (Four Psalms, 1906), more precisely the psalm entitled 'Hvad est du dog skjön', are his last work, he died in 1907.

"The text is a paraphrase by Hans Adolf Brorson (18th century) of the Song of Salomon, with reminiscences of the Song of Songs. The introduction is followed by three nearly identical verses with solo baritone (soloist of the choir: Thomas Walter). The fourth verse breaks this pattern. The theme is harmonically taken apart and the text is passed back and forth between the different voices, like the whisperings of lovers. The piece ends in this quiet atmosphere.

"The cosmopolitan Einojuhani Rautavaara studied in Finland, Vienna the U.S.A., Switzerland and Cologne. He has since returned to live in his home town, Helsinki. In 'Sommarmatten' (1975), soprano solos are added to the mixed four-part choir (soloists of the choir: Silke Brucker, Marianne Dreßler, Angela Fadle and Christiane Kuhlberg-Ross). The silvery high tones of the soloists evoke the vesperal reminiscence, filled with vibrating heat, of a summer day. To this quick movement, Rautavaara opposes slow harmonies, without thirds, like archaic sculptures. The wide tessituras, using the lowest basses and the highest sopranos, create a most attractive sound picture. One understands here why Rautavaara is often described as a mystic." (Dagmar Ungerer-Brams. From the liner notes.)

Performers: Amadeus-Chor, Nicol Matt

1. Trond Kverno - Ave Maris Stella

2. Urmas Sisask - Benedictio

3. Knut Nystedt - Three Motets: Thus Saith The Lord

4. Knut Nystedt - Three Motets: Peace, I Leave With You

5. Knut Nystedt - Three Motets: I Will Praise Thee, O Lord

6. Veljo Tormis - Sügismaastikud: On Hilissuvi

7. Veljo Tormis - Sügismaastikud: Üle Taeva Jooksevad Pilved

8. Veljo Tormis - Sügismaastikud: Valusalt Punased Lehed

9. Veljo Tormis - Sügismaastikud: Kahvatu Valgus

10. Veljo Tormis - Sügismaastikud: Tuul Könnumaa Kohal

11. Veljo Tormis - Sügismaastikud: Külm Sügisö

12. Veljo Tormis - Sügismaastikud: Kanarbik

13. Wilhelm Stenhammar - Tre Körvisor: September

14. Wilhelm Stenhammar - Tre Körvisor: I Seraillets Have

15. Wilhelm Stenhammar - Tre Körvisor: Havde Jeg, O Havde Jeg En Dattersøn, O Ja!

16. David Wikander - Förvårskväll

17. Niels Gade - Morgensang

18. David Wikander - Kung Liljekonvalje

19. Hugo Alfvén - Aftonen

20. Edvard Grieg - Hvad Est Du Dog Skjön

21. Einojuhani Rautavaara - Sommarnatten

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Alban Berg - Orchestral Works

 "The works on the present CDs span the creative career of Alban Berg from his first published piece, the Piano Sonata, Op. 1, to the Violin Concerto and the 'Symphonic Pieces from the Opera 'Lulu'', the last works that were fully completed when died at the age of fifty in 1935.

"'Piano Sonata, Op. 1': Before starting his studies with Schoenberg in the autumn of 1904 Berg had been an autodidact whose output consisted almost entirely of songs: a gifted composer but, said Schoenberg in a letter to his publisher Emil Herzka, 'absolutely incapable of writing an instrumental movement or inventing an instrumental theme'.

"Berg continued as a Schoenberg student until 1910 but the single movement Piano Sonata, Op. 1 of 1908, recorded here in the orchestration by Theo Verbey, was, in effect, his graduation piece. In it Berg set out to demonstrate what he had learned from Schoenberg's music and teaching about how to handle an extended post-Wagnerian harmonic language and how to structure a large-scale instrumental movement in such a way that it was both formally clear and thematically integrated. At the heart of Schoenberg's teaching lay the necessity of what Schoenberg would later call 'developing variation': the belief that the logic and coherence of a work depended on all its aspects' being variants of a single, basic idea. It is a principle that stands at the heart of Op. 1 in which, within a clearly defined sonata structure, a wealth of distinctive thematic ideas is generated from a minimum of motivic material.

"'Passacaglia': Although, as one might expect, there exists a number of incomplete student pieces (there are, for example, five unfinished piano sonata movements that pre-date Op. 1) the two symphonic fragments of 1913 are exceptional in that, together, they represent the only work by the mature Berg that we know him to have abandoned. The two fragments consist of forty-one bars of a symphonic movement and the short score of the more substantial Passacaglia included in this set. Berg's manuscript, which runs to 101 bars, consists of a nine-bar Theme and ten Variations (Variation XI peters out after three bars); it contains some instrumental details and some rudimentary dynamic indications which have been amplified in the present realisation by Christian von Borries, in turn slightly modified by Mario Venzago.

