Symphony No. 1 in G Minor

When Nielsen’s Symphony No. 1 was premiered in Copenhagen by the Chapel Royal Orchestra (now the Royal Danish Orchestra) in 1894, the composer took part in the performance—not as the conductor, but in the orchestra’s second violin section, where he was a regular player. Nielsen disliked the high Romantic chromatic harmony of Wagner and Liszt, and strongly preferred the leaner musical style of Dvorak, Mendelssohn and the classical masters, especially Bach and Mozart. The four-movement First Symphony, completed in 1892, combines those influences with an unpretentious, fresh-air quality in the melodic writing that is very much Nielsen’s own. And the work’s ground-breakingly original concept of “progressive tonality” reflected Nielsen’s belief that music is an expression of the energy and growth processes of life itself. While the first movement is based in the key of G minor, the finale “progresses” from the same tonality to end not in the traditionally expected G minor or major, but in resplendent C major.