Nielsen by E. T.

No, this post has nothing to do with extra-terrestrials! Several weeks ago, I had two different conductors with the same initials featured in one composer at this post. Just so, now I present two different conductors with the initials "E.T." performing Nielsen - more fruits of my recent splurgings on Danish 78s. The details:

Nielsen: En Sagadrøm (A Saga Dream), Op. 39
Copenhagen Royal Opera Orchestra conducted by Egisto Tango
Recorded February 27, 1942
HMV DB 5263, one 78-rpm record
Link (FLAC file, 22.27 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 14.67 MB)

Nielsen: Little Suite for Strings, Op. 1
Danish State Broadcasting Orchestra conducted by Erik Tuxen
Recorded April 7, 1948
Columbia DDX 17 and 18, two 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC file, 38.74 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 23.71 MB)

The Sagadrøm record is a real gem, and as for the Little Suite, has there ever been an Opus 1 as accomplished, and as fully characteristic of its composer?

I didn't mean to be gone quite so long, but on top of computer problems, which I'm still working on, I've had to deal with Hurricane Irma, which we in Atlanta didn't get the full brunt of, as Florida did, but we got quite enough - sustained winds of 40 miles per hour, sometimes gusting to 60, and over 3 inches of rain in a single day. The past weekend saw me frantically elevating hundreds of records from the floor of my basement, in anticipation of water from the storm coming in, which, thankfully, didn't happen, but it's always better to be safe than sorry!

Herman D. Koppel

Herman D. Koppel

Nineteen years ago this month, the world of Danish music lost one of its last living links with Carl Nielsen in the passing of pianist and composer Herman David Koppel (1908-1998). (His brother was the violinist Julius Koppel.) Of Jewish heritage, Koppel, who had to flee Denmark in 1943 when the Nazis placed the country under direct military occupation, had considered Nielsen a mentor and had played the composer's piano works in his presence. Koppel made multiple recordings of Nielsen's piano music, of which these appear to be among the first:

Nielsen: Theme and Variations, Op. 40 and Chaconne, Op. 32
Herman D. Koppel, piano
Recorded December 13, 1940
HMV DB 5252 through DB 5254, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 65.99 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 40.48 MB)

Koppel died on Bastille Day, and here he is playing French music - only the second recording ever made of Poulenc's delightful Trio (after the composer's own, for Columbia, in 1928):

Poulenc: Trio for Oboe, Bassoon and Piano (1926)
Waldemar Wolsing, oboe; Carl Bloch, bassoon; Herman D. Koppel, piano
Recorded c. 1950
Metronome CL 3000 and CL 3001, two 10-inch 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC file, 32.22 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 18.71 MB)

Metrnonome Records was an independent Swedish label founded in 1949 by two jazz enthusiasts, brothers Anders and Lars Burman. This was one of their few classical issues.

More from the Erling Bloch Quartet

In time for Carl Nielsen's birthday this year (June 9), I present the first recording ever made of a string quartet by him, done during the early months of the Nazi occupation of Denmark by the Erling Bloch Quartet. This recording does not appear to have been reissued on CD; Danacord passed over it in favor of the Koppel Quartet's 1954 account (though their 1984 LP set of early Nielsen chamber recordings did contain a rather inept transfer). I also offer two single discs by the Erling Bloch ensemble to ride, as it were, the coattails of the Nielsen. The details:

Nielsen: Quartet No. 4 in F Major, Op. 44
The Erling Bloch Quartet (Bloch-Pedersen-Kassow-Svendsen)
Recorded October 26, 1940
HMV DB 1-3, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 71.21 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 42.42 MB)

Hakon Børresen: Scherzo (from Quartet No. 2 in C Minor, 1939)
and
Schubert: Quartettsatz in C Minor, D. 703
The Erling Bloch Quartet (Bloch-Friisholm-Kassow-Svendsen)
Recorded November 19, 1942
HMV DB 5282, one 78-rpm record
Link (FLAC files, 23.70 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 14.98 MB)

Stravinsky: Concertino for String Quartet (1920)
The Erling Bloch Quartet (Bloch-Friisholm-Kassow-Christiansen)
Recorded August 26, 1952
HMV DA 5275, one 10-inch 78-rpm record
Link (FLAC file, 13.81 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 9.16 MB)

The delightful scherzo by Hakon Børresen (1876-1954), a Dane of Norwegian heritage who studied with Johan Svendsen, reminds me of the Scherzo of Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony, with its pizzicato main section and arco middle section. Yes, the Schubert is complete on one side, thanks to a brisk tempo and the omission of the repeat. The Stravinsky is, I believe, the ensemble's last recording to be issued as a 78,

The issue series in which the Nielsen set found itself was HMV's first automatic set series in Denmark, most of whose numbers were recorded during the Second World War (except for one reissue). I am aware of the existence of the following issues in it:

