All recordingsPrices shown exclude VAT. (UK tax is not payable for deliveries to United States.)
See Terms & Conditions for p&p rates. | |  | Nielsen: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 6
The second release in Sir Colin Davis’s acclaimed Nielsen Symphony cycle features Symphonies Nos 1 & 6. The first title in the series, Symphonies Nos 4 & 5, was an Editor’s Choice in Gramophone and Orchestral Choice of the Month in BBC Music Magazine. The final release in the cycle, Symphonies 2 & 3, will be released at the end of 2012. Nielsen’s First Symphony draws inspiration from Brahms and Dvorak but also contains hints of the progressive tonality for which he was later celebrated. His enigmatic final symphony, entitled 'Sinfonia Semplice' (Simple Symphony), suggesting a work of “entirely idyllic character”, turns out to be anything but this. Though written 30 years apart, both works feature folk-inflections, tonal ambiguity and Nielsen’s distinctive anti-Romantic style. “From the outset of the opening movement’s allegro orgoglioso (proud), the tension never flags...the LSO’s principal trombone relish[es] his derisive “yawns”...With the dazzling final theme and variations, Nielsen grapples with the pessimistic zeitgeist and the inevitability of death, but his spirit ultimately triumphs — as do Davis and the LSO.” Sunday Times, 12th January 2012 “Colin Davis has come late to Carl Nielsen. But his live recordings of the Dane’s symphonies are likely to be as definitive as his earlier discs of Sibelius and Berlioz...Superb performances all round.” The Times, 21st January 2012 ***** “In Davis’s hands the First Symphony is a more substantial work than its reputation would suggest: his performance reveals its Beethovenian dynamism...The Sixth is a superficially jocular work, but thanks to the LSO’s virtuoso handling of its jabs, scowls and woodwind figurations, it emerges as a set of enigmatic variations” Financial Times, 18th February 2012 **** “an often probing account of a perenially disconcerting piece [the Sixth], rendered with evident conviction by the London Symphony...[some] may find Davis underselling what is a symphony in constant and unfulfilled transition. The First Symphony (1892), however, is an almost total success.” International Record Review, February 2012 “More fiery and dramatic Nielsen from Sir Colin Davis and the LSO...The First Symphony here is beautifully paced, balancing drive with poetry. The slow movement may be on the broad side but, buoyed up by such musicianship and affection, it can take it...Davis has his finger on the psychological as well as the rhythmic pulse.” Gramophone Magazine, April 2012 “This is the second instalment of [Davis's] Nielsen Symphony series with the LSO, recorded with admirable clarity and carrying no extra-musical sounds apart from an occasional gasp, groan or semi-melodic hum from the conductor - but there are fewer of those than usual.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2012 **** “The veteran British Sibelian has come late to Nielsen, but his continuing cycle, with the orchestra on its best form, finds him an idiomatic interpreter of the Danish composer’s symphonies.” Sunday Times, 9th December 2012 | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | Nielsen: Symphonies Nos. 4 - 6
Nielsen: | Symphony No. 4, Op. 29 (FS76) 'The Inextinguishable' San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Herbert Blomstedt Little Suite in A minor for strings, Op. 1 (FS6) Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, Ulf Schirmer Hymnus Amoris, Op. 12 (FS21) Barbara Bonney, John Mark Ainsley, Lars Pedersen, Michael W. Hansen, Bo Anker Hansen Copenhagen Boys' Choir / Danish National Radio Choir / Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, Ulf Schirmer Symphony No. 5, Op. 50 (FS97) San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Herbert Blomstedt Symphony No. 6, (FS116) 'Sinfonia semplice' San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Herbert Blomstedt |
“The Fourth and Fifth are two of Nielsen's most popular and deeply characteristic symphonies.
Blomstedt's are splendid performances. The Fourth occupied Nielsen between 1914 and early 1916 and reveals a level of violence new to his art.
The landscape is harsher; the melodic lines soar in a more anguished and intense fashion (in the case of the remarkable slow movement, 'like the eagle riding on the wind', to use Nielsen's own simile). Blomstedt's opening has splendid fire and he isn't frightened of letting things rip. The finale with its exhilarating dialogue between the two timpanists comes off splendidly.
The Fifth Symphony of 1922 is impressive, too: it starts perfectly and has just the right glacial atmosphere. The climax and the desolate clarinet peroration into which it dissolves are well handled. The recording balance couldn't be improved upon: the woodwind are well recessed (though clarinet keys are audible at times), there's an almost ideal relationship between the various sections of the orchestra and a thoroughly realistic overall perspective.
