Dallas musicians are featured on recent CDs of note. Dallas Symphony music director Fabio Luisi conducts the six symphonies of Carl Nielsen with one of his two other orchestras, and the Dallas Chamber Symphony and its music director, Richard McKay, offer dance suites by Joseph Thalken and Aaron Copland.
Nielsen: Symphonies 1-6. Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Fabio Luisi, conductor (Deutsche Grammophon, three CDs).
Back in the 1960s, when reviewers for a hi-fi/music magazine were asked to name their least favorite composers, Carl Nielsen turned up at least twice. But back then the Danish composer was just beginning to be heard more often in American concert halls. Today, at least the Fourth Symphony, titled The Inextinguishable, gets regular orchestral performances, with more occasional airings of the Second (The Four Temperaments) and Third (Sinfonia espansiva). The Violin Concerto also gets programmed from time to time.
Bristling with thrusting energies and dramatic conflicts, Nielsen’s symphonies also have their shares of hummable tunes and motifs. So who should be a more logical interpreter than a conductor deeply rooted in Italian opera, Fabio Luisi, leading the preeminent orchestra of Nielsen’s native Denmark? (Music director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra since 2020, Luisi is also principal conductor of the Danish orchestra and the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo.)
Two of the Nielsen symphonies incorporate literal assaults of percussion, both best appreciated in concert experiences. Two sets of timpani, placed on opposite sides of the orchestra, do battle in the finale of The Inextinguishable, and in a stretch of the Fifth Symphony the snare drummer is directed to improvise “in his own tempo, as if he wanted at any price to interrupt the music.” As in the operas of Nielsen’s slightly older Czech contemporary Leoš Janáček, struggle and trauma are ultimately overcome by a musical life force.
The very different Sinfonia espansiva incorporates wordless soprano and baritone soloists in the paradisiacal second movement. Strangest of the symphonies is the last, the Sixth. Nielsen originally planned a “completely idyllic” symphony, he told his daughter, with the title Sinfonia semplice. But it developed into something anything but simple, and he dropped the title before publication.
The symphony starts out innocently enough, but soon mischievous ideas are snapping at the music’s heels. The second movement, for just winds and percussion, is like a diabolical toy shop come to life. Strings get the very serious third movement to themselves. All sorts of madness cuts loose in the finale, a set of variations on a cheeky theme announced by bassoon. With its sharp contrasts and sometimes garish colors, this is music not far in spirit from German expressionist art, but it’s ultimately affirmative.
At least in my experience, the nameless First Symphony is virtually unknown in concert performances. It has Nielsen’s signature ebullience, but without the sterner stuff that surfaces elsewhere. Surely audiences would enjoy it.
Baritone Palle Knudsen feels his away around pitches in the Espansiva’s vocal duet, but otherwise these are first-class performances, carefully plotted, paced and balanced. The Danish orchestra surely has this music in its blood, but Luisi adds his own feeling for drama and, where appropriate, lyricism and playfulness.
The excellent recordings were made in the 1,800-seat main auditorium of the Copenhagen Koncerthuset, designed by French architect Jean Nouvel and opened in 2009. The sound is surprisingly richer and more reverberant — although still quite clear — than you’d expect for a concert hall designed in collaboration with Nagata Acoustics, the firm also responsible for Los Angeles’ Disney Hall, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie and the Kauffman Center in Kansas City. Is some digital wizardry involved?
Joseph Thalken: ‘Chasing Home.’ Aaron Copland: ‘Appalachian Spring’ (original instrumentation). Dallas Chamber Symphony, Richard McKay, conductor. (Albany CD).
Filling a longstanding gap in the Dallas-Fort Worth musical scene, the Dallas Chamber Symphony has become an accomplished ensemble, presenting some of the area’s most enjoyable concerts. Its recording debut includes two dance suites, one well established and beloved, the other new but no less appealing.
The Chamber Symphony and Bruce Wood Dance collaborated to commission a score from pianist, conductor, composer and arranger Joseph Thalken. Inspired by then-current news of Syrians fleeing unrest in their country, Thalken produced a suite of eight movements, which were choreographed by Albert Drake. The resulting ballet, Chasing Home, was premiered in 2017, although this recording was not made until 2021.
Scored for a mere 11 musicians, the music could not be more immediately ingratiating. It makes no attempt to sound “Syrian,” except for including the guitar-like oud, notably in an opening solo. Apart from tense moments when a wedding is interrupted by an attack, the music is lilting and lyrical, and delicately tinted. I’m sorry I missed the ballet.
Copland’s Appalachian Spring is mostly familiar in the composer’s full-orchestra arrangement. Here, though, it’s presented in the original scoring — for 13 musicians — for the Martha Graham ballet. (This performance sensibly takes the cuts in the full-orchestra version.)
DCS music director Richard McKay leads incisive, sensitive performances of both scores. Apart from the artificially spotlit oud at the beginning of the Thalken, the recording, made in the acoustically superb Moody Performance Hall, is commendably clear and natural. Highly recommended.
