Wind Quintet, Op. 43

The Menuet is in 3/4, marked ♩ = 96. The clarinet plays the melody at mp over staccato repeated notes in the bassoon. Flute and oboe rest for the first fifteen bars, and the horn enters at p in bar 9.

Nielsen began the Quintet before leaving for Gothenburg in February 1922 and wrote the rest there, living with Herman and Lisa Mannheimer. The first movement was finished at the end of March, the second and third within a month, and the work was played at the Mannheimers’ home on 30 April.

The Trio begins at bar 45 and moves to F major. Oboe and clarinet carry the melody, and the flute enters at p in bar 48. The section ends at bar 71 on a pp chord under a fermata.

The Menuet returns at bar 72, written out in full. The clarinet plays the melody at mp over the staccato bassoon, as in the opening bars.

Four takes were made of this side, matrix 2CS 295. The first three date from January 1936, and the fourth, which was issued, was made on 5 May 1936.

The Coda begins at bar 115 at f, with a rising run in the clarinet and a held note in the horn. In the last three bars all five instruments diminuendo together on repeated chords, marked rall., and the movement ends at bar 122 on a p chord under a fermata.

The Prelude is marked Adagio. Cor anglais, horn and bassoon sound a fortissimo chord marked pesante, the clarinet joins in the third bar and the flute enters in the fourth. The oboist plays cor anglais from here to the end of the theme at bar 42.

The flute plays alone in long runs of triplets, marked accel. and then rall. Horn and bassoon return at pianissimo in bar 8, clarinet and bassoon play more pianissimo triplets in bar 9, and bar 10 ends on fermatas.

Bar 11 is marked poco agitato. The cor anglais plays a melody in triplets at fortissimo while clarinet, horn and bassoon repeat accented chords, also in triplets. The flute rests until bar 16.

According to Torben Meyer, Nielsen heard Svend Christian Felumb practising a cor anglais solo from Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique behind the scenes at a concert. That night he telephoned Felumb to ask whether a player could change instruments within a movement, and is said to have composed this Prelude at once.

After a pause marked lunga the theme begins in A major, Un poco andantino, in 3/4. It is the tune of Nielsen’s hymn Min Jesus, lad mit Hjerte faa, set in five parts with the flute on top at p. It runs for sixteen bars, 27 to 42, and ends on a fermata.

In the first variation, bars 43 to 58, flute, oboe and clarinet rest. Horn and bassoon play a duet at forte, and the variation ends on a fermata for all five.

The flute plays runs of sixteenth notes above short staccato notes in clarinet and horn. In bar 68 flute, oboe, clarinet and bassoon repeat sixteenth notes together, marked fz and falling to p.

The oboe has the melody at mp, marked espressivo, over a low horn at pp and bassoon at p. The clarinet and flute join later, and the variation ends at bar 90 on a ppp chord with fermatas, marked rall.

All five instruments begin together at fortissimo with repeated staccato notes, and triplets appear from bar 93. The variation ends at bar 106 with short accented notes in clarinet, horn and bassoon marked ffz, and a fermata on the last rest.

Tempo giusto. Flute, oboe and horn rest while clarinet and bassoon play a duet. The bassoon plays short bursts of repeated sixteenth notes and the clarinet plays runs, with a long trill in bar 118.

Flute, clarinet and bassoon start together at p, and oboe and horn join a few bars later. The variation ends at bar 138 with a diminuendo and fermatas, marked rall.

The bassoon plays alone for sixteen bars, 139 to 154, in flowing triplets that begin at mf. Bar 154 is a fermata for all five, marked lunga.

The Wind Quintet of the Royal Orchestra recorded the work for HMV in Copenhagen in January 1936; the Menuet side was re-made in May. The seven sides, with the Taagen letter from Nielsen’s music for Moderen on an eighth, were issued as the four records DB 5200–⁠5203.

The oboe plays the melody at mp and the clarinet answers with marcato figures, while horn and bassoon hold low notes tied across the bars. The flute joins later.

In August 1937 the Philadelphia dealer H. Royer Smith listed the four records in its bulletin The New Records at $2.50 each. The reviewer found the quintet “at once old-fashioned and modern”.

The horn plays alone from bar 171, Tempo giusto. Its phrases fade to ppp before the pauses marked lunga in bars 174 and 178 and resume at ff. The last phrase ends at pppp in bar 186 on a fermata marked molto lunga.

Nielsen told the horn player Hans Sørensen that he imagined him standing on a hill and blowing so that it could be heard in every nook and cranny. Under the horn part in the draft he wrote that without great naive devotion to the mood of nature it would not work.

The metre is 6/8 and the flute begins alone at mp. The variation lasts thirty-two bars, 187 to 218, twice as long as those before it, and ends with a crescendo to ff, a diminuendo and a rall. to a p chord on a fermata.

Tempo di marcia, in 4/4. Clarinet, oboe and bassoon play trills marked fz, with short figures in horn and flute. The tempo quickens at bar 235 (più mosso), and a crescendo, rall. and diminuendo fill bars 243 to 247.

The hymn tune returns in chords for all five instruments, marked pp and poco a poco cresc. The last chord, in bar 265, is fortissimo under a fermata. In a programme note Nielsen wrote that the variations end with the theme “in all its simplicity”.

The first hymn sung at Nielsen’s funeral on 9 October 1931 was Min Jesus, lad mit Hjerte faa. The wind quintet of the Royal Orchestra played this Andantino festivo at the grave in Vestre Kirkegård as the coffin was lowered.