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Symphony No. 5 (Nielsen)
Encyclopedia
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.
The Fifth Symphony has a non-customary structure, comprising two movements
instead of the common three or four. Written in a modern musical language, it draws on the theme of contrast and opposition. The post-World War I
composition is also described to contain elements of war
.
in the early summer. At the end of July he moved to a friend's home at Damgaard to compose the cantata Springtime on Funen
, and was therefore only able to resume working on the second movement of the symphony in September, during his free time from his conducting work in Gothenburg
.
The whole symphony was finished on 15 January 1922, as dated on the score. He dedicated the new symphony to his friends Vera and Carl Johan Michaelsen. Having insufficient rehearsal time, the premiere took place only nine days later, conducted by the composer himself at the music society Musikforening in Copenhagen
.
musical piece. The symphony draws on all of the "deformation procedures" suggested by James Hepokoski
regarding musical modernism: breakthrough deformation, introduction
-coda
frame, episodes within developmental
space, various strophic/sonata
hybrids and multi-movement forms in a single movement. Its fragmented nature, unpredictable character and sudden synchronization at the ending also point towards a self-conscious modernist aesthetic, though as in most of Nielsen’s early and middle works, non-modernist devices, including organicism
and diatonicism, play some essential roles.
As written in the original 1926 edition of the score, the Fifth Symphony is scored for 3 flutes
(third doubling
piccolo
), 2 oboe
s, 2 clarinet
s, 2 bassoon
s, 4 horn
s, 3 trumpet
s, 3 trombone
s, tuba
, timpani
, cymbal
s, triangle
, tambourine
, snare drum
, celesta
, and strings
. Some optional doublings are added in the 1950 edition of the score revised by Emil Telmányi
and Erik Tuxen
; these include the third flute doubling flute in G
and the second bassoon doubling contrabassoon
. These optional doublings are discarded in the latest 1998 Carl Nielsen Edition score, which was produced as a co-operation between the Danish Royal Library
and Edition Wilhelm Hansen.
The Fifth Symphony has two movements instead of the usual four, which is the only time Nielsen used this structure. Nielsen explained jokingly in an interview that it was not difficult to write the first three movements of a symphony but by the finale most composers had run out of ideas. The work has a craggy profile as "it is littered with false climaxes at every turn". In summary, the first movement is a battle between the orchestra and a renegade snare-drummer, who can only be silenced by the full forces of his colleagues in the final bars. The second movement continues the struggle with shivers of anxiety, building through repetitions and detours to the final victorious grand explosion.
The first movement begins with violas softly oscillating between the C and A notes; after four bars of the single, minimally inflected line a pair of bassoons enters with the initial theme. The beginning has been described by Nielsen scholar Robert Simpson
, in his own words, as like "in outer space" and the wave-like line "appears from nowhere, as if one were suddenly made aware of time as a dimension". The very first theme ends at b.
20 with a descending scale
slide, followed by a fortissimo interruption from violas and a subsequent horn and flute dialogue. The prominent feature of instrumental pairing does not lead to any permanent thematic or textural stability, but contrarily grows into a persistent textural sparseness.
After an emotionless strings passage which encloses another brief warning from violas, woodwinds cry out amid a percussive background. While the monotonous rhythm of snare drum sustains, violins respond tortuously, only to be overwhelmed by the mood of the "savage and destructively egotistical" (Simpson’s description) clarinet and flute. The turmoil continues as the bass struggles up a dominant
from C to G, invoking a new clash between snare drum and percussion; the attempt at struggle fails as the bass is foiled at G flat when the ominous violin melody is distorted and disintegrates. The huge incongruity between harmonic and melodic parameters threatens the music with fracture and collapse. After gloomy phrases from various woodwinds, the music fades, leaving a feebly pulsing D with tiny hints of percussion sounds.
