Carl Nielsen (1865-1931) is to Denmark as Sibelius in to Finland and Grieg to Norway, but outside the Nordic countries he is much less well known. Why? Like both of them, he portrays his country’s culture and nature in music, but unlike them, Nielsen was not a romantic composer. He forged further forward harmonically than some of his contemporaries, even giants like Richard Strauss or Mahler; following his own muse, as did composers Debussy or Ravel.
Nielsen‘s tone colors are all his own, particularly distinctive in his use of chromaticism in melodic lines, using all the semitones. It makes his musical voice quite unmistakable after hearing just a few measures, especially in his later works, but he shows hints of it in earlier ones such as we heard in an all-Nielsen chamber music concert at the Nordic Heritage Museum Sunday afternoon.
It was presented by the Novus Project, described online as “an unconventional experiment by classical musicians mixing traditional and modern, expected and unexpected, into an eclectic musical experience made possible by musicians of Seattle Symphony Orchestra and friends.”
Five Songs, Op. 6, was Nielsen’s second venture into the artsong field, in which he set poems of love, nature, suffering, nostalgia, often ending softly, the sound dying away. Sung here by soprano Marie Birve with David Barela at the piano, they were expressively varied. The fourth song, one of gloomy prognostication to happy optimists, and the fifth, in folksong style, were particularly effective. Birve’s strong soprano filled the auditorium and Barela was a sensitive, nuanced collaborator.
Violinist Steve Bryant and pianist Allan Dameron undertook Nielsen’s Violin Sonata No. 2 from 1912. Both this and the String Quartet No. 4 (1906, revised 1919) show Nielsen’s individual expressive style, going from lyrical sections to sudden brief driving force and back again. The slow second movement of the sonata has beautiful peaceful moments interspersed with what sound like wails of grief or rage, and then back to a waiting quiet before another major outburst, while the third, much lighter in mood, includes another Nielsen hallmark, many repeated notes and chords.
Effectively played, it would have felt more integrated had the performers kept the sudden loud sections to a forte rather than a triple forte which seemed too much and out of place. Surely there was no need to have the piano lid at full height in such a small hall.
The quartet, four movements in classical arrangement, included many canonic phrases, not shouted at you but slipped in to enjoy. The opening waltz had a delightful galumphing dance section, while strong sober chords in the beautiful second movement demonstrated its title of Religioso. Guileless charm in the third movement also mirrored its title of Scherzo Innocente, while the last was fast and furious.
The group of musicians, violins Steve Bryant and Eugene Bazhanov, violist Sue Jane Bryant and cellist Joy Payton-Stevens, gave an excellent account of a work we have rarely heard here, and it was much appreciated by the audience.
For those whose appetite was whetted, Nielsen’s best known symphony, No. 4, “The Inextinguishable,” is included on the Seattle Symphony program of November 12-14. NPR will let you take a musical tour of Nielsen’s symphonies here.