Blomstedt's account of the Sixth Symphony is a powerful one, with plenty of intensity and an appreciation of its extraordinary vision. It's by far the most challenging of the cycle and inhabits a very different world from early Nielsen.
The intervening years had seen the cataclysmic events of the First World War and Nielsen was suffering increasingly from ill health. Blomstedt and the fine San Fransisco orchestra convey the powerful nervous tension of the first movement and the depth of the third, the Proposta seria.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 “an admirable and inexpensive way of collecting Blomstedt's complete cycle of Nielsen's symphonies which is self-recommending. All six performances are among the finest available...To put it briefly, this remains the best all-round modern set of the symphonies, and the bonuses add to its attractions.” Penguin Guide, 2011 edition | | | (Sorry, download not available in your country) | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | Nielsen: Symphonies Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 6
| | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  |
“Adrian Leaper makes good sense of everything.” Gramophone Magazine | | | (also available to download from $5.75) | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | Nielsen - The Symphonies Volume 1
The most important Danish composer of the first part of the twentieth century, Carl Nielsen was prolific in almost all genres. Dissociating himself strongly from Late Romanticism, Nielsen orientated himself increasingly towards the new currents in European music without at any time abandoning his very personal and idiosyncratic style. The Six Symphonies, which become increasingly adventurous as the cycle progresses, are essentially tonal, emotionally direct works, which alternate long lines of melody with passages of blazing energy. The exuberant Symphony No. 1 is here coupled with the enigmatic Symphony No. 6, which has been described as “music of clear sunlight and sudden shadows | | | (also available to download from $5.75) | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. (Available now to download.) |
|
|
| |  |
“A finely paced account with plenty of breath and nobility, and no lack of fire, which can hold its own with the best.” (5 star BBC Music Magazine) “For this new DVD cycle, Schønwandt took orchestra and works back into the concert hall in November 2004, coming out with leaner, fitter accounts, well prepared and played with undeniable enthusiasm. The video direction is of fairly standard concert broadcasting type, mixing orchestral panoramas with interesting details. The direction hits the spot... in the finale of No 4, The Inextinguishable, where the camera angles along both sets of rampaging timpani, with the brass caught between as if in crossfire. The set is augmented by an extra disc with a useful documentary by composer Karl Aage Rasmussen setting the music in the context of Nielsen's turbulent personal life.” Gramophone Magazine, September 2006 | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
|
|
| |  | Nielsen - Symphonies 1 & 6
| | | (also available to download from $10.50) | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. (Available now to download.) |
|
|
| |  | Nielsen Symphonies
| | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
|
|
| |  |
Half a bar of Carl Nielsen and you know it’s him - a characteristic of great composers down the ages, to be sure, but one peculiarly concentrated around nationalist composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Nationalist, not necessarily through any political affiliation but because they sought to renew both the standard musical forms and genres, and their own country’s culture, with bold and fresh attempts to marry the two. Indeed, Nielsen was so successful at this (like Sibelius in Finland), that for decades afterwards he seemed to cast a shadow over those who came after. The symphonies lie at the centre of Nielsen’s achievement. They develop as he did, from exuberant Romanticism (No.1), through rangy melodies and ‘visionary’ slow movements (Nos 2 and 3), to an unquenchable embrace of the heroic struggle that places Man at the centre of his world (Nos 4 and 5), finally to rest in a quizzical re-examination of all that we hold worthwhile in mind and music (No.6, the ‘Sinfonia semplice’: never was a symphony more ironically named). Each symphony sets off on its own exciting journey, and the demands Nielsen makes on his participants are extreme - he was a fine violinist himself, and he used his extensive knowledge to turn string players inside out with ferocious fugues and precipitous runs. Many great orchestras have tackled this music, and some have ended up making it into little more than concertos for orchestra in all but name. Not, however, this apparently less glittering ensemble. David Hurwitz, famously hard to please, is unequivocal in his Classics Today review: 'Theodore Kuchar leads what is without question the most exciting complete Nielsen symphony cycle available, making this the set to get for Nielsen newcomers'. | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | Nielsen: The Symphonies
Includes previously unreleased recordings of concert overtures Helios and Saga-Dream, and the ‘pastoral scene’ Pan and Syrinx with the Lahti Symphony orchestra. The performance of the Fourth was described as ‘of great character and fire’ in International Record Review, the recording of Symphony No.5 called ‘a first choice, full of intensity’ in BBC Music Magazine, “great music, exciting music-making” The Times, 17th December 2010 | | | (also available to download from $25.50) | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |
|
Building a Library
