5th symphony (Nielsen)

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The Symphony no. 5, Opus 50 (first performed in Copenhagen on 24 January 1922) is regarded as symphonic masterpiece by Carl Nielsen . Of his six symphonies , it is at least the structurally most original (Nielsen's only two-movement symphony) and the most daring in terms of tonal language. In it, the composer even surpasses his already dramatically very pointed and musically harsh Fourth Symphony .

The first movement lasts almost 20 minutes and unmistakably represents a conflict situation. The use of a constantly repeated, march-like , rhythmically intricate melody that swells up and down in sound, which is alternately interrupted or accompanied by the regular, long-lasting pounding of a snare drum and the whirring of a clarinet creates a threatening atmosphere and harmonious instability. Tuttis distributed over the entire movement with a large use of percussion on the one hand and sudden moments of calm on the other contribute to the pull of the music, which is heading towards several climaxes, first Tempo giusto , then Adagio non troppo . This first movement seems very modern because (a novelty in the music of the time) the passage of the snare drum is played at an independent tempo from the rest of the orchestra. The entire movement anticipates the similarly designed first movement of Shostakovich's 7th Symphony .

The second movement lasts about 15 minutes and depicts the victorious overcoming of the conflict ( Allegro , then Andante un poco tranquillo ). Here the composer demands from the orchestra and its conductor an even greater mastery of their profession, since the unusually dense instrumentation and the even greater harmonic indeterminacy require a particularly attentive interaction in order to preserve the legibility of the movement. After several fugue-like passages, he heads for a huge, optimistic coda in E flat major, which rounds off the work weightily.

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