Flute Concerto

Raised as a youngster in a military band, Nielsen was always drawn to the sound of wind instruments; but it was much later in life that he eventually produced a series of three concertos for members of a celebrated Danish wind ensemble. One of them is this work of smiling neo-classical serenity which has become core repertoire for flautists. Premiered in 1926 in Paris, Nielsen’s Flute Concerto reflects his idea of the instrument’s “soul” (as he described it): pastoral, refined, sophisticated. And he makes the point by throwing the soloist into a gentle, jokily contrasting conflict with a clodhopping trombone (the composer’s own instrument in his band days). The joke extends through the two movements of the piece, which otherwise spend much of their time trying to figure out what key they’re in after an equivocal start. Only at the very end is this resolved when, after an abortive effort by the flute to establish the home tonality, the trombone muscles in and fixes it: a piece of winning mischief Nielsen only managed to come up with in his second (and now standard) version of the score.