"'Three Pieces, Op. 6': The idea of tackling a large-scale symphonic work was probably prompted by Schoenberg's criticism of the aphoristic nature of Berg's two previous works, the 'Altenberg-Lieder', Op. 4 (the performance in March 1913 of two of which had led to a riot and the concert's being abandoned) and the Four Pieces, Op. 5 for clarinet and piano. Schoenberg had urged Berg to write an orchestral suite, and having, for whatever reason, abandoned the symphony, Berg took his advice and turned to the composition of the Three Pieces, Op. 6 for orchestra. It is a work that has much in common with the symphonic fragments, since behind both, as indeed behind 'Wozzeck', stands the musical language of late Mahler - a composer to whom Berg was devoted. The Op. 6 Pieces, written only shortly after Mahler's death and almost immediately after the premier of the Ninth Symphony, is perhaps Berg's most overtly Mahlerian work - an influence which Berg implicitly acknowledges in his adopting, in the last piece, the fateful hammer blows of the finale of Mahler's Sixth Symphony. It is also the work in which the motivic complexity of Berg's music reaches its height. Starting with soft noises on unpitched percussion, the music of the opening 'Präludium' gradually forms itself into a motivic cell consisting of a rising minor third and a semitone, which will, in various forms, dominate the whole work and give rise to a wealth of interrelated melodic figurations. Constantly developing - through extension, inversion, rhythmic transformation - the figurations produce a profusion of material that links the 'Präludium' with the following 'Reigen' (Round Dance) and 'Marsch'. Dedicated to Schoenberg on the occasion of his fortieth birthday, the Op. 6 Pieces take the technique of 'developing variation' to its most extreme point, the 'Marsch' in particular presenting so many variants of its basic material that the more obviously recurring themes act merely as signposts to which the ear clings amid the unrelenting flow of thematic ideas. Completed in the weeks immediately after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo, this final piece, which George Perle has aptly described as a 'marche macabre', possesses an atmosphere that seems to anticipate the horrors of the war which would soon engulf Europe.

"'Wein, Weib und Gesang!': Four months before completing the 'Marsch' of the Op. 6 Berg had attended the first performance in Vienna of Georg Büchner's 'Wozzeck' at the Residenzbühne and, overwhelmed by the experience, had immediately started to jot down ideas for an opera based on the play. He was forced to put the project to one side, first because of the need to finish work on the Op. 6 Pieces and then because of his being called up for military service, and it was only at the end of the First World War that he was able to begin work on the opera in earnest.

"Even then the work on 'Wozzeck' proceeded slowly, not least because of Berg's time-consuming involvement with the Verein für musikalische Privataufführungen (Society for Private Musical Performances) which Schoenberg had founded in November 1918. The Verein was an association for members only (no critics were allowed to attend and no applause was permitted), which concentrated on the rehearsal and performance of a wide range of contemporary music. Berg, Webern and the pianist Eduard Steuermann were 'performance directors', responsible for supervising the rehearsal of new works. The Verein finally closed, due to financial difficulties, in November 1922 but a financial crisis a year earlier had led it to mount a 'Walzerabend' which consisted of arrangements of waltzes by Johann Strauss II for a salon orchestra of piano, harmonium and string quartet. Schoenberg himself was responsible for arranging 'Rosen aus dem Süden' (Roses from the South), Webern for 'Schatzwalzer' (Treasure Waltz) from 'Der Zigeunerbaron' (The Gypsy Baron) and Berg for 'Wein, Weib und Gesang!' (Wine, Women and Song!). The arrangements were performed on 27 May 1921 by an ensemble that included Schoenberg as one of the first violinists, Webern on cello and Berg on harmonium. The manuscripts were auctioned in aid of the Verein at the end of the evening, when, to his undisguised delight, Schoenberg saw his arrangement fetch three times as much as Berg's.

"'Three Fragments from 'Wozzeck'': Once 'Wozzeck' was completed (the short score was finished in October 1921 and the the full score seven months later) a piano score was published, the cost of which was eventually underwritten by Alma Mahler to whom Berg dedicated the score as a token of gratitude, and copies sent to various opera companies and critics. It was, however, difficult to persuade and opera company to take on a complex atonal work by a composer who was little known outside (or even in) his native Vienna.

"The turning point came in August 1923 when the String Quartet, Op. 3 was performed at the ISCM Festival in Salzburg. In the audience was the conductor Hermann Scherchen who suggested that Berg make a concert suite from the music of the opera. The resulting 'Three Fragments from 'Wozzeck'' were performed under Scherchen in Frankfurt in June 1924, by which time Erich Kleiber had resolved to stage the opera at the Staatsoper in Berlin. The Berlin premiere of 'Wozzeck' on 14 December 1925 established Berg overnight as a composer of international standing.

"The 'Three Fragments' centre on the figure of Marie, the common-law wife of Wozzeck, and mother of his child, whose seduction by the Drum-Major inflames the jealousy of the down-beaten Wozzeck and precipitates the ensuing tragedy. The first fragment, taken from Act I, Scenes 2 and 3 of the opera, is a March, heard as Marie watches the military parade led by the Drum Major pass by, followed by a Lullaby as she sings her child to sleep. The second fragment, structed as a theme, a set of variations and a fugue, is the opening scene of Act III, in which, overcome by guilt at having given in to the blandishments of the Drum Major, Marie seeks comfort in reading her Bible the story of the woman taken in adultery. The third fragment comes from the end of the opera, when, after Wozzeck has murdered Marie and drowned himself, the great orchestral Interlude in D minor reflects on the tragedy and the curtain rises to reveal the son of Wozzeck and Marie, now an orphan, playing with other children. A child runs on to announce the discovery of Marie's body and, after a moment's hesitation, Marie's son follows his comrades to see the corpse.

