Nielsen: Symphony Nos. 1 & 4 (The Inextinguishable)
New York Philharmonic/Alan Gilbert
Da Capo 6.220624
Total Time:  69:24
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

Two years ago, Da Capo released what was a announced as a significant new Nielsen symphony cycle featuring the New York Philharmonic and their director Alan Gilbert.  The historic return to Nielsen’s music with this orchestra was also marked in that review of the 2012 release of the second and third symphonies as they had not been done there since Leonard Bernstein programmed them in the 1960s/1970s.  The present release is also pulled from live concert performances this time recorded more recently (March 2014) .  Paavo Berglund and Herbert Blomstedt are both noted interpreters on disc of Nielsen’s symphonic work.  Gilbert’s approach tends to create a bit more space for outer movements while being fairly close in his slower movements in terms of general time.  Some may find these slightly more expansive interpretations interesting as the emotional punch is certainly heightened by the edginess and attention that occurs in a concert setting versus the studio.

Danish composer Carl Nielsen (1865-1931) is still a bit of an acquired taste.  He wrote six symphonies (1894-1924).  His first symphony (Op. 7) is a bit more traditional sharing a Nordic sensibility found in the early symphonies of Sibelius, or the work of Grieg as one would suspect.  However, this is not a traditional symphony but instead one that reinvents concepts of themes presented in shorter segments often with powerfully-scored emphasis.  Nielsen was also trying to free himself of more academic formal concerns which some feel weaken this early essay.  Though beginning in g minor, the whole piece finds itself winding around to a different key by its conclusion.  Some of this harmonic tension is what makes this a fascinating work.  More recently, his compositional approach is linked to the swirling motifs of the Danish Art Noveau.  While there may be folklike influences, these too are vaguer than one might expect in a piece of its time.  One might find explorations of the landscapes of Northern Europe in this music.  Nonetheless, it is a work that can be quite odd for some hearing it for the first time.

One might say the same of the composer’s fourth symphony which bears the subtitle ‘The Inextinguishable”.  Though cast in four movements, the conception is of one long, continuous and interconnected series of sections.  The first movement starts with a burst of energy before moving into sweeping lyrical thematic presentation that will later prove to be a core motif that will hold things together.  Sometimes the gestures are almost Beethoven-esque in their victorious climaxes but with a definite modern, and perhaps Nordic, twist.  Towards its center there seems to be a growing intensity and tension, a sort of battle between forces (perhaps belying the stormy middle of WWI).  Things become a bit more innocuous in the allegretto second movement; mostly a lighter setting focusing on winds and lending a sense of an innocent everyday carefree life.  This gives over to a more intense despairing third movement with more sinuous lines for strings.  A bit of hope begins to show through with an almost religious like feel at times.  The final movement is a rather fascinating affair with a showdown of sorts between timpani as the music swirls and grows to an ecstatic conclusion.

In what seems to be a modern sequencing choice, the two symphonies are presented out of historical order.  It may make it harder for those new to the pieces to appreciate them on their own terms.  The fourth is an accessible modern symphonic work with the first having one foot in each century.  The performances here are really quite amazing and are superbly captured in great sound here.  There are moments when one forgets we are listening to an American orchestra as the ensemble has managed to gain a real understanding of the style and aesthetic of this music under Gilbert’s leadership.  It will continue to be interesting to watch what future projects will continue to remind the world of the world-class symphony residing in NYC.  This is easily recommendable for those looking for a more recent survey of the first four Nielsen symphonies and we can hope the remainder are not far behind.

Roussel: Piano Music (volume 1)
Jean-Pierre Armengaud
Naxos 8.573093
Total Time:  64:14
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

Ever since first hearing Albert Roussel’s Third Symphony, I have been a fan of his music.  The third symphony is a great example of French Neo-Classicism that has parallels in work by Prokofiev more than say Stravinsky.  Roussel’s early music was still very much a part of the Impressionist milieu but his style would eventually take that atmospheric approach and apply it in often amazing slow movements.  Later, he would adopt some of the wit and jazz flavors favored by Les Six.  That wide range of musical styles that marked Roussel’s lifespan (1869-1937) often makes him more difficult to pinpoint in French musical life.  Interest in line and rhythm might even place him in a sense with Symbolist tendencies.  But his work is certainly worth exploring as it often tends to feature brilliant orchestration and great drama.  The latter is part of some of these more intimate pieces presented in this recital.

Jean-Pierre Armengaud is in the midst of a planned three-volume survey of the composer’s piano music.  The recordings appear to have begun back in 2006 and wrapped up sometime in 2012 by the information included on the present release.  The bulk of this album was recorded in the earlier date.  The program is carefully chosen from Roussel’s mature period in the first two decades of the 20^th Century.  The most substantial work is a 21-minute set of incidental music for the Symbolist work Le Marchand de sable qui passé, Op. 13 (1908) which receives a world premiere in its piano version.  The work certainly shows the chromatic lessons and styles of Wagner and Debussy it helps set the tone for the traditional and expressionistic approaches that are often hallmarks of Roussel’s music.  The opening piece is a Sonatine, Op, 16 composed four years later and showing the more atmospheric style of the composer but also showing signs of the shift to abstract classical forms.  There are some of those flashes of registral technique that sounds very much like Debussy or Ravel, but the tone is a bit darker and one tends to feel more traditional harmonic shifts better.  This is a denser texture than one might find in Ravel and leans more to modernist trends of the period.  The third work is a set of three pieces (Op. 49) dedicated to the great Robert Casadesus and showing how Roussel incorporated jazzy phrasing and a new rhythmic intensity to his music by 1933 where some may hear a bit of Poulenc to come.  The accents and syncopations in the final movement are especially fascinating showing that French interest in Jazz.

The remainder of the disc features a variety of piano miniatures composed between 1904 (”Conte a la poupee”) and 1934 (“Prelude and Fugue”).  The most recent work takes Bach’s name as the subject for its fugue and is preceded by a prelude, the last piano work Roussel composed.  Repetition plays an important role both in terms of rhythm and frequency in this rather unusual prelude filled with ostinato and rapid passagework.  The fugue itself also exhibits some composition slight of hand related to intervals and their inversions.  From 1919, “Doute” is one of those post WWI works that feels set in an uncertain world whose future is equally unstable.  This is followed by another Neo-Baroque work, the “Petit Canon perpetual” from 1912.  Revisiting his love of Debussy, “L’Accueil des Muses” (1920) was part of an issue of works commissioned by La Revue musicale for its Tombeau de Debussy supplement.  A transcription of a guitar work for the great Segovia bears his name in this 1925 work with bolero rhythms.  Finally, the disc closes with a gentle lullaby which also includes a brief canon.

Armengaud has a long discography surveying French piano literature of the late 19^th and early 20^th Century.  He has even written an important biography on Satie.  He makes a convincing case for Roussel’s piano music and is able to help navigate the shifts from 19^th Century Romanticism and Impressionism into Modernist and Expressionist flavors.  The musical soup of Wagner, Debussy, Ravel, D’Indy, and Franck all were part of the world that Roussel lived in and his music an resulting unique style is well worth the time of music lovers of 20^th Century works.  While Roussel’s orchestral music remains some of the finer examples of his art, this collection of pieces is a worth addition for those interested in further exploring his music and bodes very well for the next two to come.  The more formal canon and fugue works are especially interesting historically while the larger pieces provide interesting windows into Roussel’s development as a composer.