Comparison Recordings:
Helios Overture, Symphonies, etc.
Ormandy, Philadelphia Orchestra [ADD]
Sony S4K45989
Helios Overture, etc. Blomstedt,
Danish Radio SO [ADD] EMI 7243 5 69758
2
At the Bier... Kontra Quintet BIS
CD-503/504
Nielsen’s Helios
Overture lies midpoint on an arc
of works stretching from Mendelssohn’s
Fingal’s Cave Overture to Alan
Hovhaness’s Symphony No. 2, Mysterious
Mountain. These pieces are descriptive
music wherein the power of nature is
depicted in quietly mysterious canonic
and/or fugal string writing, leading
into a grand full orchestra fanfare/chorale.*
Along the way we also touch on Liszt’s
Symphonic Poem No. 1 and various works
of Sibelius and even Ferde Grofé**.
Nielsen’s Rhapsodic Overture
is even more deliberately evocative
than the Mendelssohn, but not quite
so successful a piece of music overall.
These particular performances
are the most effective I’ve ever heard
in the quiet detail and mysterious moods
in Helios and the other works
on the disk. Oddly it fall short of
capturing the full grandeur of the brilliant
full orchestra fanfares. The Prokofievan
humor of Aladdin also comes off
particularly well. Given the brilliant
digital sound, there could hardly be
a better introduction to Nielsen’s most
popular works than this disk.
Ormandy’s Helios
is probably the most effective performance
of the work across the piece, but the
1967 analogue sound is beginning to
show its age. Blomstedt receives slightly
better sound recording, but he plays
the work slowly, so much so that at
times he is perilously close to losing
his way. Both of these performances
capture most of the grandeur of the
orchestral climaxes.
Ved en Üng
Kunstners Båre, "At the
Bier of a Young Artist," was written
as a touching lament for painter Oluf
Hartmann. It was originally published
in 1910 as an andante lamentoso for
string quintet and as such recorded
by the Kontra Quartet, assisted be Jan
Johansson, double bass. Naturally this
work was also performed at Nielsen’s
own funeral. It loses nothing in being
transcribed for string orchestra and
gains much poignancy in the superbly
affecting performance given here by
the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra.
*OK, strictly speaking,
the Mendelssohn work does not contain
either a chorale or a fugue, but comes
awfully close, and in other of his works
he certainly fully embraced these forms.
**Beethoven was too
violent and extroverted to enter this
contest although his Sixth Symphony
must receive honorable mention, and
if we want to push the origin further
back into time we end up with Haydn’s
Creation and Vivaldi’s Four
Seasons and perhaps even various
works of Jean-Féry Rebel and
Purcell. Anyone for Palestrina?
Paul Shoemaker
Members of the Jutland Opera Chorus 
for
details