DB 1-3  Nielsen: Quartet No. 4 (Erling Bloch Quartet)
DB 4-6  Schubert: Fantasia in C, Op. 159  (Erling Bloch, Lund Chistiansen)
DB 7-9  Schubert: "Unfinished" Symphony  (Stokowski, from 1927 Victors)
DB 10-13  Beethoven: "Kreutzer" Sonata  (Bloch, Christiansen)
DB 14-16  Beethoven: "Spring" Sonata  (Bloch, Christiansen)
DB 17-20  Nielsen: Symphony No. 2  (Jensen, earlier recording from 1944)

Nielsen: Aladdin Suite (Felumb)

This week I present what appears to be the first recording of an orchestral work of Carl Nielsen to occupy more than one record (perhaps, even, more than one side) - five movements from his 1919 incidental music to Adam Oehlenschläger's "dramatic fairy tale" Aladdin. It isn't a work of blazing importance in his oeuvre, perhaps, but it is a lot of fun, and has all the quirkiness I find to be characteristic of Nielsen's music. Outstanding is the section entitled "Torvet i Ispahan" (The Market Place at Ispahan), in which four different sections of the orchestra play simultaneously at different speeds! It's conducted here by Svend Christian Felumb (1898-1872) who, one week before this recording was made, played oboe and English horn on the seminal recording of Nielsen's Wind Quintet.

Nielsen: Suite from the Incidental Music for "Aladdin" (Op. 34)
Tivoli Concert Orchestra conducted by Svend Christian Felumb
Recorded January 31, 1936
and
Nielsen: Maskarade - Prelude to Act II
Royal Danish Opera Orchestra conducted by Johan Hye-Knudsen
Recorded c. February 1936
HMV X 4676, Z 231 and Z 232, one 10-inch and two 12-inch 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 55.76 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 34.72 MB)

Happy 150th, Carl Nielsen!

This year marks the 150th birth anniversaries of two giants of Scandinavian music - Jean Sibelius and Carl Nielsen. Sibelius' anniversary won't be for another six months, but Nielsen's is this Tuesday, June 9, and so I present two early recordings of his music - one of them, as far as I can determine, the very first recording of a large-scale work by Nielsen, a youthful violin sonata as played by his son-in-law Emil Telmányi:

Nielsen: Violin Sonata No. 1 in A Major, Op. 9
Emil Telmányi, violin, and Christian Christiansen, piano
Recorded October 13, 1935
HMV DB 2732 through DB 2734, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 59.79 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 35.36 MB)

The other offering is a mature piano work in a recording from late in the 78-rpm era:

Nielsen: Theme and Variations, Op. 40
Arne Skjold Rasmussen, piano
Recorded January 17, 1952
Tono A-177 and A-178, two 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC file, 33.85 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 24.70 MB)

Apropos of Sibelius and Nielsen, the two appear to have been friends. And the Finn admired the Dane's music greatly; the story goes that Sibelius, perhaps embarrassed by the obvious disparity in their worldly success, generously told or wrote to Nielsen (sources seem to differ which), "I don't even reach as high as your ankles!"

Nielsen: Early Chamber Music Recordings

The Royal Danish Orchestra Wind Quintet:
Gilbert Jespersen, Aage Oxenvad, Hans Sørensen,
Knud Lassen, Svend Christian Felumb

The year 1922 saw the composition of two towering masterpieces of the wind quintet genre, utterly dissimilar from each other: Hindemith's Kleine Kammermusik, and Carl Nielsen's Quintet, Op. 43, written for four of the five players pictured above. The exception, Gilbert Jespersen, didn't join the group until 1929; in the meantime, Nielsen had written his Flute Concerto for him. Nielsen actually intended to write a concerto for each wind instrument, but only the ones for flute and clarinet had been written before he died in 1931 - surely one of the most tantalizing projects in music history, along with Debussy's set of six sonatas for diverse instruments, to be cut short by its composer's death. To return to the Quintet, however, this recording of it by the work's dedicatees became the major vehicle for Nielsen's fame outside Denmark, long before his symphonies were known:

Nielsen: Quintet for winds, Op. 43
The Royal Danish Orchestra Wind Quintet
Recorded January 24, 1936
and
Nielsen: Taagen letter (The Fog is Lifting)
(from the incidental music for "Moderen", Op. 41)
Gilbert Jespersen (flute) & Mrs. Valborg Paulsen (harp)
Recorded January 31, 1936
HMV DB 5200 through DB 5203, four 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 75.51 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 45.33 MB)

This recording was the first entry in HMV's Scandinavian Red Label series; the next was another Nielsen recording, featuring three of the same players, of this amusing piece depicting a group of strolling musicians who, after two fruitless attempts to serenade a lady, give it up as a lost cause:

Nielsen: Serenata in Vano (1914)
Aage Oxenvad (clarinet), Knud Lassen (bassoon), Hans Sørensen (horn),
Louis Jensen (cello), Louis Hegner (bass)
Recorded February 2, 1937
HMV DB 5204, one 78-rpm record
Link (FLAC file, 22.23 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 13.59 MB)