An oboe triplet figure then reveals the warm theme in G major of the Adagio non troppo section, a contrast to the prior cold landscape. The texture expands contrapuntally for the first time, culminates to a point where the tonality brightens to B major and, after a climax, wanes to G major again. The full strings are soon disturbed by an "evil" motif on woodwinds, playing the shivering element in Tempo giusto; tension between wind and strings intensifies as tonality shifts within instrumental groups in their respective directions. With a further clash, the music is menaced by the snare drum at a tempo (quarter note
=116) faster than that of the orchestra, and at its climax comes the instruction to the snare drummer by the composer to improvise
"as if at all costs he wants to stop the progress of the orchestra". (This instruction is not included in the 1950 edition of the score, being replaced by a written rhythmic line and instruction "cad. ad lib.
" after a few bars.) The warm theme eventually triumphs in a sustaining grandeur, as is affirmed by the snare drum actually joining the orchestral fanfare. When all subsides, echoes in woodwinds are heard and a solitary clarinet is left to mourn in a tragic atmosphere, recapturing ideas from the whole movements: "Who would have thought that so much could have come out of a gently waving viola line in empty space?"
The second movement in four sections consists of an "exposition", a fast fugue
, a slow fugue and a brief coda
. The music bursts in in B major and continues with great conflicts between instruments, until a broad, calm theme is found in the slow fugue. At the closure it pivots on the dominant of E flat major key; various parameters collide and “fall together” into an uplifting 23-bar conclusion.
This movement was portrayed by Robert Simpson as arising from the ashes and ruins left by the conflict in the first movement. In the first edition of his book he expressed hesitation over analysing this part, feeling that it either requires a very deep analysis, or should be described in the fewest possible words. Jack Lawson, founder and president of The Carl Nielsen Society of Great Britain, commented that in the second movement, the listener "inhabits a world reborn, at first calm but a world which produces new struggles and menacing dangers" and "transports the listener through the depths or above the heights of more standard musical perceptions".
The composer asserted that he was not conscious of the influence of World War I
when composing the symphony, but added that "not one of us is the same as we were before the war." Simon Rattle
also described the Fifth Symphony, rather than the Fourth as proclaimed by the composer, as being Nielsen's war symphony. In fact, the phrase "dark, resting forces, alert forces" can be found on the back cover of the pencil draft score. Nielsen might have considered it an encapsulation of the contrast both between and within the two movements of the symphony. Nielsen also wrote to Dolleris about the presence of the "evil" motif in the first movement of the Fifth Symphony:
Although Nielsen asserted that the symphony is non-programmatic, he once expressed his views on it thus:
, a long-time supporter and friend, wrote to Nielsen the day after the premiere, calling the work a "Sinfonie filmatique, this dirty trenches-music, this impudent fraud, this clenched fist in the face of a defenceless, novelty-snobbish, titillation-sick public, commonplace people e masse, who lovingly lick the hand stained with their own noses' blood!"
A Swedish performance on 20 January 1924, under the baton of Georg Schnéevoigt
, caused quite a scandal; the Berlingske Tidende
reported that some in the audience could not take the modernism of the work:
For decades, Nielsen's music did not win recognition outside Denmark. The symphony had not been recorded until Georg Høeberg
made one in 1933 with the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra for Dancord. The first live recording was produced in 1950 with Erik Tuxen
conducting the same orchestra at the Edinburgh Festival
. An international breakthrough was made only when Leonard Bernstein
recorded the symphony with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in 1962 for CBS. This recording helped Nielsen's music to achieve appreciation beyond his home country, and is considered one of the finest recorded accounts of the 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...
composed by 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...
in Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
between 1920 and 1922. It was first performed 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...
on 24 January 1922 with the composer conducting. It is one of the two of Nielsen's six symphonies lacking a subtitle.
The Fifth Symphony has a non-customary structure, comprising two movements
Movement (music)
A movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected movements from a composition are sometimes performed separately, a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession...
instead of the common three or four. Written in a modern musical language, it draws on the theme of contrast and opposition. The post-World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
composition is also described to contain elements of war
War
War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...
.
