Grøndahl Conducts Nielsen's Fourth Symphony

Three conductors are particularly associated with the music of Carl Nielsen - Erik Tuxen, Thomas Jensen and Launy Grøndahl. Today we explore the legacy of Grøndahl, in the form of Nielsen's Fourth Symphony, "The Inextinguishable."

Launy Grøndahl

Grøndahl was the permanent conductor of the Danish National Orchestra (also known as the Danish National Radio Orchestra, among other names) from 1925-56.

I believe this convincing performance was the first recording of the work, which is probably Nielsen's most performed symphony, along with the 5th. It dates from August 1951. The sound is excellent. My transfer comes from a Danish pressing made for export under the Odeon label.

The transfer was made as the result of a request on another site, but I thought some readers here might enjoy it as well.

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Corrected File - Ahronovitch Conducts Nielsen

In my last post, I inadvertently uploaded a mono version of the Nielsen symphony conducted by Yuri Ahronovitch. I've now corrected that error, and a link to the stereo version can be found in both the comments to this post and the original item below.

Sorry for inconveniencing all who downloaded my first attempt!

Ahronovitch Conducts Nielsen

The Russian-Israeli conductor Yuri Ahronovitch (1932-2002) made only a few commercial records, although he was a most interesting musical personality.

Among those recordings was this 1981 live performance of Nielsen's Symphony No. 3 ("Sinfonia Espansiva") with the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra, transferred here from a Unicorn-Kanchana LP.

Yuri Ahronovitch

This is a well-judged, well-played version of Nielsen's wonderful symphony. Ahronovitch was known for his subjective interpretations, but there is little evidence here of that tendency, except for his slamming on the brakes before the symphony's final chord. Unicorn-Kanchana seemingly decided to set up its microphones in the last row of the hall, but the distant sonics are well balanced.

Both the audience and the orchestra were impressed. Unicorn includes four minutes of applause at the conclusion of the performance (which I have put into a separate track), and the orchestra serenades Ahronovitch with a "tusch", a type of musical salute heard occasionally at European concerts. This is the only commercial recording in my collection with such a fanfare, and I have to say it startled me the first time I heard it many years ago.

Ahronovitch, a pupil of Natan Rakhlin, became conductor of the USSR Ministry of Culture Orchestra when he was only 32, holding that post until emigrating to Israel in 1972. Later he was chief conductor of the Cologne Gürzenich Orchestra and the Stockholm Philharmonic.

This is a later recording than I usually post, but I transferred it for another site, and decided to make it available to followers of this blog as well. I will also be transferring Ahronovitch's recording of Taneyev's Fourth Symphony, with the London Symphony.

LINK

NB - Several years ago I posted the first recording of Nielsen's third symphony, also made with the Danish Radio Symphony, and conducted by Erik Tuxen. I've newly remastered that recording, and it is now available via this post.

Scandinavian Special: Music by Larsson, von Koch, Fernström, Nielsen and Schultz

Two LPs of 20th century Scandinavian music today. The first contains music by the Swedes Lars-Erik Larsson, Erland von Koch and John Fernström, transferred in response to a request on another site. The second is of short works by the Dane Carl Nielsen and his follower Svend Schultz.

Larsson, von Koch, Fernström

Lars-Erik Larsson

The highlight of the first LP is the first recording of Lars-Erik Larsson's Violin Concerto, as performed by its dedicatee, André Gertler, relatively soon after its 1952 premiere. The score is in an attractive mid-century modern style. I find the pastoral slow movement particularly enjoyable. Gertler employs his own cadenza; Larsson was to eventually write his own, which was utilized in Leo Berlin's 1976 effort.

