Last week I jogged with my CD player at Jones Beach.  One side was
Nielsen's sublime "Sinfonia Espansiva" (Horenstein and the Halle Orchestra
on the Intaglio label--never heard of it before) with its energizing
rhythms that literally recharge your battery every second.  Even the famous
slow movement where Nielsen's incredible melody is given wordlessly to a
tenor and a soprano spins an almost Schubertian glow of poise and "summer
and the livin' is easy." The other side is his 6th Symphony.  At first it
was interesting to note how much of Nielsen's unique musical language
survives even in the 6th.  But it is eerily like the slurred speech of a
great mind that has suffered a seizure.  I begin to notice I was slowing
down and feeling tired.  Poor Nielsen that he was cut down relatively young
and in such pain from a bad heart at what would have been his prime.

Like the bad, the good, too, often die young.  But classical music needs
all the real music as it can get and Nielsen had that to give.  His early
loss is therefore the more tragic.

I post this because I find that the body's response in terms of sustained
energy is a good way of judging music.  If it has the power to energize the
weary muscles, there must be something to it.  Music, after all, arose to
satisfy a need, to either arouse or settle the body through the mind.

Andrew E. Carlan <[log in to unmask]>
Standing Up For Nielsen