Concert Review: The Captain of Quirk

The New York Philharmonic celebrates Carl Nielsen's 150th.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

He's 150! Birthday boy Carl Nielsen was féted Monday night by the New York Philharmonic.
Photo from CarlNielsen.org.

Sometimes the best birthday parties are the intimate ones. On Monday night, members of the New York Philharmonic gathered at SubCulture, the basement performance space on Bleecker Street, to celebrate the 150th birthday of Danish composer Carl Nielsen. The occasion also marked the conclusion of The Nielsen Project, music director Alan Gilbert's plan to record and release most of the composer's major orchestral works on the Da Capo label.

Concert Review: The Ghost of Conductors Past

The Danish National Symphony Orchestra plays Carnegie Hall.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The conductor Cristian Măcelaru made his Carnegie Hall debut Wednesday night.
Photo by David Swanson for Primo Artists Management.

Wednesday night's concert by the Danish National Symphony Orchestra was more than just a opportunity to hear this fine Copenhagen-based ensemble play the music of Carl Nielsen and Jean Sibelius. It became a tribute to the orchestra's late music director Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, who died last summer. His substitute was Romanian conductor Cristian Măcelaru, an enthusiastic member of the new generation of maestros making his Carnegie Hall debut.

Concert Review: A Very Different Drummer

The New York Philharmonic completes its Nielsen cycle.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Alan Gilbert in flight. Photo by Chris Lee © 2014 The New York Philharmonic.

Carl Nielsen is Denmark’s most famous composer. His six symphonies are only occasionally encountered in the concert hall, odd and occasionally obtuse in their construction. At once too strange for the standard repertory and too conventional for the modernists of the 20th century, these works are beloved in Scandinavia and revered by fearless musicologists, conductors and audience members lucky enough to hear them played live.

Concert Review: Distinguished, Not Extinguished

Alan Gilbert and the Philharmonic continue The Nielsen Project.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Composer and conductor. Carl Nielsen and Alan Gilbert.
Photo of Mr. Gilbert by Chris Lee © 2014 The New York Philharmonic.

The task of expanding an orchestra's regular symphonic repertory is at once the joy and the burden of a music director. In the case of the New York Philharmonic's Alan Gilbert, currently in the middle of recording the complete orchestral works of the Danish composer Carl Nielsen, it is definitely the former. This was the third of four concert series being recorded for release on Da Capo Records. Dubbed The Nielsen Project, the series will conclude next season with the last two symphonies.

Concert Review: Half Nielsen

Alan Gilbert advocates for the concertos of the Danish composer.
(Reposted from The Classical Review.)
by Paul J. Pelkonen

An advocate for Nielsen: conductor Alan Gilbert.
Photo by Chris Lee © 2012 The New York Philharmonic.

In the last three seasons, New York Philharmonic music director Alan 
Gilbert has championed the works of  Carl Nielsen (1865-1931) best
 remembered for his six symphonies. Wednesday night’s concert at Avery Fisher Hall focused
 on Nielsen’s concertos: specifically the 1926 Concerto for Flute (featuring soloist Robert Langevin) and 
the earlier Concerto for Violin with soloist Nikolaj Znaider.

Read the full article by Paul J. Pelkonen, exclusively on The Classical Review!

Concert Review: The Interactive Philharmonic

Beethoven, Korngold and Nielsen, with audience participation.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

Seen (and heard) last week at the New York Philharmonic.
Image from The Simpsons © Gracie Films/20th Century FOX.

The New York Philharmonic season ends this month, but music director Alan Gilbert had a strong program selected for Friday afternoon. However, the concert, featuring works by Beethoven, Korngold and Nielsen was home to something else, some of the most intrusive, irritating audience behavior witnessed (by this reporter, anyway) this season.

Granted, the concert was not stopped (as happened on January 11th of this year when a phone alarm interrupted Mahler's Ninth Symphony.) However, rude, inconsiderate behavior: a shrieking hearing aid, a repeatedly ringing cell phone, and a loud-mouthed jerk sitting in the seat behind me combined to make the afternoon musicale a stressful experience.

No, this won't quite be a straight review. But I'll do my best.

Concert Review: Broadway At Last

Nielsen and Stravinsky mark RDO's overdue debut

Royal Danish Orchestra's Music Director Michael Schønwandt.

The art of programming symphony concerts is a tricky one. Finding the links between disparate pieces, by different composers, in different genres is hard. And some music directors settle for the fact that the two or three scheduled works are from the same historic period, or refer to the same book, or something equally esoteric.

Michael Schønwandt, music director of the Royal Danish Orchestra, displayed his mastery of this art on Thursday night, as the RDO made its long-awaited debut at Alice Tully Hall as part of this summer's Lincoln Center Festival. The Copenhagen-based orchestra was founded in 1448, and ranks as Europe's oldest performing orchestra. For this concert, Mr. Schønwandt offered a pairing of works by Carl Nielsen and Igor Stravinsky.