Composition
There is no documentation of what inspired Nielsen to write his fifth symphony or when he started to write it, but it is generally understood that the first movement was composed in Humlebæk during the winter and spring of 1921. He stayed at his summer house at SkagenSkagen
Skagen is a projection of land and a town, with a population of 8,515 , in Region Nordjylland on the northernmost tip of Vendsyssel-Thy, a part of the Jutland peninsula in northern Denmark...
in the early summer. At the end of July he moved to a friend's home at Damgaard to compose the cantata Springtime on Funen
Fynsk Foraar
Fynsk Foraar , for soloists, chorus and orchestra, Opus 18, is Carl Nielsen's last major choral work. Written to accompany a prizewinning text by Aage Bernsten, it was first performed in Odense's Kvæghal on 8 July 1922 where it was conduced by Georg Høeberg.-Background:Aage Bernstein, a medical...
, and was therefore only able to resume working on the second movement of the symphony in September, during his free time from his conducting work in Gothenburg
Gothenburg
Gothenburg is the second-largest city in Sweden and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated on the west coast of Sweden, the city proper has a population of 519,399, with 549,839 in the urban area and total of 937,015 inhabitants in the metropolitan area...
.
The whole symphony was finished on 15 January 1922, as dated on the score. He dedicated the new symphony to his friends Vera and Carl Johan Michaelsen. Having insufficient rehearsal time, the premiere took place only nine days later, conducted by the composer himself at the music society Musikforening 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...
.
Score
A work from the early 20th century, the Fifth Symphony is regarded as a modernisticModernism (music)
Modernism in music is characterized by a desire for or belief in progress and science, surrealism, anti-romanticism, political advocacy, general intellectualism, and/or a breaking with the past or common practice.- Defining musical modernism :...
musical piece. The symphony draws on all of the "deformation procedures" suggested by James Hepokoski
James Hepokoski
James Hepokoski earned his Masters and PhD in Music History from Harvard University and has been professor at the Yale Department of Music since 1999...
regarding musical modernism: breakthrough deformation, introduction
Introduction (music)
In music, the introduction is a passage or section which opens a movement or a separate piece. In popular music this is often abbreviated as intro...
-coda
Coda (music)
Coda is a term used in music in a number of different senses, primarily to designate a passage that brings a piece to an end. Technically, it is an expanded cadence...
frame, episodes within developmental
Musical development
In European classical music, musical development is a process by which a musical idea is communicated in the course of a composition. It refers to the transformation and restatement of initial material, and is often contrasted with musical variation, which is a slightly different means to the same...
space, various strophic/sonata
Sonata form
Sonata form is a large-scale musical structure used widely since the middle of the 18th century . While it is typically used in the first movement of multi-movement pieces, it is sometimes used in subsequent movements as well—particularly the final movement...
hybrids and multi-movement forms in a single movement. Its fragmented nature, unpredictable character and sudden synchronization at the ending also point towards a self-conscious modernist aesthetic, though as in most of Nielsen’s early and middle works, non-modernist devices, including organicism
Organicism
Organicism is a philosophical orientation that asserts that reality is best understood as an organic whole. By definition it is close to holism. Plato, Hobbes or Constantin Brunner are examples of such philosophical thought....
and diatonicism, play some essential roles.
As written in the original 1926 edition of the score, the Fifth Symphony is scored for 3 flutes
Western concert flute
The Western concert flute is a transverse woodwind instrument made of metal or wood. It is the most common variant of the flute. A musician who plays the flute is called a flautist, flutist, or flute player....
(third doubling
Doubling
Doubling may refer to:*in math:**multiplication by 2**doubling the cube, a geometric problem**doubling time, the period of time required for a quantity to double in size or value**doubling map**period-doubling bifurcation***in music:...
piccolo
Piccolo
The 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 oboe
Oboe
The 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 clarinet
Clarinet
The 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, 2 bassoon
Bassoon
The 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 horn
Horn (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, 3 trumpet
Trumpet
The 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, 3 trombone
Trombone
The 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, tuba
Tuba
The 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...
, timpani
Timpani
Timpani, 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...
