GRAMOPHONE Review: Nielsen Violin Concerto, Symphony No 4 – James Ehnes, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra/Gardner

The liner notes remind us that this was the exact pairing of works that Carl Nielsen chose for his one and only London concert appearance. The critic of the day was not impressed with the Violin Concerto – but for all the reasons that make it so appealing to me personally. You could never second guess Nielsen: he loved subverting convention and wrong-footing his audience. And this intriguing piece is, like so much of his work, an awfully big adventure.

The soloist’s dramatic declamation at the outset might suggest that the cadenza has landed prematurely – attention will be paid, sinews stretched, but only to melt into a gorgeous lyric idea which might or might not be the first or even the second subject. And then again what does that make the chivalrous allegro arriving better late than never? And how come the short middle movement searches for but never actually finds a tune worthy of shaping into an actual slow movement?

James Ehnes – that most elegant and unflashy of players – seems to relish all that is unexpected about the piece, embracing the digressions and non-sequiturs and accentuating the many volte-faces between the stern and the sweet. Edward Gardner and the Bergen Philharmonic give it real backbone and play like its greatest champions.

They are splendid, too, in the elemental Fourth Symphony ‘Inextinguishable’ though I do wonder how much more positive I would feel about this performance had I not been so utterly wowed by the recent cycle from the Danish National Symphony Orchestra under Fabio Luisi. Gardner’s great strength is his way with architecture – and he absolutely capitalises on Nielsen’s dynamic extremes barely tangible ‘no man’s land’ pianissimi and the many volcanic upheavals.

It’s always hard to believe that that seemingly unassuming theme in clarinets from the early stages of the first movement will evolve as it does into something so immense and magisterial. Gardner terraces the big tuttis expertly giving them shape, inner clarity and a real sense of direction. Balances are exemplary. And there’s the mighty contrast he draws between the elegant gavotte of the second movement (mellifluous Bergen woodwinds) and the searing intensity of the strings and timpani led slow movement. But am I perhaps more conscious of Gardner’s way with the mechanics of the music than I am with its spontaneous combustion? Is the reading held on too tight a rein? Perhaps.

But Nielsen himself clearly liked the coupling and you won’t go far wrong with either performance. It’s just that I am somewhat fixated on the Luisi set of the symphonies (DG) and that Fourth is on a whole other level.