"'Der Wein': In May 1925, seven months before the Berlin premiere of 'Wozzeck', Berg went to Prague to attend a performance of the 'Three Fragments' conducted by Alexander von Zemlinsky, and stayed with the industrialist Herbert Fuchs Robettin and his wife, Hanna. Berg's next work, the 'Lyric Suite' for string quartet, which charts the course of the secret love affair that developed between Berg and Hanna during this short stay, is the most obvious outcome of the relationship between the two, but the concert aria 'Der Wein', written four years later, is also a reflection of the emotional crisis that the affair precipitated. By then already working on his second opera, 'Lulu', Berg was approached by the Czech soprano Ruzena Herlinger (to whom 'Der Wein' is dedicated) with the suggestion that he write a concert aria for her. Berg accepted the commission, partly for financial reasons but also because it offered the opportunity to explore in advance some aspects of the sound world of 'Lulu', most notable the use of the saxophone and, in a 'Tempo di Tango', jazz elements.

"For the text Berg turned to Stefan George's translations of Baudelaire, which had provided the secret, unsung text of the finale of the 'Lyric Suite', and chose three of the five poems of 'Le Vin'. In 'Der Wein' the three poems are arranged to form an ABA structure in which the B section is constructed as a palindrome, with the music turning at its central point and running backwards into the final section - a feature which Berg saw as a symbole of his own situation, the retrograde portion of 'Der Wein der Liebendern' (The Wine of Lovers) leading inexorably to the finale 'wine of the solitary one' - Baudelaire's 'Le Vin du solitaire': 'What follows [The Wine of Lovers]', wrote Berg to Hanna, 'can only by the song of the wind of the solitary one - for that I am and that I remain'.

"'Symphonic Pieces from the Opera, 'Lulu'': After the premiere of 'Wozzeck' Berg had been able to rely on performances of his music to provide a steady income, but by the early 1930s political pressures had become such that, even before the Nazis came to power in Germany in January 1933, many opera houses had withdrawn from commitments to stage the opera and Berg began to experience serious financial difficulties. By mid-1934, by which time he had completed the short score of 'Lulu', it had become clear that no performances of his new opera would be possible in either Germany or Austria. Berg, therefore, suggested to his publishers that he devise an orchestral suite from the opera - a 'propaganda suite' which, since the music was no longer linked to the sensational libretto, might be performed in Germany and attract the attention of non-Austro-German, or even American, opera companies. He consequently began to work on orchestrating the opera, starting with those sections that he wanted to include in the suite.

"Based on two plays by Frank Wedekind, the opera tells, in deliberately shcoking and often absurd terms, the story of the rise and fall of Lulu, a figure who embodies the primal, sensual spirit of womanhood. During the first half of the work she ascends the social ladder, eventually becoming the wife of the wealthy newspaper magnate Dr. Schön, and then, having shot him, descends into the criminal underworld where she ends as a prostitute and is murdered by Jack the Ripper.

"The 'Symphonic Pieces' are taken from Acts II and III of the opera. The first ('Rondo'; 'Hymne'), from Act II, is the music of a love scene between Lulu and Dr. Schön's son, Alwa. In the opera this music is spread over two scenes and is constantly interrupted by other events; in the 'Symphonic Pieces' Berg simply excises the interruptions and turns Alwa's music from the different scenes into a continuous whole. The second piece ('Ostinato') forms the orchestral interlude between the scenes of Act II. In the opera this interlude accompanies a silent film which shows the arrest of Lulu for the murder of Dr. Schön, her trial and imprisonment, and her eventual escape from prison. As the central point of the central act, the 'Ostinato' marks the turning point of the whole work - a significance symbolised by its palindromic structure. The 'Lied der Lulu', which forms the third piece, is Lulu's great aria of self-justification from Act II, Scene 1, the number in which the text (in Berg's own words) stands as 'an explanation of her actions... an explanation of Lulu's nature which stands outside all human conception of morality'. The fourt of the pieces is a set of orchestral variations on a cabaret tune by Wedekind, which acts as a transition between the big society scene of Act III, Scene 1 and the London garret of the final scene. Beginning in a clear C major, with deliberately gaudy orchestration, the variations gradually move through polytonality and free atonality to a twelve-note variation, after which the theme itself is heard briefly played on a barrel organ in the street outside Lulu's London attic. The fifth piece ('Adagio') is the music that ends the opera, as Lulu returns with her final client. It culminates in a strident twelve-note chord as Jack murders her, then stabs the Countess Geschwitz who has rushed to Lulu's aid, and ends with the 'Liebestod' of the Countess as she dies alone on stage.

"'Concerto for Violin and Orchestra': Having completed the orchestration of the 'Symphonic Pieces' Berg went back to the opening Prologue of 'Lulu' and began to score the whole opera chronologically. His work on it was, however, again interrupted when, in February 1935, the American violinist Louis Krasner approached him with a commission for a violin concerto. Berg was reluctant to stop work on the opera but his financial position made refusal almost impossible. Two months later, on 22 April, there occurred the tragedy that was to determine the programme and the final shape of the concerto, when Manon Gropius, the teenage daughter of Alma Mahler and Walter Gropius, died of poliomyelitis. Deeply shaken by the even, Berg wrote to Alma Mahler to announce his intention of dedicating the concerto 'To the memory of an Angel' in commemoration of Manon. The work turned into a tone poem in which the two movements of Part I ('Andante'; 'Allegretto') became a portrait of Manon while the opening 'Allegro' of Part II depicted her illness and death. The final 'Adagio' of Part II, a set of variations on the funeral chorale 'Es ist genug' from Bach's cantata 'O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort', offers some consolation.