, cymbal
Cymbal
Cymbals are a common percussion instrument. Cymbals consist of thin, normally round plates of various alloys; see cymbal making for a discussion of their manufacture. The greater majority of cymbals are of indefinite pitch, although small disc-shaped cymbals based on ancient designs sound a...
s, triangle
Triangle (instrument)
The triangle is an idiophone type of musical instrument in the percussion family. It is a bar of metal, usually steel but sometimes other metals like beryllium copper, bent into a triangle shape. The instrument is usually held by a loop of some form of thread or wire at the top curve...
, tambourine
Tambourine
The tambourine or marine is a musical instrument of the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zils". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though some variants may not have a head at all....
, snare drum
Snare drum
The 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...
, celesta
Celesta
The celesta or celeste is a struck idiophone operated by a keyboard. Its appearance is similar to that of an upright piano or of a large wooden music box . The keys are connected to hammers which strike a graduated set of metal plates suspended over wooden resonators...
, and strings
String section
The string section is the largest body of the standard orchestra and consists of bowed string instruments of the violin family.It normally comprises five sections: the first violins, the second violins, the violas, the cellos, and the double basses...
. Some optional doublings are added in the 1950 edition of the score revised by Emil Telmányi
Emil Telmányi
Emil Telmányi, b. 22 June 1892 in Arad, then in the Kingdom of Hungary, d. 13 June 1988 in Holte, Denmark was a Hungarian violinist who invented the Bach bow, designed to play and sustain three or four notes on a violin for Bach's sonatas and partitas for solo violin...
and Erik Tuxen
Erik Tuxen
Erik Oluf Tuxen was a Danish big band leader, composer and arranger, who worked for most of his life in Denmark. From 1936 until his death by cancer on 28 August 1957 he was conductor at the Danish National Symphony Orchestra of Danish Radio.Along with Thomas Jensen and Launy Grøndahl, Tuxen...
; these include the third flute doubling flute in G
Alto flute
The alto flute is a type of Western concert flute, a musical instrument in the woodwind family. It is the next extension downward of the C flute after the flûte d'amour. It is characterized by its distinct, mellow tone in the lower portion of its range...
and the second bassoon doubling contrabassoon
Contrabassoon
The contrabassoon, also known as the double bassoon or double-bassoon, is a larger version of the bassoon, sounding an octave lower...
. These optional doublings are discarded in the latest 1998 Carl Nielsen Edition score, which was produced as a co-operation between the Danish Royal Library
Danish Royal Library
The Royal Library in Copenhagen is the national library of Denmark and university library of University of Copenhagen. It is the largest library in the Nordic countries....
and Edition Wilhelm Hansen.
The Fifth Symphony has two movements instead of the usual four, which is the only time Nielsen used this structure. Nielsen explained jokingly in an interview that it was not difficult to write the first three movements of a symphony but by the finale most composers had run out of ideas. The work has a craggy profile as "it is littered with false climaxes at every turn". In summary, the first movement is a battle between the orchestra and a renegade snare-drummer, who can only be silenced by the full forces of his colleagues in the final bars. The second movement continues the struggle with shivers of anxiety, building through repetitions and detours to the final victorious grand explosion.
Tempo giusto—Adagio non troppo
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...
, in his own words, as like "in outer space" and the wave-like line "appears from nowhere, as if one were suddenly made aware of time as a dimension". The very first theme ends at b.
Bar (music)
In musical notation, a bar is a segment of time defined by a given number of beats of a given duration. Typically, a piece consists of several bars of the same length, and in modern musical notation the number of beats in each bar is specified at the beginning of the score by the top number of a...
20 with a descending scale
Musical scale
In music, a scale is a sequence of musical notes in ascending and descending order. Most commonly, especially in the context of the common practice period, the notes of a scale will belong to a single key, thus providing material for or being used to conveniently represent part or all of a musical...
slide, followed by a fortissimo interruption from violas and a subsequent horn and flute dialogue. The prominent feature of instrumental pairing does not lead to any permanent thematic or textural stability, but contrarily grows into a persistent textural sparseness.
