Bracing Nielsen from Ehnes and Gardner

An outstanding release from the Bergen Philharmonic

Nielsen: Violin Concerto, Op. 33; Symphony No 4 ‘The Inextinguishable’, Op. 29

James Ehnes (violin), Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Edward Gardner

Chandos CHSA 5311

Paul Griffiths’s booklet note reveals that both works on this disc had their London premieres under the baton of the composer in 1923 - it was Nielsen’s debut as a conductor and his only appearance in the British capital. They make a fine coupling here, played in chronological order. The Violin Concerto had its first performance in 1912, the Symphony four years later in Copenhagen, their opus numbers reflecting not the order of composition but of publication. The concerto, second only to Sibelius’s among 20th century violin concertos from the Nordic countries, has long been a favourite work of mine, acquired in my teens in a budget priced reissue of Yehudi Menuhin’s famous account with the Danish National Orchestra, conducted by Mogens Wöldike - one of the few available in the early 1970s. With its rhetorical opening chord and a brief cadenza-like flourish from the soloist that recalls Bach’s works for solo violin, Nielsen’s work could hardly be less like Sibelius’s, written less than a decade before. Indeed its two-movement slow-fast structure and striking episodic shifts declare it unashamedly a modern work, in stark contrast to Sibelius’s throwback to Romanticism.

Ehnes joins famous front-line virtuosi who have recorded this still rarely played masterpiece: Menuhin, of course, Tibor Varga, Isaac Stern, Pinchas Zukerman, Maxim Vengerov, Cho-Liang Lin, and, among Ehnes’s contemporaries, Vilde Frang. His comprehensive approach to the 21st century violinist’s repertory makes this a vital addition to his discography, and firmly places Nielsen’s concerto in a league with modern masterpieces by Elgar, Prokofiev, Berg, Walton, Britten and Shostakovich. He embraces all the technical challenges thrown at him by the composer whose career began as an orchestral violinist: copious multiple stopping, effortless bravura and an ability to tease out the haunting sinew of Nielsen’s bittersweet melodic anatomy. The rocking melody of the Praeludium has rarely been more delectably phrased: Ehnes brings a playful, twinkle-in-the-eye touch to the allegretto scherzando of the final Rondo, and his mastery in the two substantial, intrinsically ‘violinistic’ cadenzas is mightily impressive.

The disc is worth acquiring for the concerto alone, but Gardner’s account of Nielsen’s Fourth Symphony, arguably his greatest, is hardly less formidable: there is an unmistakably ‘Nordic’ astringency to the sound he conjures from the Bergen orchestra at the top of its form, with an ideal balance between winds and strings - searing in their unison intensity at the outset of the Poco adagio quasi andante, excoriating in the succeeding agitato fugue. This outstanding release follows the Gardner/Bergen coupling of the Symphony No 3 (Sinfonia espansiva) with the Flute Concerto. Can we hope, despite a recent proliferation of Nielsen orchestral discs, for a complete symphony cycle from this source before Gardner leaves Bergen for the Oslo Opera?

James Ehnes, Edward Gardner (pictures © Benjamin Ealovega), Bergen Philharmonic (picture © Oddleiv Apneseth)

Also available: Nielsen Symphony No 3, Flute Concerto (Adam Walker), Pan and Syrinx, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Edward Gardner Chandos CHSA 5312