The LP is filled out with works by two of Larsson's Swedish contemporaries. Erland von Koch's folkish Oxberg Variations, from 1956, is built on a march theme from Dalecarlia. John Fernström's Concertino for Flute, Women's Chorus and Chamber Orchestra, dating from 1941, is a entertaining but kitschy exercise in exotica. It is a setting in translation of Carl Sandburg's poem "Early Moon," which reads as follows (thanks to Derek Katz for finding this):

THE BABY moon, a canoe, a silver papoose canoe, sails and sails in the Indian west.
A ring of silver foxes, a mist of silver foxes, sit and sit around the Indian moon.
One yellow star for a runner, and rows of blue stars for more runners, keep a line of watchers.
O foxes, baby moon, runners, you are the panel of memory, fire-white writing to-night of the Red Man's dreams.
Who squats, legs crossed and arms folded, matching its look against the moon-face, the star-faces, of the West?
Who are the Mississippi Valley ghosts, of copper foreheads, riding wiry ponies in the night? — no bridles, love-arms on the pony necks, riding in the night a long old trail?
Why do they always come back when the silver foxes sit around the early moon, a silver papoose, in the Indian west?

Sten Frykberg leads the Stockholm Radio Orchestra in the Larsson and Fernström works. Stig Westerberg conducts the Stockholm Symphony (other sources list it as the Stockholm Philharmonic) in the von Koch.

This transfer is from a 1974 Turnabout LP, but all the recordings are from years earlier. As noted, the Larsson is from 1952 or soon thereafter. It was first released by London (and, I believe, Discofil) on the same LP as the 1954 Fernström recording. (That album also contained a work by Karl-Birger Blomdahl, missing here). The Oxberg Variations were taped in May 1960 by Grammofon AB Electra.

The Larsson and Fernström items are mono. I have added an ambient stereo effect to help alleviate the boxiness of the Concertino recording. The von Koch is in good stereo sound.

Nielsen, Schultz

The main work on second LP is a magisterial performance of Nielsen’s 1903 Helios Overture. Nielsen is one of my favorite composers; it’s surprising that he hasn’t appeared here more often than the lone appearance of his Symphony No. 3. The other work on the LP is Svend Schultz’s Serenade for Strings, a much different work from the Nielsen but pleasant enough. Eric Tuxen leads the Danish State Radio Symphony Orchestra in these works. Michael Gray’s discography dates the Nielsen to 1952; presumably the Schultz is of the same vintage.

The transfer is from the original issue on a 10-inch Decca LP, sourced several years ago from the European Archive site and remastered recently by me. The sound is very good.

Tuxen Conducts Nielsen

One of the principal attractions of running a blog like this is that you get to spin records you like and then pontificate about them. Many people listen and some even read what I have to say, so what could be better!

Today we have a real favorite of mine, Carl Nielsen's Symphony No. 3, or Sinfonia Espansiva, as he called it., in what is perhaps the classic recording of the work, by the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra directed by Erik Tuxen (below).

Although he lived until 1931, Nielsen made no recordings of his own music. The early recordings by Tuxen, Launy Grøndahl and Thomas Jensen are considered to have a certain authenticity because they worked with Nielsen. However, since Tuxen was 29 when Nielsen died, I wonder how much the composer actually shaped his interpretation.

That said, this is surely a stirring performance of a splendid work, well played by the Copenhagen forces in characteristic sound from this label at that time (that is, a bit tizzy). The recording was made in January 1946. As far as I have been able to determine, this was the first Nielsen symphony recording, quickly followed by the second symphony under Jensen.

Nielsen was little known outside Scandinavia when these records were made. Today his symphonies are played on an occasional basis, but more often the fourth through the sixth rather than the first through the third. Too bad - this outgoing "expansive symphony" is beautifully wrought and inspiring, and Nielsen's first two efforts are hardly less impressive.

For some reason, this recording was not issued until mid-1949 in England, and then was little trumpeted by Decca, as you will see from the advertisement below from my copy of the June 1949 Gramophone magazine (click to enlarge). Assiduous record collectors will see a number of other items of interest in Decca's offering of that month.

The original issue of the symphony was on 78s, with the overture to Nielsen's opera Maskarade as a fill-up. When the symphony appeared on LP in 1951, the overture was left behind. While I don't have the original coupling, I do have Tuxen's recording of the Helios overture, and will be presenting it later.

This is from a very clean pressing.