BBCSO/Litton – it made us think differently about Nielsen and Ives

Royal Albert Hall, London
This well-conceived Prom with a generous range of choral forces placed the major works by Nielsen and Ives alongside the popular roots of their writing

Carl Nielsen and Charles Ives were near contemporaries. Yet at first hearing there is little else that links the two composers – or any other composer at all in Ives’s singular case. Another well-conceived BBC Symphony Orchestra Prom with a generous range of choral forces – a repeated feature of this year’s programmes – made one think differently, however. In each half of the concert an emphasis on the popular roots of the composer’s writing – folk music in Nielsen’s case, hymn tunes in that of Ives – was followed by a major concert work. It all made highly stimulating sense. Only the National Anthem, performed at the start in Gordon Jacob’s 1953 arrangement to mark the Queen’s record-breaking reign, disturbed the symmetry.

Andrew Litton, who conducted with benign crispness, caught the folkloric lilt of Nielsen’s Springtime on Funen with particular skill, with Malin Christensson and Ben Johnson clear and idiomatic soprano and tenor soloists in this witty and wordly choral welcome of spring. Nielsen’s ambitiously conceived violin concerto followed, with the Norwegian soloist Henning Kraggerud making an instant impression with his very forward account of the work’s early cadenza. The openness and commitment of Kraggerud’s playing maintained the tension through the concerto’s darker pages and made a compelling case for what is a surprisingly neglected score, even in an anniversary year which has done Nielsen proud.

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