Fanfare 2
*****
A complete collection of Nielsen’s piano music given superb performances
NIELSEN The Ultimate Solo Piano Collection  Rikke Sandberg (pn)  OUR 8.226939 3CDs (206:28)

Welcome to 20 Della Grazia, Little Marie!. Chaconne, op. 32. Five Piano Pieces, op. 3. Symphonic Suite, op. 8. Souvenirs from Carl Nielsen, 11 Small Piano Pieces. Piano Music for Young and Old, op. 53. Prelude for the New Century. Three Piano Pieces, op. 59. Theme with Variations, op. 40. Piano Piece. Humoresque-Bagatelles, op. 11. Two Character Pieces. Suite, op. 45 “The Luciferian”. The Dream about ‘Silent Night’. Excerpts from ‘The Mother’, Add. 35. Dance of the Handmaidens from ‘Hagbarth and Signe’, Add. 32. Prelude to ‘Snefrid’, Add. 29. Elves Dance from ‘Sir Oluf He Rides’, Add. 31. Music from Otto Benzons Play ‘Parents’. Oriental Festival March. Dances from ‘Aladdin’, Add. 34

Denmark’s national composer, Carl Nielsen (1865-1931), was a violinist with piano skills described as mediocre. He composed at the piano and his piano solo works were written over a 40 year period. Everything is in this must-have complete collection. While there is only a little overtly virtuosic piano writing, there is a considerable amount of demanding music here, abounding orchestral complexities, especially in the big pieces. I was immediately reminded of John Ogdon’s first disc for RCA made in early 1968 of four of Nielsen’s largest piano works. I was also reminded of Sandberg’s recording last year of Nielsen’s music for piano four hands (OUR 8.226923, Fanfare issue 48:2, Nov/Dec 2024). It was one of my favorites, both for pianism of Sandberg and her duo partner Kristoffer Hyldig and the revelations of music uncovered by Sandberg like the composer’s own piano duo arrangement of his Symphony 3.
At least five of Nielsen’s large piano works deserve to be in the standard repertoire: the Chaconne, Symphonic Suite, Theme with Variations, the Luciferian Suite and Three Piano Pieces. Both in terms of Nielsen’s output and of early 20th century piano pieces in general, these are of significant size and compositional achievement. Ogdon recorded four of them (not the Theme with Variations) and his tempos are all a bit quicker than Sandberg’s. The wealth of interesting shorter pieces in this collection could provide excellent variety in concert programs. Sandberg gives sublime performances throughout. She has the stylistic knowledge and the pianistic skills to make this an unquestionable best of the year release.
The identification of Nielsen’s works is somewhat comparable to those of Schubert. The Dane used opus numbers, but not consistently or in order of composition. There also are FS numbers from a 1965 catalog by Dan Fog and Torben Schousboe. The ultimate catalog is referred to as CNW (Catalogue of Carl Nielsen's Works), compiled by the Royal Danish Library, which covers all of Nielsen's known works (419 in all). The “Add.” used in my headnote comes directly from the CD cover and refers to the additional entries to the CNW – mostly piano arrangements of sections of other works. I suspect that this topic could be as involved as one has time and resources. Rikke Sandberg has clearly spent a huge amount of time finding and learning all of the little pieces especially. This is a much smaller project than Leslie Howard’s 99 CD, 14 year effort for Liszt’s complete piano music, but scholarship and performances by Sandberg are quite similar. We also get a number of world premier recordings.
Nielsen's collections of easier pieces are suitable for young pianists and those of us with more modest technical abilities. I was pleased with the musical care Sandberg gives each of these wonderful works. Every voice is shaped and the variety of legato and shorter notes is carefully thought out, well in line with the printed scores and perfectly executed. Nielsen consistently writes beautiful melodies which makes the shorter pieces very attractive and accessible. The big pieces here stand up to the very hard to find Ogdon recordings, with much better sound. There is no reason that this release should not be in the collection of every romantic piano aficionado. James Harrington