Kar-Ming Chong has discovered the New World. But the Indians knew it
all the time.

>I'm starting to get interested in works by, the Danish composer, Nielsen.
>I started out with his symphonies and purchased discs of Sym 1 & 5 and Sym
>2 & 4, conducted by Thomas Jensen ...

Glad to have you aboard, as if it were my train!

In 1965, Danish Odeon issued [EMI] issued a centenary box set of some
of the great works of Nielsen.  This was "the first shot heard round the
world" from Nielsen's pen.  Most of the recordings were made by those
who studied under Nielsen.  They have an undisputed authenticity.  The
pronunciation is so perfect, there is no foreign accent.  They speak with
the power and directness Nielsen intended.

Unfortunately, all six symphonies were never recorded by Nielsen's
conductor-friends.  Jensen was included in the album conducting the Danish
National Radio Symphony in the second symphony, "The Four Temperaments and
lLaurny Grondahl in one of the three greatest of the symphonies, the
Fourth, "the Inextinguishable" with the Danish National Orchestra.

Incredibly, the centenary release did not include either the Third,
"Sinfonia Expansiva," or the Fifth.  But Jensen Fifth has been issued by
Dutton Laboratories together with Nielsen's mature, but still Brahmsian
First.

The finest version of my favorite and also the most "homeland" of the
symphonies, the "Sinfonia Expansiva" has never been available except as a
mono issue on the old Columbia "Epic" label with John Frandsen and Danish
National Orchestra with some of the best program notes by Klaus George Roy.
What a recording!  It is a labor of love.  Whether any company has the
authority and will issue this priceless interpretation I do not know.  It
was the first Nielsen record I owned and is rutted beyond anything but
agonized playing.

Blomstedt's cycle with the San Francisco satisfies me.  So does the
Chung-Jarvi with the Gothenberg (Sweden) Symphony which was Nielsen's
orchestra in many ways more than the Danish ones.  Gothenberg has always
been a Nielsen hotbed.  Bernstein made an idiomatic recording of the
Expansiva with the Royal Danish coupled on CD with the Fifth and of the
Fourth with the NYP coupled with the Second, not so idiomatic.  Not meant
as a complaint.  I only wish Bernstein lost his enthusiasm for pushing
Nielsen in his final years.  There obviously was love and respect there.

And then there is the unexpectedly great Fourth by Jean Martinon and the
Chicago Symphony issued on CD under the RCA label by BMG.  You may find
it at a source like the Berkshire Outlet, which is where I got it.

There are enough fine contemporary performances all Nielsen's music.  If
only there were more than a few sensible musical souls buying and shouting
about the music of the greatest Twentieth Century composer.

BTW, the Fall Schwann catalog has a wonderful essay on the master of
Nielsen's great and immense collection of songs, Aksel Schiotz.  Without a
blush the author ranks him the greatest tenor of the century as do all the
other tenors who heard this incredible voice, mostly on records.  Schiotz's
professional life was so short, cut short by his war service and then
falling victim to a brain tumor that destroyed his voice by paralyzing one
side of his face, leaving his interpretative faculties in tact.  So he took
to teaching, first in Canada, then in Denver and finally his native land.
His wife of 90 still keeps his memory alive.

In Nomine Nielsen
Andrew Carlan