Ludolf NIELSEN (1876-1939)
The Tower of Babel (1912-14)
Forest Walk (1922)
Iréne Theorin (sop)
- Voice of a bird
Johnny van Hal (ten) - tenor solo
Per Høyer (bar) - Human Voice
Danish National Radio SO/Owain Arwel Hughes
co-production with Danmarks Radio
rec 1-3 Oct 1999, Copenhagen
DA CAPO 8.224093
[63.05]
Crotchet
Da Capo do not lack for staying power. Having recorded all three of the
symphonies by Ludolf Nielsen they might have been tempted to take a long
sabbatical. Not a bit of it. Instead they tackle the massy heights of Nielsen's
setting of a poem by Gyrithe Lenche. The poem extols the perfection to be
achieved through spiritual exaltation. The setting runs to 35 minutes and
is for substantial forces including three soloists and a semi-chorus of four
other voices alongside a very full choir all with orchestra. While the first
symphony threshes about under the shadow of Brahms this work is far more
distinctive and imposing. Baritone, Per Høyer is in darkly stern and
secure voice - another Jörma Hynninen if ever I heard one. The work
has the flaming conviction and some of the sound-world of Rudolph Tobias's
Jonah's Mission, of Verdi's Requiem and of Havergal Brian's
Siegeslied Symphony. With Rued Langgaard and Louis Glass, Nielsen
had idealistic Millenarian visions as also some years later had John Ireland
in These Things Shall Be. It is intriguing to hear this work alongside
Langgaard's Music of the Spheres and Sinfonia Interna (also
on Da Capo) and when you come to the beginning of Part 2 of the Tower one
can hear the clearest kinship with the Langgaard work woven with the lyric
lambency of Lange-Muller and Gade and the outdoor songs and pastoral idylls
of namesake's Carl's Springtime on Fyn. This part becomes increasingly
pastoral and serenade-like as if retreating to a Utopian greensward but accented
in a way that all but suggests Vaughan Williams' Sir John in Love or
Holst's A Choral Symphony. In the peroration the music develops a
confident bell swing. Extremely enjoyable!
From the second part of Babel it is an easy footstep to the Forest
Walk which is at first quite Straussian (the Danes have often been under
the sway of influences from their southern neighbours). Pan's pipe
(flute-articulated) wreathes these pages in secret smiles amid rustling
undergrowth. The birdcalls and general Swinburnian ambience will be familiar
to admirer's of Bax's unnumbered Symphony Spring Fire,
Nympholept and Happy Forest and more familiarly to anyone who
knows Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe. Pan by noon and Bacchus by night,
indeed. The other parallel work is the central movement of Carl Nielsen's
Sinfonia Espansiva. In the concluding section Towards Daybreak
the music tilts towards the harmonic complexes of Schoenberg's
Verklärte Nacht and Josef Suk's Wenceslas Meditation.
This is a most surprising discovery and well worth your investment.
Full notes, texts and translations are given. The performances are utterly
convincing.
Rob Barnett