After an emotionless strings passage which encloses another brief warning from violas, woodwinds cry out amid a percussive background. While the monotonous rhythm of snare drum sustains, violins respond tortuously, only to be overwhelmed by the mood of the "savage and destructively egotistical" (Simpson’s description) clarinet and flute. The turmoil continues as the bass struggles up a dominant
Dominant (music)
In music, the dominant is the fifth scale degree of the diatonic scale, called "dominant" because it is next in importance to the tonic,and a dominant chord is any chord built upon that pitch, using the notes of the same diatonic scale...
from C to G, invoking a new clash between snare drum and percussion; the attempt at struggle fails as the bass is foiled at G flat when the ominous violin melody is distorted and disintegrates. The huge incongruity between harmonic and melodic parameters threatens the music with fracture and collapse. After gloomy phrases from various woodwinds, the music fades, leaving a feebly pulsing D with tiny hints of percussion sounds.
Quarter note
A quarter note or crotchet is a note played for one quarter of the duration of a whole note . Often people will say that a crotchet is one beat, however, this is not always correct, as the beat is indicated by the time signature of the music; a quarter note may or may not be the beat...
=116) faster than that of the orchestra, and at its climax comes the instruction to the snare drummer by the composer to improvise
Musical improvisation
Musical improvisation is the creative activity of immediate musical composition, which combines performance with communication of emotions and instrumental technique as well as spontaneous response to other musicians...
"as if at all costs he wants to stop the progress of the orchestra". (This instruction is not included in the 1950 edition of the score, being replaced by a written rhythmic line and instruction "cad. ad lib.
Cadenza
In music, a cadenza is, generically, an improvised or written-out ornamental passage played or sung by a soloist or soloists, usually in a "free" rhythmic style, and often allowing for virtuosic display....
" after a few bars.) The warm theme eventually triumphs in a sustaining grandeur, as is affirmed by the snare drum actually joining the orchestral fanfare. When all subsides, echoes in woodwinds are heard and a solitary clarinet is left to mourn in a tragic atmosphere, recapturing ideas from the whole movements: "Who would have thought that so much could have come out of a gently waving viola line in empty space?"
Allegro—Presto—Andante un poco tranquillo—Allegro
Fugue
In music, a fugue is a compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject that is introduced at the beginning in imitation and recurs frequently in the course of the composition....
, a slow fugue and a brief coda
Coda (music)
Coda is a term used in music in a number of different senses, primarily to designate a passage that brings a piece to an end. Technically, it is an expanded cadence...
. The music bursts in in B major and continues with great conflicts between instruments, until a broad, calm theme is found in the slow fugue. At the closure it pivots on the dominant of E flat major key; various parameters collide and “fall together” into an uplifting 23-bar conclusion.
This movement was portrayed by Robert Simpson as arising from the ashes and ruins left by the conflict in the first movement. In the first edition of his book he expressed hesitation over analysing this part, feeling that it either requires a very deep analysis, or should be described in the fewest possible words. Jack Lawson, founder and president of The Carl Nielsen Society of Great Britain, commented that in the second movement, the listener "inhabits a world reborn, at first calm but a world which produces new struggles and menacing dangers" and "transports the listener through the depths or above the heights of more standard musical perceptions".
Interpretation
Though bearing no title, Nielsen affirmed that the Fifth Symphony, like his previous symphonies, presents "the only thing that music in the end can express: resting forces in contrast to active ones." In a statement to his student Ludvig Dolleris, Nielsen described the symphony as "the division of dark and light, the battle between evil and good" and the opposition between "Dreams and Deeds". To Hugo Seligman he described the contrast between "vegetative" and "active" states of mind in the symphony. As such, the symphony is widely stated to be a work about contrast and opposition.World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
when composing the symphony, but added that "not one of us is the same as we were before the war." Simon Rattle
Simon Rattle
Sir Simon Denis Rattle, CBE is an English conductor. He rose to international prominence as conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and since 2002 has been principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic ....
also described the Fifth Symphony, rather than the Fourth as proclaimed by the composer, as being Nielsen's war symphony. In fact, the phrase "dark, resting forces, alert forces" can be found on the back cover of the pencil draft score. Nielsen might have considered it an encapsulation of the contrast both between and within the two movements of the symphony. Nielsen also wrote to Dolleris about the presence of the "evil" motif in the first movement of the Fifth Symphony:
Then the "evil" motif intervenes — in the woodwind and strings — and the side drum becomes more and more angry and aggressive; but the nature-theme grows on, peaceful and unaffected, in the brass. Finally the evil has to give way, a last attempt and then it flees — and with a strophe thereafter in consoling major mode a solo clarinet ends this large idyll-movement, an expression of vegetative (idle, thoughtless) Nature.
