Search - Nielsen, Rozhdestvensky, Rspo :: Symphony 5

Trail-blazing Nielsen, magnificent performance

02/14/1999

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Nielsen set about visionary business with the Symphony No 5 and his Sixth and last, which both broke as sharply with most of his earlier work as World War One shattered some old certainties for ever. The two-movement Fifth, which he began in 1920, was in the ears of eminent musicologist Deryck Cooke "the greatest symphony" of the century. That's a view one can beg to differ with -- but Nielsen's smouldering portrait of war and its aftermath in the vast sweep of the first movement is staggering, particularly in this performance. Russia's Rozhdestvensky and the Royal Stockholm PO maintain the thrust through from the start to the triumphant conclusion of the second movement with fabulous precision, bringing out the harshly beautiful dissonance of tracts of the work. And they give us the most terrifying rendition of the "battle scene" (where a drummer is instructed to "arrest the progress" of the music), I've ever heard in a concert hall or on record! It's no ordinary side-drummer ad libbing here, but a machine-gunner belting swathe on swathe of ammunition through the ranks of the orchestra. An equally talented clarinettist comes up with a searing solo of mourning before we're launched into the full force of the concluding movement. The performance of the so-called "Sinfonia semplice", with its enigmatic shifts from the initial summery mood to a remarkable last-movement theme and variations, shot through with intimations of mortality, is equally good. These works may not be the most cheerful of Nielsen's achievements, but they are a wonderful, humanist testament to the legacy of the "war to end all wars", worth remembering 70 years down the line. The recording quality is of a very high standard. --"Le Loup", Paris."