Carl Nielsen
Flute Concerto
Carl Nielsen is without a doubt the most notable Danish composer of the early 20th century. Born the seventh of twelve children in a poor peasant family on the island of Fyn, he studied violin and trumpet as a child and gained entrance to the Royal Conservatory of Copenhagen when he was 19. Through many years as a second violinist and later as a conductor of the Royal Chapel Orchestra, he honed his skills as a composer of orchestral music. From 1916 until his death he taught at and eventually became director of the Royal Conservatory in Copenhagen. Best known internationally for his six symphonies, two operas, three concerti, and a wind quintet, in Denmark his many songs in simple folksong style are also well-known and loved.
1922 was a pivotal year in Carl Nielsen’s life: he was diagnosed with a severe heart condition, he reconciled with his wife after close to seven years’ separation, he learned to drive, he conducted the premiere of his Fifth Symphony, and he completed a work for the Copenhagen Wind Quintet. The new woodwind quintet was an attempt “to present the characteristics of the various instruments,” and in the process of working with the performers he came to know them extremely well.
From this experience, he decided to write a concerto for each of the five players of the wind quintet in such a way that the music would be a kind of musical portrait of the soloist. Although he only completed two of the projected five wind concerti, the flute concerto (1926) and the clarinet concerto (1928) are character studies cunningly made to suit the individuality of the soloist.
The Concerto for Flute was composed for Holger Gilbert-Jespersen (1890 – 1975). I have been privileged to know Gilbert Jespersen, who soloed with my Danish youth orchestra on a number of occasions and was a friend of my first violin teacher, Axel Bille, who himself had known Nielsen as a fellow violinist in the Royal Chapel Orchestra. Gilbert-Jespersen was a gentle soul with a wonderful sense of humor, and, like the music, also full of shadow and ambiguity. The Flute Concerto is a portrait so complete that new facets of his personality are discovered with each hearing. Nielsen wrote, “Here in a nutshell is what I demand of all art–opposing forces which meet and glow, appearing one but remaining two, embracing and caressing like rippling water over pebbles, yet never actually touching and breaking the delicate interplay.”
During the summer of 1926, Nielsen worked on the flute concerto while traveling in Italy, regularly sending completed pages to Gilbert-Jespersen. It was to be premiered in October in Paris, with Nielsen’s son-in-law, violinist Emil Telmányi, as conductor. But in September Nielsen fell ill and had to write a temporary ending, replaced soon after the Paris performance with the brilliant conclusion that was finally heard at the Copenhagen premiere in January, 1927 (and to be performed at today’s concert). The composer Arthur Honegger wrote in his review of the Paris performance, “The flute concerto ….is full of beautiful combinations, for example the dialogue between the flute and timpani or the bassoon…We admire Carl Nielsen as a technician of the first rank and as an artist whose abundance of creativity is constantly renewed. His whole oeuvre gives the impression of wholesomeness, power and superiority.”
The Flute Concerto is in two movements, a contrapuntal and symphonic first movement and a more mercurial and dramatic second movement. The flute makes its deepest impression in its dialogues with individual instruments, such as the clarinet, the bass trombone, and the timpani, or in dialogue with the full orchestra.
The first movement, Allegro moderato, begins with a sharp dissonance between a sustained E-flat whole note in the low strings and brass and a simultaneous passage in D minor in the woodwinds and upper strings. A similar tonal ambiguity permeates the whole concerto. After some searching, the flute settles into an E-flat minor theme, which is taken up by the orchestra and tossed about in the keys of F minor, B-flat minor, C-sharp minor, C-sharp major, and A minor. After a full symphonic treatment with a gentle second theme more or less in F major, a development, and a recapitulation, the movement comes to a soft conclusion in G-flat major. Two of the movement’s three cadenza-like passages are conversations with other instruments, not solo cadenzas.
The volatile second movement, Allegretto, un poco, with its many changes of tempo and mood begins with a series of angry exclamations in unison strings. As they fade to nothing, the flute enters with a theme that is childlike in its innocence. The movement continues with dialogues between the virtuoso flute and other instruments, often the woodwinds. The final march in 6/8 time begins pianissimo but quickly mounts to a furious fortissimo. After a messy heated dialogue between flute and the trombone, and subsequently the timpani, the strings return to a gentler version of the march theme. A brilliant stroke at the ending is the flute’s continuing forte, while the orchestra fades to a whisper. Apparently this detail was penciled in by the composer only during final rehearsals.