"Berg never heard the concerto performed. In August 1935, a few weeks after completing the work, he received an insect sting which gradually led to septicaemia. He attened the Vienna premiere of the 'Symphonic Pieces' on 11 December but was rushed to hospital on 16 December and died one week later." (Douglas Jarman, 2009. From the liner notes.)

Performers: Göteborgs Symfoniker, Mario Venzago, Isabelle van Keulen, Geraldine McGreevy, Robert Murray

1.1. Piano Sonata, Op. 1

1.2. Three Pieces, Op. 6: I. Präludium

1.3. Three Pieces, Op. 6: II. Reigen

1.4. Three Pieces, Op. 6: III. Marsch

1.5. Der Wein

1.6. Passacaglia

1.7. Violin Concerto: I. Andante – Allegretto

1.8. Violin Concerto: II. Allegro – Adagio

2.1. Three Fragments From 'Wozzeck': I. Act I, Scenes 2 And 3

2.2. Three Fragments From 'Wozzeck': II. Act III, Scene I

2.3. Three Fragments From 'Wozzeck': III. Act III, Scenes 4 And 5

2.4. Symphonic Pieces From 'Lulu': I. Rondo

2.5. Symphonic Pieces From 'Lulu': II. Ostinato

2.6. Symphonic Pieces From 'Lulu': III. Lied Der Lulu

2.7. Symphonic Pieces From 'Lulu': IV. Variationen

2.8. Symphonic Pieces From 'Lulu': V. Adagio

2.9. Der Wein

2.10. Wein, Weib Und Gesang!

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Arnold Schönberg - Moses und Aron

"With sketches for an unfinished orchestral passacaglia in March 1920, Schoenberg began to work out the implications of the serial idea. A catch-as-catch-can life as teacher, lecturer, and conductor was relieved in 1925 by an appointment from the Prussian Academy of Arts to take over the composition masterclass formerly taught by Busoni, who had died the year before. The relative security of his new position allowed Schoenberg leisure to expand, hand-in-hand with composition, the grasp of serial procedures. In 1898 Schoenberg had become, like Mendelssohn, a convert to Lutheranism, though that did not shield him from virulent anti-Semitism, and through the 1920s he was preoccupied with his position as a Jew and an artist, eventually returning formally to Judaism in the summer of 1933. Already in 1917 he had begun the composition of Die Jakobsleiter, a large-scale oratorio in which a variety of religious and philosophical stances are brought before the archangel Gabriel. Tellingly, this work, like Moses und Aron, was to remain incomplete. Schoenberg's religious concerns became more topically focused in the drama Der biblische Weg, written over 1926-1927, whose protagonist, Max Aruns -- a composite whose dichotomy would be articulated in Moses und Aron -- was modeled on Zionist leader Theodor Herzl. A first draft libretto of Moses und Aron, conceived as an oratorio, followed in 1928, with the composition of the comic opera Von heute auf Morgen. Composition of the first two acts of Moses und Aron, as an opera, occupied Schoenberg from May 1930 to March 1932. Based upon a single row, serialism attains its grandest throw, given vivacity and dramatic impetus by the astonishing array of techniques -- Sprechgesang, Klangfarbenmelodie, contrapuntally rich choral writing -- fashioned over a lifetime to find their ultimate expressive purpose in Moses und Aron. Moses' uncompromising adherence to an omnipotent, inconceivable God, for instance, is conveyed by Sprechstimme, while Aron's attempts to win the people to it are couched in glib arioso - an audible representation of the artist's uneasy mixture of truth and illusion, intellectual probity and charisma. The impact of Moses und Aron, in the hands of a great conductor, is immediate, visceral, and compelling. Hitler's rise and Schoenberg's emigration to America in 1933 put the completion of Moses und Aron -- a third act dialogue in which Aron dies - forever out of reach. The torso received its premiere at the Zurich Stadttheater June 6, 1957, not quite six years after its composer's death." (Summary by Adrian Corleonis. From AllMusic. See here.)

Performers: Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Leipzig, Rundfunkchor Leipzig, Herbert Kegel, Werner Haseleu, Reiner Goldberg

1.1. Akt I, Szene I: 'Einziger, Ewiger, Allgegenwärtiger'

1.2. Akt I, Szene II: 'Du Sohn Meiner Väter'

1.3. Akt I, Szene III: 'Ich Hab' Ihn Gesehn'

1.4. Akt I, Szene IV: 'Bringt Ihr Erhörung'/'In Der Wüste Wird Euch Die Reinheit'

2.1. Zwischenspiel: 'Wo Ist Moses?'

2.2. Akt II, Szene I: 'Vierzig Tage!'

2.3. Akt II, Szene II: 'Wo Ist Moses?'/'Volk Israels!'

2.4. Akt II, Szene III: 'Dieses Bild Bezeugt'

2.5. Akt II, Szene IV: 'Moses Steigt Vom Berg Herab!'

2.6. Akt II, Szene V: 'Aron, Was Hast Du Getan?'/'Unvorstellbarer Gott!'

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Tetsuo Furudate - Macbeth

Hugely overlooked predecessor to Furudate's 2001 "Othello as Noise Opera" (see here). Released on Japanese experimental label SSE Communications in 1993, this project is an interpretation of Shakespeare's play in noise form. Psychologically rich atmosphere, spoken sections and highly skilled electroacoustic/noise work make this a tragedy not only in terms of the subject matter, but in terms of being an early and pretty much ignored example of noise as serious interpretive art.