Although Nielsen asserted that the symphony is non-programmatic, he once expressed his views on it thus:
I'm rolling a stone up a hill, I'm using the powers in me to bring the stone to the top. The stone lies there so still, powers are wrapped in it, until I give it a kick and the same powers are released and the stone rolls down again. But you mustn't take that as a programme!
Reception
The immediate reception of the press to the symphony was generally positive, especially the first movement. Axel Kjerulf wrote that in the Adagio section, he heard a Dream giving way to a "Dream about Deeds... Carl Nielsen has maybe never written more powerful, beautiful, fundamentally healthy and genuine music than here." However, critics were more hesitant towards the second movement. In August Felsing's review, he commented that "Intellectual art is what the second part is, and it is a master who speaks. But the pact with the eternal in art which shines forth in the first part is broken here." Musicians' opinions were divided. Victor BendixVictor Bendix
Victor Emanuel Bendix was a Jewish Danish composer, conductor and pianist. His teachers included Niels Gade....
, a long-time supporter and friend, wrote to Nielsen the day after the premiere, calling the work a "Sinfonie filmatique, this dirty trenches-music, this impudent fraud, this clenched fist in the face of a defenceless, novelty-snobbish, titillation-sick public, commonplace people e masse, who lovingly lick the hand stained with their own noses' blood!"
A Swedish performance on 20 January 1924, under the baton of Georg Schnéevoigt
Georg Schnéevoigt
Georg Schnéevoigt was a Finnish conductor and cellist, born in Vyborg, Grand Duchy of Finland, which is now in Russia....
, caused quite a scandal; the Berlingske Tidende
Berlingske Tidende
Berlingske, previously known as Berlingske Tidende , is a Danish national daily newspaper based in Copenhagen...
reported that some in the audience could not take the modernism of the work:
Midway through the first part with its rattling drums and 'cacophonous' effects a genuine panic broke out. Around a quarter of the audience rushed for the exits with confusion and anger written over their faces, and those who remained tried to hiss down the 'spectacle', while the conductor Georg Schnéevoigt drove the orchestra to extremes of volume. This whole intermezzo underlined the humoristic-burlesque element in the symphony in such a way that Carl Nielsen could certainly never have dreamed of. His representation of modern life with its confusion, brutality and struggle, all the uncontrolled shouts of pain and ignorance—and behind it all the side drum's harsh rhythm as the only disciplining force—as the public fled, made a touch of almost diabolic humour.
For decades, Nielsen's music did not win recognition outside Denmark. The symphony had not been recorded until Georg Høeberg
Georg Høeberg
Georg Høeberg was a Danish composer and conductor. His 1933 performance of Carl Nielsen's Fifth Symphony is thought to be the earliest surviving recorded performance of any Nielsen symphony. His grandfather was the Danish composer and conductor at Tivoli Gardens, Hans Christian Lumbye.-External...
made one in 1933 with the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra for Dancord. The first live recording was produced in 1950 with Erik Tuxen
Erik Tuxen
Erik Oluf Tuxen was a Danish big band leader, composer and arranger, who worked for most of his life in Denmark. From 1936 until his death by cancer on 28 August 1957 he was conductor at the Danish National Symphony Orchestra of Danish Radio.Along with Thomas Jensen and Launy Grøndahl, Tuxen...
conducting the same orchestra at the Edinburgh Festival
Edinburgh Festival
The Edinburgh Festival is a collective term for many arts and cultural festivals that take place in Edinburgh, Scotland each summer, mostly in August...
. An international breakthrough was made only when Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
recorded the symphony with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in 1962 for CBS. This recording helped Nielsen's music to achieve appreciation beyond his home country, and is considered one of the finest recorded accounts of the symphony.