Nielsen

Helios, Clarinet Concerto, Symphony No. 5

Alessandro Carbonare clarinet
Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra Conductor: Edward Gardner

Chandos CHSA 5314
chandos.net

Edward Gardner's ongoing Nielsen symphony cycle with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra reaches a significant milestone with this recording of the Fifth Symphony, flanked by the radiant Helios Overture and the challenging Clarinet Concerto featuring Alessandro Carbonare as soloist.

After a summer blessed with abundant sunshine, this release offers the perfect tonic for maintaining that warmth as autumn draws near. It is particularly apt that Gardner and his Bergen forces should open with Helios, the Greek sun god whose chariot is drawn across the heavens by four magnificent steeds. Composed in 1903 during Nielsen's sojourn to Greece—where his sculptor wife, Anne Marie, had received a grant to copy works from the Acropolis—this ten-minute tone poem traces the sun's journey from dawn through blazing noon to evening across the Aegean Sea.

As Paul Griffiths notes perceptively in his accompanying essay, Nielsen wrote to a friend that Athens was "scorchingly hot: Helios burns all day" while working on the piece. Yet what emerges from this performance is not oppressive heat but rather the sun's life-giving energy, captured with luminous orchestral colours that speak to the Bergen players' inherent understanding of Nordic light.

The Clarinet Concerto of 1928 presents formidable challenges, cast as it is in one continuous movement divided into four sections. Dedicated to Nielsen's friend Aage Oxenvad, who gave the première, this penultimate work finds the composer exploring the instrument's expressive range with characteristic boldness. Alessandro Carbonare rises magnificently to these demands, displaying breathtaking virtuosity that makes the fiendishly difficult passages sound almost effortless. Alessandro Carbonare's profound musicality complements his nimble fingerwork and controlled breathing, highlighting the work's expressive depths. The concerto's distinctive use of snare drum—a Nielsen hallmark shared with the Fifth Symphony—is handled with appropriate Scandinavian character by the Bergen percussion