1. Scene 1

2. Scene 2

3. Scene 3

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Herbert Howells - Piano Concerto No. 2; String Concerto; Three Dances

"What a sea change there has been in public opinion in the last ten years or so which has made the recording of the music here not only possible but desirable. Two of the works have not been heard since their first performances (Three Dances, 1915; Piano Concerto, 1925) until 1989 when the present write put together a 'Composer of the Week' series on Radio 3, concentrating for the first time on the orchestral music. It was a revelation.

"Herbert Howells was the most brilliant student of his generation at the Royal College of Music and was dubbed his 'son in music' by the notoriously difficult Sir Charles Stanford, his composition teacher. Sir Arthur Bliss, who went to the RCM a year after Howells having done a music degree at Cambridge, remembers:

"'Howells had the outstanding talent. His quickly written scores, showing a beautiful resolute calligraphy, with their technical maturity simply disheartened me. I had to learn one of the most painful lessons of my life, that there are other who are born with more gifts than oneself; no amount of self-confidence can at heart convince one to the contrary.'

"What is the reason for the neglect over so many years of almost all of Howells's orchestral music? The answer, perhaps, is twofold. Firstly, Howells was notoriously sensitive to criticism. An adverse word from any source would trigger the immediate withdrawal of a work from circulation. Why this was so is difficult to say. Probably the answer lies in his being put on a pedestal by Stanford where he was led to believe that everything he did was good. When subsequently he was prey to the whims and prejudices of the lions' den of the critical press he did not have the inner self-confidence and strength to cope with their claws. Secondly, where he once said 'there's no room for symphonic lengths these days' (feeling, perhaps, that the concert-going public's attention span was not capable of taking a major new symphonic work), in reality it was not his way and that was just what the public did want.

"Of the three works recorded here, two - the Piano Concerto and the Concerto for String Orchestra - are major three-movement works. The 'Three Dances', on the other hand, are delightful miniatures, written in 1915 in relatively carefree student days (relatively, because the Great War was already a year old and Howells, through ill health which nearly killed him in 1917, was exempted from active service). They were composed for a young fellow-student George Whittaker, a highly gifted violinist who had entered the College aged only eleven. Certainly the music has no hint of the momentous events beginning to take shaep and which would fundamentally affect one of his closest friends, Ivor Gurney, and kill a number of others. The Dances are, in fact, extremely sunny pieces, not yet imbued with the Howellsian pathos which grew to dominate his mode of speech. To this end they are as yet uncharacteristic, speaking more of his teacher's influence than of his own intuitive nature which was still to come to its maturity. Putting that aside, however, what lovely pieces they are! The first, quite big-scale, is almost a gypsy dance with some brilliantly colourful orchestration laid out for large forces. In the manuscript Howells writes at the end that he finished the score in bed. It is nice to know that student habits don't change over the years!

"The second Dance has on of the most beguiling tunes of the period. To some extent it is the change in his later music away from writing to a tune to creating long-breathed, melismatic phrases, which creates the aural problem for the unsophisticated listener who wants the 'anchorage' which a regular-metre melody gives. Here, though, there is no problem. Why this Dance alone did not become a classic 'pop' of the period is difficult to understand, though it is probably bound up with Howells's reticence and his impatience, as a student, to be getting on with the next project.

"The last Dance is, by contrast, short and furious, providing an exquisite foil to the others. Here is Howells, already, aged only twenty-three, a consummately skilled orchestrator, a highly gifted creator of atmosphere (one of the most important features of his mature style) and having a considerable skill with both form and melody.

"Ten years on from the composition of those Dances Howells was a familiar name. He had been thrust into the limelight in 1916 with the publication of his Piano Quartet in A minor under the auspices of the Carnegie Trust. Amongst the seven composers chosen to have works published, Howells's was the only unknown name, and his was the only piece of chamber music. The Quartet was also the first to be published.

"In these early years it appeared that nothing could stop Howells's meteoric rise to stardom. Music flowed from him in an unstoppable flood of inspiration; orchestral works, a remarkable series of chamber works including three String Quartets (the Third, 'In Gloucestershire', recorded on Hyperion CDA66139) and a Clarinet Quintet (recorded on Hyperion CDA 66428), music for piano, for organ, three violin sonatas, solo songs including 'King David' - one of the classics of the period - and works for chorus and orchestra including a Gloucester Three Choirs Festival commission in 1922 at the behest of Elgar, called 'Sine Nomine', which only had its second performance this year (1992), also at Gloucester.

"The came a commission from the Royal Philharmonic Society for a 'Piano Concerto' for performance in the Queen's Hall, London, in 1925. Sargent was to conduct (his debut with the Society) and Harold Samuel (famous for his Bach recitals) was to be soloist. The first signs of a problem arose when Samuel received the score and found that he heartily disliked the work. The composer Howard Ferguson, who was a pupil of Samuel's and lived in his house at the time, remembers helping Samuel to learn the work by being the 'orchestra' on a second piano. He recalls that Samuel tried to get the Society to release him from the engagement which they refused to do, and so the performance went ahead as planned.

