Gramophone (UK)

‘The Ultimate Solo Piano Collection’ Complete Piano Works, Rikke Sandberg pf
OUR Recordings (8 226939/41 c • 3h 26’)

Nielsen’s complete piano music keeps getting more complete. Arne Skjold Rasmussen’s early-1950s Tono LPs contained all the then-published works and are now collectors’ items only; his 1960 BBC Studio remakes show exactly why his interpretations were regarded as reference recordings (and in many ways still are). In 2008 Martin Roscoe and Christina Bjørkøe added a couple of pieces then recently published in the scholarly Complete Edition. Now Rikke Sandberg, in a venture somewhat extravagantly billed by OUR Recordings as ‘The Ultimate Solo Piano Collection’, adds a clutch of a dozen or so miniatures from the ‘Addenda and Juvenilia’ volume of that Edition, plus a number of arrangements from Nielsen’s theatre music and cantatas, upping the total duration from two CDs’ worth to three.

None of the miniatures and only a few of the arrangements were foreseen for publication, but several have Nielsen’s signature charm (and one or two his no less signature wilfulness). For any admirer of the composer, their appearance on CD is self-recommending.
The most substantial of the arrangements is the Suite from Aladdin (minus, unsurprisingly, the polytonal ‘Market at Ispahan’, whose four interlocking ensembles are unfeasible for solo piano). It is hard not to crave the orchestral colours, but Rikke Sandberg is certainly a strong, committed advocate. Of all Nielsen’s theatre music, the jewel in the crown is surely the delectable
‘The Fog is Lifting’ from The Mother, familiar enough in its original flute-and-harp guise, but here inflected with suppleness and affection. As for the familiar canon, Sandberg brings a decades-long understanding and communicative urge to bear.

She partnered Kristoffer Hyldig on an exceptional album of Nielsen’s four-hands piano music (A/24), and her idiomatic and technical grasp are no less impressive here. She never shies away from Nielsen’s extremes, which in principle is all to the good. He himself was no shrinking violet, either in his life or in his music, and the performance instructions for his piano works cover a gamut from innocente to ubbriaco (‘inebriatedly’). His early Symphonic Suite carries the Goethe motto ‘Ah, those tender hearts! Any old bungler could stir them!’, meaning, in practice, that seductive pianistic textures à la Debussy, Ravel or Szymanowski were of less importance to Nielsen than warts-and-all, at times bloody-minded characterisation.

The problem with Sandberg’s forthright approach, it seems to me, lies less with her playing than with the bright instrument and acoustic in the Royal Library’s ‘Black Diamond’ hall. Given her instinct to let no accent or sforzando go unregistered, even the more modest pieces tend to sound rather ‘notey’, while the grander ones stray close to, and occasionally across, the border between clamorous and merely noisy.
Neither Rasmussen nor Roscoe are over-luxuriant or under-characterised, but their more judicious texturing allows the music to speak without shouting, and owners of either set would need to ask themselves whether Nielsen’s spin-offs and cast-offs are worth the extra outlay.
None of which, of course, is to say that Rikke Sandberg’s initiative and dedication to the cause have not done a great service. David Fanning, Gramophone July issue
Selected comparisons: Roscoe Hyperion CDA67591/2 (9/08) -Bjørkøe CPO CPO777 413-2 (4/09)
Rasmussen, 1960 Danacord DACOCD892