Carl Nielsen - String Quartets (Danish String Quartet)

Information

Composer: Carl Nielsen

CD1:

• (01) String Quartet in G minor, Op. 13
• (05) String Quartet in F major, Op. 14
• (09) String Quintet in G major

CD2:

• (01) String Quartet in F minor, Op. 5
• (05) String Quartet in E flat major, Op. 14

Danish String Quartet
Frederik Øland, violin
Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen, violin
Asbjørn Nørgaard, viola
Carl-Oscar Østerlind, cello
&
Tim Frederiksen, viola (Quintet)

Recording Date: 2006, 2007
Compilation: 2013
Label: Dacapo Records

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Review

Has Nielsen been played better? These young Danes set benchmark standards

I’m not sure what the members of the Danish Quartet, who recorded the Nielsen quartets more than effectively in 1992 (Kontrapunkt, 10/93), think about a “young” incarnation appearing 15 years later. But I hope they would doff their caps in admiration, because these new recordings are top-notch, and I’m happy to echo and endorse the enthusiasm they have already generated in Denmark.

The benchmark recording has been that of the Kontra Quartet (BIS, 4/92 – nla), sympathetic interpretations of works which do not enshrine the absolute finest of Nielsen, for all that he was an orchestral violinist and an experienced and enthusiastic performer of string quartets. But the new Quartet, all in their early twenties, bring a freshness and energy plus a level of sheer accomplishment that I don’t ever remember hearing in these works. Far from defensiveness or special pleading, they simply assume that they are playing high quality music and that their job is therefore to give it their all. The results are joyous, effervescent.

The First Quartet is the most striking beneficiary, since it can too easily sound texturally over-written and structurally effortful, as in the finale’s contrived “Résumé”. Such reservations are hard to entertain while listening to this thoroughly infectious account. Nielsen asks for energy in the first movement, and that is what the Young Danish Quartet give him, along with large-scale sweep and mellifluous tone throughout. The Fourth Quartet, a tough-minded cousin to the comic opera Maskarade, is interpretatively more challenging, and the Young Danish Quartet may in future find more subtly shaded routes through it; in the meantime their expressive candour and passion are entirely to the good. They are joined in the Quintet by Tim Frederiksen, under whom they studied at the Royal Conservatory in Copenhagen, and without quite transmuting base metal into gold, they display the various facets of what was a breakthrough piece for the young Nielsen to their best advantage.

-- David Fanning, Gramophone

More reviews:
https://www.classicstoday.com/review/review-13964/
http://www.classical.net/music/recs/reviews/m/mpl20522a.php
http://www.classical-music.com/review/nielsen-48
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2009/Apr09/Nielsen_SQvol2_6220522.htm

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Carl Nielsen (9 June 1865 – 3 October 1931) was a Danish musician, conductor and violinist, widely recognized as his country's most prominent composer. Although his symphonies, concertos and choral music are now internationally acclaimed, Nielsen's career and personal life were marked by many difficulties, often reflected in his music. Nielsen maintained the reputation of an outsider during his lifetime, both in his own country and internationally. It was only later that his works firmly entered the international repertoire, accelerating in popularity from the 1960s through Leonard Bernstein and others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Nielsen

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The Danish String Quartet made its debut in 2002. The Quartet was primarily taught and mentored by Tim Frederiksen and have participated in master classes with the Tokyo and Emerson String Quartets, Alasdair Tait, Paul Katz, Hugh Maguire, Levon Chilingirian and Gábor Takács-Nagy. Since 2007, the group has curated its own annual festival - DSQ Festival - in Nyboder, Copenhagen. The quartet was named as a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist for 2013-15. Current members are Frederik Øland and Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen (violins), Asbjørn Nørgaard (viola) and Fredrik Schøyen Sjölin (cello).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_Quartet#Danish_String_Quartet
https://danishquartet.com/

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