Nielsen's works are sometimes referred to by CNW numbers, based on the ''Catalogue of Carl Nielsen's Works'' (CNW) published online by the
Danish Royal Library in 2015. The CNW catalogue is intended to replace the 1965 catalogue compiled by
Dan Fog and
Torben Schousboe (FS numbers).
Musical style In his
Lives of the Great Composers, the music critic
Harold C. Schonberg emphasizes the breadth of Nielsen's compositions, his energetic rhythms, generous orchestration and his individuality. In comparing him with
Jean Sibelius, he considers he had "just as much sweep, even more power, and a more universal message". The
Oxford University music professor Daniel M. Grimley qualifies Nielsen as "one of the most playful, life-affirming, and awkward voices in twentieth-century music" thanks to the "melodic richness and harmonic vitality" of his work. Anne-Marie Reynolds, author of ''Carl Nielsen's Voice: His Songs in Context'', cites Robert Simpson's view that "all of his music is vocal in origin", maintaining that song-writing strongly influenced Nielsen's development as a composer. The Danish sociologist Benedikte Brincker observes that the perception of Nielsen and his music in his home country is rather different from his international appreciation. His interest and background in folk music had special resonance for Danes, and this was intensified during the nationalistic movements of the 1930s and during World War II, when singing was an important basis for the Danes to distinguish themselves from their German enemies. Nielsen's songs retain an important place in Danish culture and education. The musicologist Niels Krabbe describes the popular image of Nielsen in Denmark as being like "the ugly duckling syndrome" – a reference to the tale of the Danish writer
Hans Christian Andersen – whereby "a poor boy ... passing through adversity and frugality ... marches into Copenhagen and ... comes to conquer the position as the uncrowned King". While outside Denmark Nielsen is largely thought of as a composer of orchestral music and the opera
Maskarade, in his own country he is more of a national symbol. These two sides were officially brought together in Denmark in 2006 when the Ministry of Culture issued a list of the twelve greatest Danish musical works, which included Nielsen's opera
Maskarade, his Fourth Symphony, and a pair of his Danish folk songs. Krabbe asks the rhetorical question: "Can 'the national' in Nielsen be demonstrated in the music in the form of particular themes, harmonies, sounds, forms, etc., or is it a pure construct of reception history?" Nielsen himself was ambiguous about his attitudes to late Romantic German music and to nationalism in music. He wrote to the Dutch composer
Julius Röntgen in 1909 "I am surprised by the technical skills of the Germans nowadays, and I cannot help thinking that all this delight in complication must exhaust itself. I foresee a completely new art of pure archaic virtue. What do you think about songs sung in
unison? We must go back ... to the pure and the clear." On the other hand, he wrote in 1925 "Nothing destroys music more than nationalism does ... and it is impossible to deliver national music on request." Nielsen studied Renaissance
polyphony closely, which accounts for some of the melodic and harmonic content of his music. This interest is exemplified in his
Tre Motetter (Three Motets, Op. 55). To non-Danish critics, Nielsen's music initially had a
neo-classical sound but became increasingly modern as he developed his own approach to what the writer and composer
Robert Simpson called progressive tonality, moving from one key to another. Typically, Nielsen's music might end in a different key from that of its commencement, sometimes as the outcome of a struggle as in his symphonies. There is debate as to how much such elements owe to his folk music activities. Some critics have referred to his rhythms, his use of
acciaccaturas or
appoggiaturas, or his frequent use of a
flattened seventh and
minor third in his works, as being typically Danish. The composer himself wrote "The
intervals, as I see it, are the elements which first arouse a deeper interest in music ... [I]t is intervals which surprise and delight us anew every time we hear the cuckoo in spring. Its appeal would be less if its call were all on one note." Nielsen's philosophy of music style is perhaps summed up in his advice in a 1907 letter to the Norwegian composer Knut Harder: "You have ... fluency, so far, so good; but I advise you again and again, my dear Mr. Harder;
Tonality, Clarity, Strength."