"It was a mark of Howells's burgeoning reputation that the performance was widely anticipated in London musical circles and that the programme in which it was placed included recent works by composers of the previous generation - Vaughan Williams's 'Pastoral Symphony', Ireland's 'Mai Dun', and music by Bax and Berners. However, the performance was to all intents and purposes a disaster. Certainly, for Howells, it contained the seeds of self-destruction. As a critic noted:

"'Our Royal and ancient Philharmonic Society has given many first performances of works by the world's greatest musicians, but the event to which I refer was specially remarkable because at the conclusion of the Concerto there was the usual spontaneous applause, but on this occasion mixed with angry shouts of disapproval from one gentleman in the audience. For a few seconds there was a shocked silence, and then the applause broke out with a renewed force as a sort of counter-protest against the unseemly conduct of the gentleman who evidently did not like music of a modernity unpalatable to his taste.'

"The reception of this work caused Howells to freeze as a composer. Although the Concerto was at proof stage with the publishers he instantly withdrew it and virtually stopped composing for some ten years, writing in the interim only very small-scale pieces and revising some early compositions.

"All this was, of course, a huge over-reaction to a histrionic display which, in any country other than England, would have been regarded as par for the course and merely amusing. To the oversensitive Howells, though, it was a nightmare. Late in his life the pianist Hilary Macnamara persuaded him to have another look at it. He began revising the work but soon put it aside again.

"The Concerto is a big-scale three-movement work which is designed on a very unusual ground plan (which was possibly what led to the outburst). Howells organized three movements as a huge sonata-form structure with the first movement acting as the exposition, the slow movement as the development, and the last movement as a modified recapitulation (all the movements are linked). To this extent the constant referral back to the first subject (a short, diatonic tune) can become monotonous unless sympathetically interpreted. The problems at the first performance were exacerbated by unsympathetic performers. This must have come across to any with ears to hear.

"In describing the form of the work, Howells also hints at something deeper which was to become such a hallmark of his style later on: 'What always matters to a modern is to express a complex mood. Now for that, sonata form is not always suitable, or a sonata for as hitherto accepted.' This 'complex mood' was something which Vaughan Williams brought to perfection in his utterly original 'Pastoral Symphony'. Howells described this more fully in a penetrating article in 'Music and Letters' in April 1922:

"'He neither depicts nor describes. It is not his concern to 'make the universe his box of toys.' He builds up a great mood, insistent to an unusual degree, but having in itself far more variety than a merely slight acquaintance with it would suggest. In matter and manner it is entirely personal... You may not like the Symphony's frame of mind; but there it is, strong and courageous; it is the truth of the work, and out of it would naturally arise whatever risk it has run of being publicly cold-shouldered.'

"Howells's Second Piano Concerto is full of drama and lyricism. He intended it to be 'a diatonic affair, with deliberate tunes all the way [...] jolly in feeling, and attempting to get to the point as quickly as maybe.' Certainly it is a 'tour de force' and is quite unlike any other Concerto of the period. With its brilliant use of the orchestra and its colourful effects it must have sounded very modern indeed to that audience on the 27 April 1925.

"In 1935 Howells's only son died of polio, aged only nine. It was another and far more devastating moment in his life. Emotionally paralysed for some time, he began to pick up composition against as a means of purging the ghost of his son. Before the boy's death Howells had been composing a work for string orchestra to commemorate the recent death of Elgar. In 1938 he completed it, giving it the title 'Concerto for String Orchestra'. Not all of it was new: the first movement was an extensive re-working of the ebullient 'Preludio' from an early string orchestra Suite of 1917, the second movement of which became a separate work - the 'Elegy' for viola, string quartet and strings, one of the composer's most beautiful orchestral works. The second movement jointly commemorates Elgar and Michael Howells. Howells called it 'submissive and memorial in its intention and purpose.' The third movement balances the first in its energy and drive.

"Howells described the inspiration behind the work:

"'It was meant to be a modest expression of the abiding spell of music for strings, and the be, in that genus, in humble relationship to two supreme works, Vaughan Williams' Tallis Fantasia, and Elgar's Introduction and Allegro. In 1910 at the Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester Cathedral I was present at the first performance of the Fantasia. Within days, and for the first time, I hard the Introduction and Allegro. I was at the time 17; deeply impressionable. 25 years later, again at Gloucester, walking with Sir Edward Elgar in the cathedral precincts, he talked quietly and earnestly of the technique of writing for strings. One name dominated his talk, George Frederick Handel.'

"The death of Howells's son ironically unlocked the frozen powers which had stopped him composing after the debacle of the Second Piano Concerto. He went on to write his undisputed masterpiece, 'Hymnus Paradisi', and the whole emphasis of his work shifted from music for the concert hall to music either for the church, or choral music with non-liturgical religious texts such as the 'Stabat Mater' written in the mid-fifties. This (the church music) is the music by which he is best known. Recordings such as this serve to redress the imbalance which has existed for years in the appreciation of Howells's output by giving us the opportunity to reassess these major orchestral scores through which Howells's career developed and his musical personality reached maturity. (Paul Spicer. From the liner notes.)

