Symphony No. 5

A new attempt

At this point the composer has quite consciously chosen to make a little detour, but quickly returns to the straight and narrow: quietude spawns a new proposal, a sound from film music offering its services. "Well, can you use me?"

The hemmed-in sound

"Well, no, actually not, thank you very much". The opulent sound is diverted into the brass section and peters out; it becomes narrow, hemmed-in, but continues, at the same time, to exist.

A new form

Whichever way you look at it, however the symphony will continue, this is a pretty radical approach to form. One starts composing, finds that the beginning is not a success, and therefore keeps on trying until the music has found a groove that opens up a promising future - this procedure makes the music present to us, brings it closer to the listener, and far removed from any association to an architectonic approach to form.

In what direction?

Now it seems as if the music has fumbled around long enough and is looking for a direction it can follow.

Reappearance

© Jesper Høm

Listen especially to the woodwind fanfare: the melodies here are in fact a result of the development that started in bar 53 (the hemmed-in sound); the development with a pretty large black hole of quietude in the middle. Pay attention to the way in which the music comes to rest after the raucous woodwind melody: a soft, dark blanket of sevenths is spread out, reminiscent in harmonic terms of 'a new attempt'.

Thus, remembering this latter place, a form and a conceptual framework for understanding it are created at the same time. The symphony turns - turns, indeed, almost literally in terms of harmony - around the concept of order versus that of chaos; severity of line versus random movement. Could it be that these apparent opposites have a common source in the third central aspect of the symphony, namely, QUIETUDE?

Peal of bells

I have attempted to scatter some clues for the listener, based of course on my own experience and interpretation of the work. In the following I have selected certain details of the symphony for special mention.

After the section described above, the severity of the movement breaks down:

One hears something that sounds most of all like a peal of bells (tubular bells). The tonal material consists of pentatonic tone rows - though at the same time this section is a secret harbinger of something to come, a hidden agenda. The fact is that pentatonic tone rows can also be interpreted as a selection - every other note - from the tone lake called 'the twelve', which is precisely what we are presented with in the following section of the music.

Geysers

However, this peal of bells does not remain undisturbed, but is shot through by musical raw material, untreated Wölflian driftwood, so to speak, which more and more assumes the form of geysers, great spouts of rising and falling tones that shoot through the musical scenery:

And so the geyser survives as an idea, while the peal of bells disappears for a time.

Foghorns and screeching gulls

The geyser now hits up against a little, rhythmic knocking motif, which, incidentally, Nørgård used in a couple of works around the years 1957 - 1959, and which again plays a role later on in the symphony. At the same time, the music is filled with screeching gulls and foghorns. Ah! But did not Nørgård in these early years to a great extent compose such works as the string quartet Konstellationer on board the Great Belt ferries, surrounded by the sounds of these gulls and foghorns which he has so vividly described elsewhere?

Jingle Bells

The geysers and quietude now take the lead, but suddenly a motif jumps up that reminds one of the 'Jingle Bells' tune. In fact, though, the ground has been prepared: we heard the peal of bells a few minutes ago; now, the screeching gulls and knocking motif from the previous music sample are linked to the sound of the bells to produce the 'Jingle Bells' motif.

Slow revolutions

The world of 'objets trouvés' is now abandoned, and we are presented with something which after only a few seconds can be seen to herald a longer musical passage comparable to that in sample five. Here we find fifths and other intervals slowly revolving. What is going to come out of all this, one wonders?