Download Concert Programme - Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra

BPO Programme (v2) 24 OCT 2010:Layout 1 24/10/10 08:55 Page 7
his childhood
years, gave him a
sense of identity
with the Danish
soil. He distilled
the essence of
the Danish
temperament in
music with an
unsentimental
directness of
expression. His
music is
disciplined, with
constructive
clarity as well as
humanity and
warmth.
He was an independent thinker and it is
totally in character that he developed an
individual style that went against the
trends of the day. He had a genuine
concern for the integrity of his art,
believing that a composer reveals himself
through his music. He wrote about ‘the
riddle of why music . . . both reveals and
rewards its man [the composer]. If he aims
high, it helps him . . . But if he is stupid,
conceited, commonplace or sentimental,
the fact will be revealed with almost brutal
clarity.’
Around the early 1900s Nielsen began to
structure his works more on classical lines
while continuing to draw on the late
Romantic idiom, merging it with current
trends in orchestration, chromaticism and
atonality. His music can move from the
calmly ecstatic to the tempestuous,
sometimes quite suddenly. Such
unpredictability is an inevitable aspect of
his humanity. The emotional content is
always easy to identify with, as one would
expect from a man who felt himself to be
just like any other man.
Having composed his wind quintet in 1922,
Nielsen planned a series of solo concertos
for each of the wind quintet instruments.
He managed to complete only two, one for
flute and the other for clarinet. His preoccupation
with the individuality of
instruments is summed up in a statement
he made around this time: ‘I think on the
basis of the instruments themselves – in a
way I creep into them. One can very well
say that the instruments have a soul . . .’
Nielsen completed the Flute Concerto in
1926; it was premièred in Paris with Ravel
and Honegger in the audience. The
Concerto was written for Holger Gilbert
Jespersen, a man who cherished
refinement and hated vulgarity.
Surprising therefore to find a bass
trombone introduced into a ‘respectable’
orchestra of Mozartian proportions. Was
this Nielsen’s joke at Jespersen’s expense?
The trombone attempts to disrupt the
serious, pastoral mood of the opening –
much to the flute’s evident chagrin.
Sanity is restored and the flute alone and
in dialogue with others (especially the
clarinet) indulges in some exquisite
passages of musical poetry. The second
movement opens with an allegretto that
alternates with a powerful adagio until
the bass trombone interrupts once more
with a march tune. In the brilliantly
innovative conclusion the trombone
assists the flute but has a final joke with
some very ‘improper’ glissandi.