Symphony No. 5

Echoes of the violence of World War I can be heard in Nielsen’s Fourth Symphony (1915-16). Now, in Symphony No. 5 (1921-22), Nielsen confronts directly the catastrophe that destroyed a way of life and, with it, his nationalist-humanist optimism. Somehow or other, ground for hope has to be found, perhaps in the “elemental Will of Life”, whose indestructibility he celebrated at the close of No. 4. This time though, the struggle was to be even more bitter, the final triumph (if that’s what it is) less certain. The sound of war makes itself heard early in the Fifth Symphony. The strangely neutral peace of the opening is disrupted by goose-stepping percussion, led by an unmistakably militaristic side-drum, obsessively tapping out a march rhythm. Warmer aspiration eventually follows, but this darkens, and then comes an astonishing section in which the side-drum, initially in the “wrong” tempo, improvises a terrifying cadenza in a pitched battle with the full orchestra. The orchestra seems to win yet, as a desolate clarinet solo winds down the first movement, the side-drum, now offstage, is heard again, still tapping out its mad malignant rhythm. The finale (there are just two movements) now makes heroic efforts to pull itself together, in a wild dance, an even wilder fugue, then a slow fugal meditation. The dance returns, and brass and timpani try to nail home the message of hope. Do they succeed? If so, it’s only by the skin of the teeth.