Symphonies in Copenhagen where many of Nielsen's compositions were premiered Nielsen is perhaps most closely associated outside Denmark with his six symphonies, written between 1892 and 1925. The works have much in common: they are all just over 30 minutes long, brass instruments are a key component of the orchestration, and they all exhibit unusual changes in tonality, which heighten the dramatic tension. It premiered in February 1916 in Copenhagen, two weeks after its completion, and was performed in Warsaw, London, Paris, and St Louis the following year. Also frequently performed is the
Symphony No. 5 (Op. 50, 1921–22), presenting another battle between the forces of order and chaos. A
snare drummer is given the task of interrupting the orchestra, playing and out of time, as if to destroy the music. Performed by the
Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by
Erik Tuxen at the 1950
Edinburgh International Festival, it caused a sensation, sparking interest in Nielsen's music outside Scandinavia. In
Symphony No. 6 (without opus number), written 1924–25, and subtitled
Sinfonia Semplice (Simple Symphony), the tonal language seems similar to that in Nielsen's other symphonies, but the symphony develops into a sequence of cameos, some sad, some grotesque, some humorous. The wind concertos present many examples of what Nielsen called ("objectification"). By this term he meant giving instrumentalists freedom of interpretation and performance within the bounds set out by the
score.
Orchestral music Nielsen's earliest work composed specifically for orchestra was the immediately successful
Suite for Strings, Op. 1 (1888), which evoked Scandinavian Romanticism as expressed by Grieg and Svendsen. (
Saga Dream), Op. 39 (1907–08) is a
tone poem for orchestra based on the Icelandic
Njal's Saga. In Nielsen's words: There are among other things four cadenzas for oboe, clarinet, bassoon and flute which run quite freely alongside one another, with no harmonic connection, and without my marking time. They are just like four streams of thought, each going its own way – differently and randomly for each performance – until they meet in a point of rest, as if flowing into a lock where they are united.
At the Bier of a Young Artist () for string orchestra was written for the funeral of the Danish painter
Oluf Hartmann in January 1910 and was also played at Nielsen's own funeral.
Pan and Syrinx (), a vigorous nine-minute symphonic poem inspired by
Ovid's
Metamorphoses, was premiered in 1911. The Rhapsodic Overture,
An Imaginary Trip to the Faroe Islands (), draws on
Faroese folk tunes but also contains freely composed sections. Among Nielsen's orchestral works for the stage are
Aladdin (1919) and (The Mother), Op. 41 (1920).
Aladdin was written to accompany a production of
Adam Oehlenschläger's fairy tale at The Royal Theatre in Copenhagen. The complete score, lasting over 80 minutes, is Nielsen's longest work apart from his operas, but a shorter orchestral suite consisting of the
Oriental March,
Hindu Dance and
Negro Dance is often performed. , written to celebrate the reunification of
Southern Jutland with Denmark, was first performed in 1921; it is a setting of patriotic verses written for the occasion.
Chamber music Nielsen composed several
chamber music works, some of them still high on the international repertoire. The Wind Quintet, one of his most popular pieces, was composed in 1922 specifically for the Copenhagen Wind Quintet. Simpson, explaining that Nielsen's fondness of wind instruments was closely related to his love of nature, writes: "He was also intensely interested in human character, and in the Wind Quintet composed deliberately for five friends; each part is cunningly made to suit the individuality of each player." Nielsen wrote four string quartets. The
First String Quartet No. 1 in G minor, Op. 13 (1889, revised 1900) contains a "Résumé" section in the finale, bringing together themes from the first, third and fourth movements. The
Second String Quartet No. 2 in F minor, Op. 5 appeared in 1890 and the
Third String Quartet in E-flat major, Op. 14 in 1898. The music historian Jan Smaczny suggests that in this work "the handling of texture is confident and far less derivative than in earlier works ... [the quartet] prompts the most regret that Nielsen did not pursue the genre further ... to parallel his later symphonic development". The
Fourth String Quartet in F major (1904) initially received a mixed reception, with critics uncertain about its reserved style. Nielsen revised it several times, the final version in 1919 being listed as his Op. 44. The violin was Nielsen's own instrument and he composed four large-scale chamber works for it. The departures from standard procedures in the First Sonata, Op. 9 (1895), including its often sudden
modulations and its terse thematic material, disconcerted Danish critics at its first performance. The Second Sonata, Op. 35 of 1912 was written for the violinist
Peder Møller who earlier that year had premiered the composer's Violin Concerto. The work is an example of the composer's progressive tonality since, although it is stated to be in the key of G minor, the first and final movements end in different keys. The critic
Emilius Bangert wrote of the premiere (which was given by
Axel Gade), "The overall impression was of a beautiful, unbroken line – a flow of notes – where in particular a wonderful second subject in the first part and the pure, high sphere of the last part were captivating". Two other works are for violin solo. The
Prelude, Theme and Variations, Op. 48 (1923) was written for Telmányi, and, like Nielsen's
Chaconne for piano, Op. 32, was inspired by the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. The
Preludio e Presto, Op. 52 (1928) was written as a tribute for the sixtieth birthday of the composer
Fini Henriques.