Performers: Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Vernon Handley, Kathryn Scott, Malcolm Stewart

1. String Concerto: I. Allegro, Assai Vivace

2. String Concerto: II. Quasi Lento. Teneramente

3. String Concerto: III. Allegro Vivo. Ritmico E Giocoso

4. Three Dances, Op. 7: I. Giocoso Molto

5. Three Dances, Op. 7: II. Quasi Lento, Quieto

6. Three Dances, Op. 7: III. Molto Allegro

7. Piano Concerto No. 2 In C Minor: I. Allegro (Hard And Bright) -

8. Piano Concerto No. 2 In C Minor: II. Poco Lento, Calmato -

9. Piano Concerto No. 2 In C Minor: III. Allegro (Hard And Bright Again)

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Carl Nielsen - Symphonies Nos. 4 & 5

"Despite being born in the same year, Nielsen and Sibelius, the twin peaks of Nordic symphonism, pursued wholly independent paths. Where Sibelius's First Symphony (1899, rev. 1900) took Borodin and Tchaikovsky as its starting point, Nielsen's (1891-94) paid homage to Berlioz, Grieg and Svendsen. And while Sibelius gradually stripped away elements of Romanticism and went ever deeper into elemental representations of Nature and movement, Nielsen accumulated, explored ever wider horizones, and rather than moving away from his roots made symphonic dramas from confronting them with new, often inimical forces.

"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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Carl Nielsen - Symphonies Nos. 2 & 6

"Nielsen was one of life's people watchers. From the time of his rustic upbringing on the island of Funen he was a talented mimic (a gift he seems to have inherited from his father), and he became known as a marvellous conversationalist and raconteur. His compulsive interest in all that was robust and healthy in human nature, no matter if that meant rough edges or strongly differing views from his own, also inspired him to some of his finest music.

"No single work exemplifies Nielsen's gift for musical empathy morte thrillingly than his 'Second Symphony'. It dates from 1902-02, a time when he was earning his living mainly as a somewhat frustrated second violinist in the orchestra of the Royal Opera in Copenhagen. The origins of the work, as he explained in a programme note near the end of his life, were in an allegorical picture he came across in a country inn, illustrating the Four Temperaments - the moods determined by the mixture of fluids in the body, at least according to medical theory with roots in the Ancient Greeks and Romans and still commonly believed up to the early 1800s. Imbalance between these fluids could supposedly create a disposition towards anger (choler), apathy (phlegm), sadness (melancholy) or carefree abandon (sanguinity). The comically exaggerated visual images of those characteristics apparently stayed with Nielsen and he soon saw their potential to map on the four movements of the traditional symphony.

"In the painting the Choleric temperament was apparently shown as a swash-buckling horse-rider: 'his eyes were bulging out of his head, his hair streamed wildly around his face, so distorted with rage and diabolical hatred that I could not help bursting out laughing'. Nielsen's symphonic equivalent is no laughing matter, however. A fiery Berliozian 'allegro', marked from the outset by slashing off-beat accents and rushing scale passages, its lyrical contrasts are like episodes in which the main character regrets his wildness without being able to prevent its return. Something close to this scenario would serve Nielsen again a quarter of a century later as the basis for his Clarinet Concerto.

"In complete contrast, the second movement, the Phlegmatic, is so easy-paced that it nearly falls asleep: 'I visualized a young fellow whose real inclination was to lie where the birds sing, where the fish glide noiselessly through the water, where the sun warms and the wind strokes mildly round one's curls.' Anyone who knows Nielsen's genial autobiography, 'My Childhood on Funen', will realise how close such an image was to his own nature, or at least to one part of it. In this movement, especially in the lazy undulating triads of the middle section, is contained the seed for the kind of inertia that would eventually take on a very different aspect: as a life-threatening - indeed life-on-earth-threatening - force in Nielsen's later symphonies.

"Next comes the Melancholic temperament, which like the Phlegmatic has little by way of contrast in its personality, other than a gravely beautiful, resigned episode in the middle. Again like its Phlegmatic counterpart, the movement becomes increasingly static, until, in the composer's words 'the parts intertwine like the threads of a net'. Even so, Nielsen was incapable of drawing anything other than a rounded character-portrait, and he give his 'heavy, melancholy man' a mitigating quality of stoical nobility from the outset. Eventually the music find its way to a calm and touching self-knowledge.

"Psychological progress of some such kind also underpins the Sanguine finale. This begins as the sketch of a man who 'storms thoughtlessly on in the belief that the whole world belongs to him, and that roast pigeons will fly into his mouth without work or bother'. However, 'Just once it seems that he has encountered something really serious; at least he meditates over something that is alien to his own nature, and it seems to affect him, so that while the final march may be happy and bright, it is still more dignified and not as silly and smug as some his previous bursts of activity.' In musical terms this is where Nielsen's famous 'progressive tonality' kicks in, as the movement - and indeed the entire symphony - ends in a brighter key than the one in which it began, as if to symbolise that adventure and self-transformation may be even higher values than empathy.

"In the post-Great War era, Nielsen's Fourth and Fifth Symphonies brought him the greatest measure of professional recognition he ever enjoyed in his lifetime. Critics in Scandinavia who had been troubled by what they saw as a veil of wilful experimentation in his earlier works were now, paradoxically, bowled over by these far more challenging masterpieces. Perhaps they got the point - and perhaps Nielsen himself made it easier for them to get the point - that what they had been bothered about was actually a deliberate negative polarity in an abstract human drama, rather than any kind of weakness or 'Schadenfreude'. Music of tough-minded, recalcitrant, even rebarbative kind was simply Nielsen's way of enshrining the struggles he perceived to be at the core of existence. Given what the First World War had done for the moral climate in Europe, that message was no hard to mistake.