This skillfully chosen program made the connection readily apparent. The Russian and the Dane were innovative orchestrators, skilled in the use of rhythm. Both sprinkled their compositions with welcome doses of humor. That was evident in Nielsen's brief Pan and Syrinx, a tone poem that pushes the woodwinds of the orchestra to the fore in an entertaining dialogue. Exceptional playing from the clarinet, English horn and bassoon was the order of the day, underpinned by a swift current of harmonies in the strings.

The clarinet moved to the front of the stage for the next work, Nielsen's Clarinet Concerto with RDO principal John Kruse. Mr. Kruse demonstrated the full expressive range of his instrument in the difficult solo part. He drew different voices from the clarinet, from a series of sad, minor-key groans to the instrument's more familiar, sunny register, racing up and down the instrument's range to thrilling effect.

The 27-minute single-movement work offered considerable challenge, including a long solo cadenza that spiralled gracefully downward before being caught on an updraft of orchestral sound. The piece opens with a fugal, almost baroque feel. Nielsen then veers into modern territory, developing a long conversation between soloist and orchestra.


The concert concluded with Pulcinella, a work firmly in the neo-classical mode that defines the middle period of Stravinsky's career. Although the dance movements and allegros recall the writing of Handel and Mozart, Stravinsky throws the occasional orchestral curve-ball at the listener. He has the musicians stop on a dime, or play an ostinato rhythm that is characteristically Russian underneath the instrumental filigree.

Mr. Schønwandt conducted with flair, lip-synching along as he directed the three singers in their solo arias and brief ensembles. Mezzo Tuva Semmingsen brought intelligence and pointed meaning to her arias. Tenor Peter Lodahl sang with sweet, plaintive tone. Baritone Jochen Kupfer sang Stravinsky's bass part with a dark, warm tone that fit beautifully with the other two soloists.

As Pulcinella develops, more and more of Stravinsky's unique voice comes through. Most notable: the emphatic trombone solo in the latter third of the work that recalls the early recordings of New Orleans jazzman Kid Ory. This rambunctious part was a breath of fresh air, played with gusto by soloist Torbjørn Kroon. As the work concluded with another trio and a fast Allegro, the orchestra's long-overdue New York debut came to a triumphant close.

Concert Review: Nordic Combined at the Philharmonic

Alan Gilbert. Photo by Chris Lee

At the last concert before the New York Philharmonic unveils their 2011-2012 season, Alan Gilbert led a vital, intriguing combination of Beethoven, Sibelius, and Carl Nielsen. The concert featured two guest appearances from soprano Karita Mattila, who sang works by Beethoven and Sibelius while wearing two different gowns.

Beethoven's Eighth Symphony is one of his shortest and least-played. This cheerful little piece with its far-ranging opening theme allowed Mr. Gilbert to show his considerable skill in classical repertory. As the second theme entered, the Philharmonic's music director played Beethoven's little game of "hide-the-theme" with great glee. The second movement, with its repeating, metronomic rhythm was played with precision. The Minuet moved with the courtly precision of another century and the bucolic Rondo allowed the orchestra's winds and strings a chance to stretch.

Ms. Mattila then joined the orchestra for "Ah! Perfido!", a Beethoven stand-alone concert aria. Beethoven was a master pianist and orchestrator, but less skilled at writing for the voice. Ms. Mattila produced hearty tones, singing the aria's climactic passage with a full forte that overpowered the orchestra.

She and Mr. Gilbert sounded far more balanced in the three songs by Sibelius that opened the second half of the concert. These works, set to texts in the Finnish composer's preferred language of Swedish, were sang with great care and naturalism by the soprano, expertly accompanied. She ended her appearance with a brief encore, an a capella rendition of a traditional Finnish folk song. It was sung with great charm and emotion.

Carl Nielsen (1865-1931) a tonal symphonist from Denmark whose six quirky works in that genre provide symphony lovers with a great deal of enjoyment. Although Feb. 1 was the anniversary of Nielsen's Symphony No. 4, (The Inextinguishable) Mr. Gilbert programmed the Second instead. Entitled The Four Tempraments, its movements explore four different aspects of the human personality in accordance with the archaic medical belief that the body is ruled by four "humors": choleric, phlegmatic, melancholic and sanguine.


Those are the subtitles of the four movements of this brassy, engaging work which was led with great flair by Mr. Gilbert. The Philharmonic's famous brass section, led by Joseph Alessi and Philip Myers, had a field day with Nielsen's muscular choleric movement, charging pell-mell over a rich texture of strings. Mr. Gilbert conducted the phlegmatic movement with great lethargy, showing that he got the composer's joke. The melancholic adagio produced some of the evening's most beautiful playing. The sanguine finale roared forth, presenting the extroverted, raging side of the personality with a full-blooded performance.

This concert marks the start of a Nielsen initiative by Mr. Gilbert, who intends to revive interest in the composer by programming all six of his symphonies in coming seasons. If Tuesday night's performance is any indication, this bold move will provide Philharmonic audiences with something to look forward to in the seasons to come.