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Ludolf Nielsen has an original voice, rooted in folk idioms like the British pastoralists who were emerging in the same period, but by no means phlegmatic or unimaginative. His Third Symphony is bold, dramatic music, suffused with a spiritual atmosphere and aesthetic derived from Bruckner, though not dependent on Bruckner's musical vocabulary. The work has an early 20th-century flavor, is deeply felt and expertly written, in my view a worthy companion to Carl Nielsen's Third Symphony and Stenhammar's Second Symphony, two other works from about the same time (1911-13). It is unquestionably Ludolf Nielsen's finest symphony (albeit the only one yet unpublished). The finale leaves an indelible impression, rising out of smoldering embers to a remarkable climax. By the time it's over you know you've just heard the genuine article -- not a suite, not tunes shoe-horned into academic sonata forms, not a collection of tone poems, but a symphony.
After this work and his extraordinary cantata The Tower of Babel, Nielsen fell silent for a time, stunned by the Great War's seeming mockery of spiritual ideals he and other contemporaries had been trying to follow and promulgate. The tone poem Hjortjolm was written after he recovered his urge to create following the war. It's a rich work in its own right, sounding as much at home in the early 1920s as the symphony does in the early 1910s.
The performances by the Bamberg SO under Frank Cramer are excellent, and Da Capo's engineering sounds marvelous on a good system.
If Ludolf Nielsen does not rise quite to the heights of Carl Nielsen in the latter's Fourth. Fifth, and Sixth Symphonies or to the level of the symphonic Sibelius, his orchestral music nevertheless bears the stamp of a richly gifted and serious artist with a journey to share -- perhaps a bit cheerier than CN's journey or Sibelius's but authentically so and for me a worthy musical companion who wrote from his depths, not from a hankering for positive reviews. I wouldn't want to be without the best works of Stenhammar, Sibelius, or either Nielsen. This disc has two of LN's best.
Ludolf Nielsen (1876-1939, and who was not directly related to Carl Nielsen) was basically a self-taught composer. He was a master at orchestration and melody. His third and last symphony is undoubtedly his greatest, which is included on this recording. It is hard to believe that this wonderful work was not accepted by the audiences or the critics at the time of it's premiere. The music itself seems to describe the joy of life, and with the monumental forces of the orchestra, the power of the music just soars. This is the first recording of this symphony, which is in it's original scoring.The tone poem Hjortholm was written 10 years after the symphony was (1923), and also contains some astounding music (the brass section plays marvelously to note). Though it does not rank with his third symphony, it is still worth hearing. To mention, Ludolf Nielsen composed about 200 works, which I'm sure are worth recording, so we've only tapped into his musical reserves. Enjoy!
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