"However, for the composer himself, the edge was taken off his creative triumphs by the realisation that he was not making the international headway he felt he deserved. He found little to admire in the European musical scene in the 1920s, with its extremes of hedonism and self-abnegation. And to make matters worse, his health was being undermined by heart problems that first manifested themselves seriously after his intense work on the Fifth Symphony. In any case, his abiding instinct for adventure dictated that his next symphony would have to move to a different arena. But where to, precisely, given that he had so recently scaled such mighty peaks?

"His first thought was, in effect, to take his cue from the work he had been doing for more than a decade in the area of folk-popular song. Accordingly, as he wrote to one of his daughters in August 1924, he envisaged a work that would be 'quite idyllic in character, beyond all time-bound taste and fashion... like the old 'a cappella' musicians'. But Nielsen was never one for planning out the precise route in advance, and this time his journey took him to regions far removed from the opening bars, with their tinkling glockenspiel, genial woodwind scales and childlike violins over tick-tock oboes and bassoons.

"In an intervew published two days before the first performance on 11th December 1925, he was asked about the title of the symphony. 'I've named it 'Sinfonia semplice',' he replied, 'because the main character is in a lighter vein than my other symphonies - there are merry things in it.' The interviewer pressed him further, no doubt because the composer had been in the news that year: at the time of the national celebrations for his 60th birthday, he had made unexpectedly cynical pronouncements on the career of a composer. Nielsen was adamant: 'The symphony has nothing whatsoever to do with my states of mind. What I experience in life never directly affects my music.' But he went on to give what may be an important clue to the tone of the symphony: 'It's natural for us to long for what we don't have.' In other words, the 'Sinfonia semplice' is not so much a simple symphony - far from it - but rather one that longs for a state of simplicity, more particularly for a return to the state of its opening bars.

"The symphony's final movement is, in fact, one of Nielsen's most tragic and full-worked out musical dramas, for all that it is expressed in a twelve-minute time-span and in highly economical texture. Each of its half-dozen main ideas is beguilingly innocent on initial presentation, but each is brutalised in the central phase of the movement, culminating in a full-scale panic attack and an agonisingly prolonged dissonance on horns and woodwin. This is, in effect, as anti-heroic a symphonic movement as anything in Shostakovich - who was composing his First Symphony at precisely the same time, but who almost certainly did not know Nielsen's music until much later in life.

"If this first movement is disturbing, what follows is even more so. A self-styled Humoresque, the second movement's prevailing tone is sardonic, yet not so obviously so that Nielsen felt it could speak for itself. In one and the same interview, two days before the premier in December 1925, he stressed that the symphony protrayed 'purely musical problems', yet then immediately contradicted himself, describing the percussion waking up the other instrumnts, which proceed to play 'modern music', arousing their distaste and later the contempt of the trombone, which plays yawning glissandi, as if to say 'Baa, baby food!', before the all fall peacefully asleep again. What is alarming about this satirical picture is a sense that the composer's own voice is virtually absent, having been so integral to the drama of the first movement.

"Then it seems that the slow movement may redress the balance. Nielsen's 'serious proposition' is an intense Bartókian fugue in the strings - the opening repeated notes harking right back to the first bar of the symphony. This is the sort of writing he had deployed so inspiringly in the second movement of the Fifth Symphony, to absorb negativity and to prepare the ground for a final burst of life-affirmation. This time, however, everything collapses and the music becomes entangled in a mesh of its own fevered anxiety - like the Melancholic Temperament but at a higher, existential level. The best it can hope for is a pale reconciliation to the status quo, blearily expressed in the closing bars.

"Before composing the finale Nielsen declared it would be a 'a variations work, a cosmic chasos, who atoms [...] clarify and unite to form a globe'. Yet again, however, the concept darkened as he worked on it. The variations are certainly there, and in the middle of the movement something very much like cosmic chaos indeed comes across the music. But the envisaged gathering into wholeness encounters obstacles that for once in his symphonic career prove insuperable. As the composer confided to a friend, the bizarre variation with tuba and percussion represents 'death knocking at the door', and the concluding fanfares therefore cannot be other than a death-defying gesture. Finally the two bassoons are left honking out their lowest note with all their might. Thus the greatest life-affirmer in the 20th-century symphonic tradition ends his last symphony by symbolically giving death the finger." (David Fanning, 2014. From the liner notes.) 

Performers: Kungliga Filharmonikerna, Sakari Oramo

1. Symphony No. 2, Op. 16, FS 29 'De Fire Temperamenter': I. Allegro Colleric

2. Symphony No. 2, Op. 16, FS 29 'De Fire Temperamenter': II. Allegro Comodo E Flemmatico

3. Symphony No. 2, Op. 16, FS 29 'De Fire Temperamenter': III. Andante Malincolico

4. Symphony No. 2, Op. 16, FS 29 'De Fire Temperamenter': IV. Allegro Sanguineo

5. Symphony No. 6, FS 116 'Sinfonia Semplice': I. Tempo Giusto

6. Symphony No. 6, FS 116 'Sinfonia Semplice': II. Humoresque. Allegretto

7. Symphony No. 6, FS 116 'Sinfonia Semplice': III. Proposta Seria. Adagio

8. Symphony No. 6, FS 116 'Sinfonia Semplice': IV. Theme And Variations. Allegro

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