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Hyperion Records

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Flowering Lilacs, Funen, Denmark.
Photographed by Lone Mengel / Reproduced by courtesy of The Danish Tourist Board
Track(s) taken from CDA66231/2

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It is not surprising, perhaps, that Nielsen’s first published work for the piano, the Five Piano Pieces Op 3, belongs essentially in the earlier category. Nielsen may have composed two of the pieces, Nos 2 and 5, as early as 1887–9, although the complete set was not assembled until 1890–91, while he was away from Denmark on his first trip abroad. The set is characteristically diverse in mood and expression. The opening number, ‘Folk Tune’, is in a somewhat stylized Jugendstil vein, although Nielsen adds the Danish direction ‘nynnende’ (‘humming’) to the opening bar. The third number, ‘Arabesque’, is remarkable for its sense of harmonic waywardness—a significant foreshadow of his later compositional idiom. Before publication, Nielsen referred to the piece as ‘Fanden’ (‘The Devil’), and the music is prefaced by a quotation from the symbolist poet Jens Peter Jacobsen: ‘Har Du faret vild i dunkle Skove? Kjender Du Pan?’ (‘Have you lost your way in the dark forest? Do you know Pan?’).

from notes by Daniel Grimley © 2008

Recording details: July 1986
Unknown, Unknown
Produced by Martin Compton
Engineered by Antony Howell
Release date: October 1987
Total duration: 7 minutes 31 seconds

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