Nielsen: Violin Sonata No. 2 (Erling Bloch)

Erling Bloch

Some weeks ago, when I offered the Erling Bloch Quartet in Nielsen's Third Quartet, there was a request for this 1938 recording by Erling Bloch - I believe the only one he made of a Nielsen sonata - as it was bypassed in favor of Emil Telmányi's 1954 recording of the same work in Danacord's series of Nielsen reissues on CD.  I don't have that set, but I do have Danacord's LP set from 1984 called "Carl Nielsen: The Premier Chamber Recordings" - which does have this recording, as well as that of the Quartet, but the transfers are so inept that I was moved to seek out the 78s in the belief that I could do better!  So here's my go at the Sonata:

Nielsen: Violin Sonata No. 2, Op. 35

Erling Bloch, violin; Lund Christiansen, piano

Recorded March 1 and May 20, 1938

HMV DB 5219 and DB 5220, two 78-rpm records

Link (FLAC files, 47.79 MB)

Link (MP3 files, 28.64 MB)

Both violinist and pianist were members of the Danish Quartet, as the labels proudly inform us, actually billing the ensemble before naming the players, even though only half of it participated:

Nielsen: Quartet No. 3 (Erling Bloch Quartet)

Erling Bloch Quartet

Carl Nielsen wrote four string quartets, the last one dating from 1906.  This means that all of them are relatively early works, for he lived another twenty-five years.  It has been regretted by many (including the composer's daughter, who is said to have encouraged him, to no avail) that he made no contributions to the genre in his musical maturity, especially as Nielsen was a violinist himself and might be expected to have a special understanding of writing for stringed instruments.  But he wasn't interested, and on the basis of the direction his music took in the last fifteen years, I can understand why: his later works glory in contrasts between instruments, and the homogeneous sound of the string quartet wouldn't offer much scope for that kind of writing.  Be that as it may, there is much to enjoy in the Nielsen quartets, and the present one is, for me, the best of them:

Nielsen: Quartet No. 3 in E-Flat Major, Op. 14
The Erling Bloch String Quartet
Recorded September 22-23, 1946
HMV DB 20100 through DB 20103, four 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 83.07 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 48.10 MB)

The distinguished Danish violinist Erling Bloch (1904-1992) founded the quartet bearing his name in 1933; its other members were Lavard Friisholm, second violin (who later directed the Copenhagen Collegium Musicum, whose recording of Bentzon's Chamber Concerto I uploaded recently), Hans Kassow, viola, and Torben Svendsen, cello.  With Svendsen, Bloch later founded the Danish Quartet, an ensemble consisting of flute (played by Gilbert Jespersen, the dedicatee of Nielsen's Flute Concerto), violin, cello and piano.

Nielsen: Symphony No. 6 (Thomas Jensen)

Cover design by George Maas

The symphonies of Carl Nielsen have, over the past fifty years or so, entered the international concert repertory, thanks in part to the advocacy of conductors with international reputations like Barbirolli, Bernstein and Herbert Blomstedt.  Sixty years ago, however, this wasn't the case; it seems that only Danish conductors and Danish orchestras were recording them.  But what recordings!  There is an intensity and commitment about them that later recordings, for all their relative polish, can't quite match.  The first conductor to record a Nielsen symphony was Thomas Jensen (1898-1963) - the Second, in 1944, for HMV.  Jensen had studied music theory with the composer, and played the cello under his baton.  Here he is leading that Cinderella of the Nielsen symphonic canon, the wonderfully wacky, anything-but-simple Sinfonia Semplice, in its first recording:

Nielsen: Symphony No. 6 ("Sinfonia Semplice")
Danish State Radio Orchestra conducted by Thomas Jensen
Recorded June 17-19, 1952
Mercury MG-10137, one LP record
Link (FLAC files, 80.34 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 55.77 MB)

Nielsen: Violin Concerto (Telmányi)

Carl Nielsen, 1910

Most people, if they remember the name of the Hungarian-born violinist Emil Telmányi (1892-1988) at all, remember it as belonging to the inventor of the spurious Bach bow (or Vega bow), designed to be able to play on, and sustain, all four strings of the violin simultaneously, for use in the unaccompanied Bach violin works.  But Telmányi was also the first internationally famous exponent of the music of Carl Nielsen (whose daughter, Anne Marie, he married in 1918), and made this first recording of Nielsen's Violin Concerto, for me one of the most delightful of all twentieth-century violin concertos, in 1947:

Nielsen: Concerto for violin and orchestra, Op. 33 and
Mozart: Serenade No. 7 in D, K. 250 ("Haffner") - Menuetto
Emil Telmányi with the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Copenhagen,
conducted by Egisto Tango
Recorded June 3-7, 1947
Tono X-25081 through X-25085, five 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 99.4 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 42.37 MB)