Nielsen - Helios, Clarinet Concerto, Symphony no.5 | Chandos CHSA5314

Nielsen - Helios, Clarinet Concerto, Symphony no.5

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Label: Chandos

Cat No: CHSA5314

Format: Hybrid SACD

Number of Discs: 1

Genre: Orchestral

Release Date: 5th September 2025

Contents

Works

Nielsen, Carl

Clarinet Concerto, op.57 FS129
Helios Overture, op.17 FS32
Symphony no.5, op.50

Artists

Alessandro Carbonare (clarinet)
Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra

Conductor

Edward Gardner

Works

Nielsen, Carl

Clarinet Concerto, op.57 FS129
Helios Overture, op.17 FS32
Symphony no.5, op.50

Artists

Alessandro Carbonare (clarinet)
Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra

Conductor

Edward Gardner

About

Edward Gardner’s series of Nielsen symphonies with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra continues with this recording of No.5, complemented with the overture Helios and the Clarinet Concerto, featuring Alessandro Carbonare as soloist.

Nielsen composed Helios in 1903 on a trip to Greece, as his wife, Anne Marie, a sculptor, had won a grant to copy sculptures on the Acropolis. Over its ten-twelve-minute duration, the work depicts sunrise, noontime, and then sunset over the Aegean Sea, and is one of the composer’s most performed works. The Clarinet Concerto dates from 1928 and is cast in one long movement falling into four sections. It is dedicated to Nielsen’s friend Aage Oxenvad who gave the first performance.

Composed between 1920 and 1922, the Fifth Symphony is unusually laid out in just two movements – the only piece by Nielsen to adopt this structure. Unlike his other mature symphonies, the Fifth lacks a subtitle, and so could be considered to be more “pure music” compared to the descriptive nature of the others. Nielsen described the symphony as “the division of dark and light, the battle between evil and good” and the opposition between “Dreams and Deeds”. Considered by many as a “war symphony”, Nielsen insisted that he had not been thinking of World War I whilst he was composing the work, but also commented “not one of us is the same as we were before the war”.

Reviews

However diverse his schedule, there’s nothing generalised about Edward Gardner’s response to Carl Nielsen’s distinctive idiom. This release, the third in a series devoted to the composer’s orchestral works, takes in passages of rapt introspection. That said, listeners will be struck most forcibly by the ebullience, clarity and flow of the music-making. ... Strongly recommended.  David Gutman
Gramophone October 2025
Gramophone Editor's Choice

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