Thomas Jensen (conductor)
Legacy Volume 25
The Lost Broadcasts 1952-63
Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra
rec. Concert Hall of the Danish Radio House
Danacord DACOCD1014-18 [5 CDs: 375]
This is the last volume in Danacord’s Thomas Jensen edition, and the booklet prints a four-page composer index which notes every work in the series, handily linked to the relevant volume number. To go out in a small blaze of glory the label has constructed a 5-CD release under the heading ‘The Lost Broadcasts 1952-63’, taped privately by Arne Helman using two tape recorders. All are previously unpublished, the vast majority from Jensen’s last years, 1960-63.
Mozart’s Symphony No.41 opens the set, a strongly hewn performance along expected lines for the time. There are a few orchestral imprecisions, and the sound of the strings can be somewhat opaque but the winds come through vividly. Mahler’s First Symphony (January 1962) is, in outline, not dissimilar to the recordings of Bruno Walter and Rafael Kubelik. The broadcast sonics are a little flat, perhaps – the percussion sound blurred, for example – but there is real phrasal innocence in the ‘B’ section of the second movement, and the klezmer episodes are not especially underdone.
There’s more Mozart in CD 2 in the form of Symphonies 21 and 29. Balancing can be an issue from time to time – I’m not sure if this was as a result of Jensen’s hearing problems – but No.29 is especially vigorous. Lully’s Suite is analogous to Hamilton Harty’s Handel arrangements and Jensen treats the Lully Sarabande in ultra-romanticised fashion. There are a few extraneous noises in this broadcast, and the performance is not as stylish as Beecham’s Handel arrangements but in compensation, is a very rare example of Jensen’s foray into this repertory. Gluck’s Dance of the Blessed Spirits is heard in Felix Mottl’s arrangement, but this is afflicted by a brief burst of radio station cross-fade. Smetana’s From Bohemia’s Woods and Fields finishes the second disc in lusty fashion. It’s not the neatest performance but it exudes a natural vigour.
Gade’s Symphony No.1 might cleave to Mendelssohnian tramlines, but Jensen draws out its dramatic power as well as its lyrical richness in a performance of outstanding stylistic assurance. Bisecting Gade and the following Nielsen is Mussorgsky’s A Night on Bare Mountain. However, Nielsen’s Fourth Symphony is the real Jensen and it’s not the same 1952 performance preserved on Danacord DACOCD351-3, which dates from 2 September. The one under discussion comes from three months later, 9 December, and is a superb example of the conductor’s identification with the intensity and exuberance of Nielsen’s writing, and his deft drawing-out of the music’s brief ceremonial elements as much as its emotive complexity, and logical sense of melancholy intensity. The timpani incident in the finale is suitably dramatic and strange.
If CD 3 offers canonic Jensen in Nordic repertoire perfectly suited to his experience and gifts, the next disc provides variety. Rimsky-Korsakov’s Piano Concerto must have been very rare repertoire to perform in 1963. This Lisztian one-movement 13-minute piece – it was even dedicated to Liszt – is played poetically by Birthe Hansen, yet to graduate from the Royal Academy of Music in Copenhagen. Two pieces in this disc come from the same concert – Bartók’s Romanian Folk Dances, in Arthur Willner’s arrangement, and Britten’s Simple Symphony, both neatly accomplished. Of more significance, though, is Leif Kayser’s Symphony No.3, composed between 1943 – by which point he was training to become a Catholic priest in Rome – and 1953 and performed here by Jensen in October 1960. The Symphony is dark and brooding, and somewhat redolent of Honegger’s second and third symphonies given that it’s freighted with threnodic intensity. However, elsewhere it achieves a Hindemith-like clarity, ending quietly and in purity, consolation having proved hard won. It’s played with a searing intensity of purpose by Jensen and the Danish Radio Symphony.
The last disc opens with a performance of Nielsen’s Little Suite for strings, Op.1. Though it’s hardly a characteristic work, Jensen phrases the Intermezzo most attractively. The Finale is tracked into two, here. Harald Sæverud’s music from his incidental music to Peer Gynt, Op.28 was written for a new staging of the work in 1948. The four brief extracts are largely folkloric and indulge in dance motifs and some rather broad quotations. Sibelius’ warmly sprung incidental music to King Kristian II features and especially warm Nocturne and Elegie. The last three works sum up Jensen’s dedication to Nordic music – the avuncular, dramatic concert overtures of August Søderman and Hakon Børresen – and also highlight his barnstorming way with Dvořák’s Carnival Overture, a calling card work of the orchestra in its international tours.
It is an appropriate way to end this energising and revealing series which has stretched to 25 releases without ever fatiguing the ear or sapping the spirit.
Jonathan Woolf
Contents
CD 1
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Symphony No. 41 in C major K551 ‘Jupiter’ (1788)
rec. 8 October 1963, live concert
Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
Symphony No. 1 in D major (1888)
rec. 25 January 1962, live concert
CD 2
Jean Baptiste Lully (1632-1687)
Suite for String Orchestra
Christoph Willibald von Gluck (1714-1787)
Orfeo ed Euridice II. Danse of the Blessed Spirits (arr. Felix Mottl) (1762)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Symphony No. 21 in A major, K134 (1772)
rec. 1 October 1962, live concert
Symphony No. 29 in A major, K201 (1774)
rec. 16 March 1961, live concert
Bedrich Smetana (1824-1884)
Má vlast (My Fatherland): Z ceskych luhu a haju (From Bohemia’s Woods and Fields) (1879)
rec. 8 October 1963, live concert
CD 3
Niels Gade (1817-1890)
Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 5 “Paa Sjølunds fagre Sletter” (1842)
rec. 830 May 1963, live concert
Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881)
A Night on Bare Mountain (arr. Nikolai Rimsly-Korsakov) (1867)
rec. 8 September 1963, live concert
Carl Nielsen (1865-1931)
Symphony No. 4, Op. 29. FS76. “Inextinguishable” (1916)
rec. 9 December 1952, live concert
CD 4
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908)
Piano Concerto in C sharp minor, Op. 30 (1882-83)
Birthe Hansen (piano)
rec. 8 September 1963, live concert
Bela Bartók (1881-1945)
Romanian Folk Dances, Sz. 56 (arr. Arthur Willner) (1917)
Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)
Simple Symphony, Op. 4 (1934)
rec. 8 October 1963, live concert
Leif Kayser (1919-2011)
Symphony No. 3 (1943-1953)
rec. 15 October 1960
CD 5
Carl Nielsen
Lille suite for strygere (Little Suite in A minor for strings) Op. 1. FS6 (1888)
rec. 7 January 1962, live concert
Harald Sæverud (1897-1992)
Peer Gynt Op. 28 (1948)
Jean Sibelius (1865-1957)
Incidental music to King Kristian II Op. 27 (1898)
rec. 6 July 1963, live concert broadcasts
August Søderman (1832-1876)
Svenskt Festspel, Concert Overture (1858)
rec. 14 October 1962, live concert
Hakon Børresen (1876-1954)
Thor kører til Jotunheim (Thor goes to Jotunheim), Concert Overture Op. 1 (1895)
rec. 6 July 1963, live concert broadcast
Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904)
Carnival Overture, Op. 93 (1891)
rec. 9 December 1952, live concert
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