INFODAN (US)
****
EXCELLENCE, COMPROMISED
A release of genuine importance marred by significant, pervasive missteps in packaging and presentation, Rikke Sandberg’s recording of Carl Nielsen’s complete solo-piano music ought to be an occasion for three cheers, or even four. Those cheers are fully merited by Sandberg’s playing: the uniform excellence of the performances almost makes up for the slapdash and inconsiderate-to-listeners sequencing and presentation of the ancillary material. But not quite.
Because Nielsen’s piano music is not well-known or frequently performed – perhaps because he was a mediocre pianist himself and very rarely played his own keyboard works – it is more than usually important for a comprehensive release like this one to present the works in a logical sequence and provide some written connective tissue to allow listeners to hear them in context.

A booklet essay by Niels Bo Foltmann attempts to do just that, discussing the pieces chronologically and using their CNW numbering from the catalogue of Nielsen’s works to provide continuity. But the CD track listings themselves never give CNW numbering – not once – and the arrangement of pieces on the discs is thoroughly incoherent.

For example, the essay makes much of the fact that Nielsen’s 1917 Theme and Variations was composed immediately after his Chaconne, an important fact since these are two of his three most significant piano works. But the two pieces are not placed one after the other on the discs – in fact, they are on separate CDs. The overall arrangement of the tracks is neither chronological nor set up systematically in other ways.

For example, after 1897, Nielsen went through a near-20-year period in which he composed no piano music at all, and that could certainly be an organizing principle for the discs; but here, works from before and after the hiatus are tossed helter-skelter together.

Elements explained in the essay sometimes do not dovetail with the actual recording: the written material notes that in 1908, Nielsen “composed several short piano pieces for Otto Benzon’s play Parents,” but the recording includes only a single 90-second item labeled as relating to that stage work – so are the other pieces lost, is this not really a complete-works release, or what?

And there are plenty of other discrepancies between what is written and what is heard, often in the form of small but irritating wording differences, such as the essay mentioning a piece called The Music Box that appears nowhere, although there is one called The Musical Clock.

And then there is the strange instance of “a small piano piece (CNW 95)” that turned up after Nielsen’s death – but there is absolutely no identification of where it might be on the recording, although by process of elimination, listeners may be able to figure out that an undated 41-second entry simply labeled Piano Piece is it.

But it is important, despite all this, to point out that the frustrations associated with these inconsistencies and many others have nothing to do with Sandberg’s actual performances or with the worthiness of Nielsen’s piano music. There is nothing of meaningless display in these works or Sandberg’s handling of them: a sense of seriousness of purpose pervades her playing throughout, even when the pieces themselves are quite light.

Indeed, many of these works are trifles, micro-miniatures lasting a minute or less. The brief items show Nielsen in a jovial mood that contrasts strongly with the complexity and high seriousness of the Chaconne, Theme and Variations, and his third major piano work, Suite “The Luciferian” (the title meaning “light bringer” and having nothing satanic about it).

This last work veers effectively from complex and gnarly movements to a sweet and simple Allegretto innocente that shows Nielsen at his most charming. Theme and Variations features some fascinating up-and-down-the-keyboard pianistic acrobatics, and the Chaconne, which itself is actually a theme and variations, starts in traditionalist mode but becomes increasingly modern in sound and approach as it progresses.

There is plenty of interest in some other pieces here as well, with one simply labeled Three Piano Pieces being especially involving in its very modern-sounding sonic palette. Scattered around the more-important and more-significant material are some very tiny pieces that in some cases sound like throwaways while in others – notably the 25 of them collectively called Piano Music for Young and Old – are well-conceived and gathered meaningfully into groups.

This OUR Recordings release is not the first collection of Nielsen’s solo-piano music, although Christina Bjørkøe’s 2007 readings for CPO, on which the pieces are intelligently arranged chronologically and generally played at brisker tempos, omits the arrangements and incidental music included on Sandberg’s third disc.

Sandberg’s offering is significant by any pianistic and musical measure, and her remarkable devotion to the material keeps the recording engaging throughout. It is a real shame that there are so many small but irritating elements in the way the three-CD assemblage is put together: the sloppiness of presentation stands in stark contrast to the care and elegance of the musicianship that is so much in evidence throughout the release. July 9th 2026


https://transcentury.blogspot.com/2026/07/excellence-compromised.html