Symphony No. 6 (Nielsen)
Encyclopedia
Symphony No. 6 "Sinfonia semplice", (no opus number
), FS 116. In August 1924 Danish composer Carl Nielsen
began working on a Sixth Symphony
, which turned out to be his last. By the end of October he wrote to Carl Johan Michaelsen:
The first movement was finished at the end of November while he was in Copenhagen
, and the second movement was composed during Christmas
. At the end of January 1925 he traveled to the French Riviera
with his wife.
While he had been in Copenhagen, Nielsen had composed the third movement, but he now had to put the symphony aside to work on a commission for incidental music to Ebbe Skammelsen, which was to be performed at the Open Air Theatre in the deer park
. He completed the score immediately before his sixtieth birthday on June 9. When going to Damgaard in the middle of July, Nielsen was able to continue work on his symphony.
The last movement was finally completed on December 5, 1925. The first performance was given by the Chapel Royal Orchestra on December 11.
The Copenhagen reviewers were confused by the style of the new Symphony. Nielsen had called it Sinfonia semplice (Simple Symphony). Being hard to grasp, it has remained the least performed of all six symphonies.
According to Robert W. Simpson
, from the second edition of his book on Nielsen, this work may be partially autobiographical; the composer had just experienced a tremendous success with his Fifth symphony
, but had also suffered a series of heart attacks
. He was to write several more works, but in the remaining six years of his life, the atmosphere of his works began to change.
As with many other works by Nielsen starting as early as his first symphony, this symphony uses "progressive tonality
", not only starting in one key — G, here — and ending in another (B-flat) but making the change part of the drama of the work (this was one of the main theses of Simpson's book).
, the opening features bell sounds followed by a "simple" and peaceful melody with strings; followed in turn, by active and very characteristic figures in the winds. As in the fifth symphony
there is an early hint of the key B-flat in which we will eventually close, since the wind response hits that B-flat as an on-and-off note in an otherwise G major passage. The mood of the opening gives way to fugal unrest and, eventually, two chaotic and disturbing outbursts (Simpson believes these reflect Nielsen's heart attacks, in a manner of speaking, though he does not claim that the piece is pictorial or otherwise programmatic
) before again quieting, to a lightly scored but unsettled close in A-flat.
The last note of the piece is a sustained low B-flat played loudly on two bassoons, well-described as a raspberry
.
Opus number
An Opus number , pl. opera and opuses, abbreviated, sing. Op. and pl. Opp. refers to a number generally assigned by composers to an individual composition or set of compositions on publication, to help identify their works...
), FS 116. In August 1924 Danish composer Carl Nielsen
Carl Nielsen
Carl August Nielsen , , widely recognised as Denmark's greatest composer, was also a conductor and a violinist. Brought up by poor but musically talented parents on the island of Funen, he demonstrated his musical abilities at an early age...
began working on a Sixth Symphony
Symphony
A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...
, which turned out to be his last. By the end of October he wrote to Carl Johan Michaelsen:
The first movement was finished at the end of November while he was in Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
, and the second movement was composed during Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
. At the end of January 1925 he traveled to the French Riviera
French Riviera
The Côte d'Azur, pronounced , often known in English as the French Riviera , is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France, also including the sovereign state of Monaco...
with his wife.
While he had been in Copenhagen, Nielsen had composed the third movement, but he now had to put the symphony aside to work on a commission for incidental music to Ebbe Skammelsen, which was to be performed at the Open Air Theatre in the deer park
Medieval deer park
A medieval deer park was an enclosed area containing deer. It was bounded by a ditch and bank with a wooden park pale on top of the bank. The ditch was typically on the inside, thus allowing deer to enter the park but preventing them from leaving.-History:...
. He completed the score immediately before his sixtieth birthday on June 9. When going to Damgaard in the middle of July, Nielsen was able to continue work on his symphony.
The last movement was finally completed on December 5, 1925. The first performance was given by the Chapel Royal Orchestra on December 11.
The Copenhagen reviewers were confused by the style of the new Symphony. Nielsen had called it Sinfonia semplice (Simple Symphony). Being hard to grasp, it has remained the least performed of all six symphonies.
Instrumentation
- 2 fluteFluteThe flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
s, 1st flute doubles piccoloPiccoloThe piccolo is a half-size flute, and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. The piccolo has the same fingerings as its larger sibling, the standard transverse flute, but the sound it produces is an octave higher than written... - 2 oboeOboeThe oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...
s - 2 clarinetClarinetThe clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
s in A - 2 bassoonBassoonThe bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...
s
- 4 hornHorn (instrument)The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....
s in F - 2 trumpetTrumpetThe trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
s in F - 3 tromboneTromboneThe trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...
s (2 tenor, 1 bass) - TubaTubaThe tuba is the largest and lowest-pitched brass instrument. Sound is produced by vibrating or "buzzing" the lips into a large cupped mouthpiece. It is one of the most recent additions to the modern symphony orchestra, first appearing in the mid-19th century, when it largely replaced the...
- TimpaniTimpaniTimpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet...