Keyboard works Although Nielsen came to compose mainly at the piano, he only composed directly for it occasionally over a period of 40 years, creating works often with a distinctive style which slowed their international acceptance. Nielsen's own piano technique, an echo of which is probably preserved in three
wax cylinders marked "Carl Nielsen" at the State Archives in
Aarhus, seems to have been mediocre. Reviewing the 1969 recording of works by the pianist
John Ogdon, John Horton commented on the early pieces: "Nielsen's technical resources hardly measure up to the grandeur of his designs", whilst characterising the later pieces as "major works which can stand comparison with his symphonic music". The anti-romantic tone of the
Symphonic Suite, Op. 8 (1894) was described by a later critic as "nothing less than a clenched fist straight in the face of all established musical convention". In Nielsen's words, the
Chaconne, Op. 32 (1917) was "a really big piece, and I think effective". It is not only inspired by the work of Bach, especially the
chaconne for solo violin, but also by the virtuoso piano arrangements of Bach's music by composers such as
Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms and Ferruccio Busoni. Also on a large scale, and from the same year, is the
Theme and Variations, Op. 40, in which critics have discerned the influences of Brahms and also of
Max Reger, of whom Nielsen had earlier written to a friend "I think that the public will be utterly unable to grasp Reger's work and yet I am a lot more sympathetic towards his efforts than towards ...
Richard Strauss". All Nielsen's organ works were late compositions. The Danish organist
Finn Viderø suggests that his interest was prompted by the (
Organ reform movement), and the renewal of the front pipes of the
Schnitger organ in the
St. Jacobi Church, Hamburg, from 1928 to 1930. Nielsen's last major work – , Op. 58, a 22-minute piece for organ – was composed between June 1930 and February 1931, only a few months before his death.
Songs and hymns Over the years, Nielsen wrote the music for over 290
songs and hymns, most of them for verses and poems by well-known Danish authors such as N. F. S. Grundtvig,
Ingemann, Poul Martin Møller, Adam Oehlenschläger and Jeppe Aakjær. In Denmark, many of them are still popular today both with adults and children. They are regarded as "the most representative part of the country's most representative composer's output". In 1906, Nielsen had explained the significance of such songs to his countrymen:With certain melodic inflections we Danes unavoidably think of the poems of, for example, Ingemann,
Christian Winther or
Drachmann, and we often seem to perceive the smell of Danish landscapes and rural images in our songs and music. But it is also clear that a foreigner, who knows neither our countryside, nor our painters, our poets, or our history in the same intimate way as we do ourselves, will be completely unable to grasp what it is that brings us to hear and tremble with sympathetic understanding. Of great significance was Nielsen's contribution to the 1922 publication,
Folkehøjskolens Melodibog (The Folk High School Songbook), of which he was one of the editors together with
Thomas Laub,
Oluf Ring and
Thorvald Aagaard. The book contained about 600 melodies, of which about 200 were composed by the editors, and was intended to provide a repertoire for
communal singing, an integral part of Danish folk culture. The collection was extremely popular and became embedded in the Danish educational system. During the
German occupation of Denmark in World War II, mass song gatherings, using these melodies, were part of Denmark's "spiritual re-armament", and after the war in 1945 Nielsen's contributions were characterised by one writer as "shining jewels in our treasure-chest of patriotic songs". This remains a significant factor in Danish assessment of the composer.
Editions Between 1994 and 2009 a complete new edition of Nielsen's works, the
Carl Nielsen Edition, was commissioned by the Danish Government (at a cost of over 40 million kroner). For many of the works, including the operas
Maskarade and
Saul and David, and the complete
Aladdin music, this was their first printed publication, copies of manuscripts having previously been used in performances. The scores are now all available for download free of charge at the website of the Danish Royal Library (which also owns most of Nielsen's music manuscripts). == Reception ==