Nielsen Maskarade

 Day 69

Nielsen Maskarade

Soloists

Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra and Choir

Ulf Schirmer

This was a major discovery

Over the years I have heard all of the Nielsen symphonies though I have never played any of them - a couple of time orchestras I have been involved with have programmed than and for some reason I have not be able to make the concert. I've played a couple of overtures (including the one to this opera) and the first movement of the Wind Quintet, but I can't say that, apart from the 5th symphony, I know any of his music that well.

This opera was a delight from beginning to end. It dates from 1906 and although it is part of the standard repertory in Denmark is hasn't really secured a place in the international repertory. It is a comic piece set, as you might imagine, agains the background of a masked ball. That gives lots of opportunities for disguises and mistaken identity and as you might imagine after lots of confusion it all ends happily ever after.

The opera is most reminded me of was Falstaff. Not that the music sounds remotely like Verdi but the whole approach is very similar. Fast moving action moving constantly between dialogue-like passages and more lyrical phrases, virtuoso orchestration with many touches of humour and pathos, complex ensemble. a sense of fun and huge energy. Compare for example the headlong ensemble at the end of Act One here with the ensemble at the end of Act I One Scene One of the Verdi.

As I said, it doesn't sound like Verdi. The sound world is more Germanic with a hint of Bohemia. There are strands of the Bartered Bride - particularly in the folk music - and Hansel and Gretel, but the closest point of reference is probably the Barber of Bagdhad, which I have already noted as being one of the finest of all comic operas. I'm happy to say that Maskarade will certainly be joining that list from now on.

I'm not sure that I would have identified the composer as Nielsen had I been listening to this blind. Perhaps some of the ways that he uses the horns and, especially , the bassoons might have give me a clue. There are also some of his harmonic fingerprints here and there. Perhaps if I re-listen to the symphonies I might find more points of similarity. But there is no doubt that this is an important work by a major composer and one I was delighted to discover.