Fourth Symphony
2nd movement
Shortly after this, the 1st movement ends abruptly and the 2nd movement breaks in, explosively. A prominent motif here is the 'Große Werke' melody - a song composed to a text by Wölfli which plays a major role in Nørgård's opera, Det guddommelige Tivoli (The Divine Tivoli):
At first, this melody is only heard in a blurred form (bar 8). Listen to the first 25 seconds of the movement, which include this version:
The melody then leads on to a distorted version of the popular melody, 'Fascination' (around bar 41):
The, from bar 94, the 'Große Werke' melody is heard on the clarinets:
This fragment of melody is very reminiscent of the incidental theme played on the clarinets in Nielsen's Fourth Symphony:
The effect, however, is quite different: Nielsen's incidental theme turns out to be the unquenchable melody that in the end is victorious in the symphony. Nørgård's motif is quite the opposite: it seems bizarre and garish, and is constantly falling apart. The grotesque interweaving of Nielsen and popular melodies is especially clear in a little violin passage that starts from bar 101, and which is to be played 'like a (condensed) symphony in itself', as the composer notes in the score. Here we can hear Nielsen's characteristic oscillating thirds, a quotation from a popular song and reminiscences of the third movement of Nielsen's First Symphony - all woven together in one instrumental part!:
After this episode follows the great fall: the massive glissando on solo violin from bar 121 to bar 139. We are mercilessly drawn down into the depths, down to the lowest note on the violin. All is lost - and yet: out of the G a new overtone spectrum is built up and the 'Robin-chat' motif calls to us ... and at this point the symphony ends, finished and yet unfinished at the same time.
The Fourth Symphony is shorter and more chamber music in tone than the Third and Fifth Symphonies. So far, it has not been analysed as much as the others. As in other, more popular works by Nørgård of this period - such as 'I Ching' and 'Wie ein Kind' - one hears how Nørgård's 'spontaneous' music, too, produces musical experiences that get 'under our skin'.
Score sample © Edition WH