- GlockenspielGlockenspielA glockenspiel is a percussion instrument composed of a set of tuned keys arranged in the fashion of the keyboard of a piano. In this way, it is similar to the xylophone; however, the xylophone's bars are made of wood, while the glockenspiel's are metal plates or tubes, and making it a metallophone...
- XylophoneXylophoneThe xylophone is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets...
- TriangleTriangleA triangle is one of the basic shapes of geometry: a polygon with three corners or vertices and three sides or edges which are line segments. A triangle with vertices A, B, and C is denoted ....
- Cymbals
- Snare drumSnare drumThe snare drum or side drum is a melodic percussion instrument with strands of snares made of curled metal wire, metal cable, plastic cable, or gut cords stretched across the drumhead, typically the bottom. Pipe and tabor and some military snare drums often have a second set of snares on the bottom...
- Bass drumBass drumBass drums are percussion instruments that can vary in size and are used in several musical genres. Three major types of bass drums can be distinguished. The type usually seen or heard in orchestral, ensemble or concert band music is the orchestral, or concert bass drum . It is the largest drum of...
- Strings
Description
There are four movements:- Tempo giusto
- Humoreske: Allegretto
- Proposta seria: Adagio
- Tema con variazioni: Allegro
According to Robert W. Simpson
Robert Simpson (composer)
Robert Simpson was an English composer and long-serving BBC producer and broadcaster.He is best known for his orchestral and chamber music , and for his writings on the music of Beethoven, Bruckner, Nielsen and Sibelius. He studied composition under Herbert Howells...
, from the second edition of his book on Nielsen, this work may be partially autobiographical; the composer had just experienced a tremendous success with his Fifth symphony
Symphony No. 5 (Nielsen)
Symphony No. 5, Op. 50, FS 97 is a symphony composed by Carl Nielsen in Denmark between 1920 and 1922. It was first performed in Copenhagen on 24 January 1922 with the composer conducting. It is one of the two of Nielsen's six symphonies lacking a subtitle....
, but had also suffered a series of heart attacks
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
. He was to write several more works, but in the remaining six years of his life, the atmosphere of his works began to change.
As with many other works by Nielsen starting as early as his first symphony, this symphony uses "progressive tonality
Progressive tonality
Progressive tonality is the name given to the compositional practice whereby a piece of music does not finish in the key in which it began, but instead 'progresses' to an ending in a different key...
", not only starting in one key — G, here — and ending in another (B-flat) but making the change part of the drama of the work (this was one of the main theses of Simpson's book).
First movement
Beginning with G majorG major
G major is a major scale based on G, with the pitches G, A, B, C, D, E, and F. Its key signature has one sharp, F; in treble-clef key signatures, the sharp-symbol for F is usually placed on the first line from the top, though in some Baroque music it is placed on the first space from the bottom...
, the opening features bell sounds followed by a "simple" and peaceful melody with strings; followed in turn, by active and very characteristic figures in the winds. As in the fifth symphony
Symphony No. 5 (Nielsen)
Symphony No. 5, Op. 50, FS 97 is a symphony composed by Carl Nielsen in Denmark between 1920 and 1922. It was first performed in Copenhagen on 24 January 1922 with the composer conducting. It is one of the two of Nielsen's six symphonies lacking a subtitle....
there is an early hint of the key B-flat in which we will eventually close, since the wind response hits that B-flat as an on-and-off note in an otherwise G major passage. The mood of the opening gives way to fugal unrest and, eventually, two chaotic and disturbing outbursts (Simpson believes these reflect Nielsen's heart attacks, in a manner of speaking, though he does not claim that the piece is pictorial or otherwise programmatic
Program music
Program music or programme music is a type of art music that attempts to musically render an extra-musical narrative. The narrative itself might be offered to the audience in the form of program notes, inviting imaginative correlations with the music...
) before again quieting, to a lightly scored but unsettled close in A-flat.
Second movement
The Humoreske is for winds and percussion alone, almost athematic/tuneless and depending on rhythm. The composer, in notes he wrote for the first performance of the work, said of this movement that the wind and percussion "quarrel, each sticking to his own tastes and inclinations"; Nielsen went on to liken this to the musical world of the time.Third movement
Proposta seria. To paraphrase Simpson, again, several passages in this movement circle around as though snakes chasing for-the-moment lost tails.Finale
Fanfare, theme and variations, fanfare-reprise and coda, on a fairly unstable theme in B-flat. The ninth variation, just before the fanfare-reprise and coda, has a sound and affect like that of the Humoreske — Simpson likens it to a grinning skeleton; it is preceded by a minore variation before that, as in many variations sets (a variation in the parallel minor), but one that is so protracted that when its last minor cadence arrives it is difficult to grasp as one whole variation. Layton describes it as a lament and that is a closer description.The last note of the piece is a sustained low B-flat played loudly on two bassoons, well-described as a raspberry
Blowing a raspberry
Blowing a raspberry or strawberry or making a Bronx cheer is to make a noise signifying derision, real or feigned. It is made by placing the tongue between the lips and blowing, making a sound redolent of flatulence. In the terminology of phonetics, this sound can be described as an unvoiced...
.