Nielsen: Symphony No. 6 & Commotio (Arr. by Hans Abrahamsen) Royal Academy of Music Soloists Ensemble & Ryan Wigglesworth

• Carl Nielsen (1865 - 1931): Symphony No. 6 "Sinfonia semplice" (Arr. for Small Orchestra by Hans Abrahamsen):
• 1 Nielsen: Symphony No. 6 "Sinfonia semplice" (Arr. for Small Orchestra by Hans Abrahamsen): I. Tempo giusto 13:31
• 2 Nielsen: Symphony No. 6 "Sinfonia semplice" (Arr. for Small Orchestra by Hans Abrahamsen): II. Humoreske. Allegretto 03:50
• 3 Nielsen: Symphony No. 6 "Sinfonia semplice" (Arr. for Small Orchestra by Hans Abrahamsen): III. Proposta seria. Adagio 06:13
• 4 Nielsen: Symphony No. 6 "Sinfonia semplice" (Arr. for Small Orchestra by Hans Abrahamsen): IV. Tema con variazioni 11:17
• Commotio, Op. 58 (Arr. for Orchestra by Hans Abrahamsen):
• 5 Nielsen: Commotio, Op. 58 (Arr. for Orchestra by Hans Abrahamsen): I. Adagio 04:33
• 6 Nielsen: Commotio, Op. 58 (Arr. for Orchestra by Hans Abrahamsen): II. Andantino quasi allegretto 07:41
• 7 Nielsen: Commotio, Op. 58 (Arr. for Orchestra by Hans Abrahamsen): III. Andante sostenuto 03:49
• 8 Nielsen: Commotio, Op. 58 (Arr. for Orchestra by Hans Abrahamsen): IV. Crotchet = 80 07:37
• Total Runtime 58:31

Info for Nielsen: Symphony No. 6 & Commotio (Arr. by Hans Abrahamsen)

Marking the 100th anniversary of Carl Nielsen’s Sixth – and last – Symphony, conductor Ryan Wigglesworth joins Royal Academy of Music’s outstanding young musicians to revisit the composer’s later period. This recording showcases two works by Nielsen in two spellbinding arrangements by fellow-Dane Hans Abrahamsen. The No 6 ‘Sinfonia semplice’, written during a period of declining health, is viewed by some as a strongly ironic work. However, its lightness is also deeply sincere. With its crystalline weightlessness, Abrahamsen’s chamber arrangement reclaims both the quizzical spirit and sense of fragility in the original. Commotio was Nielsen’s last major work, and modelled after the organ music of such composers as Buxtehude and J. S. Bach. Abrahamsen’s arrangement untangles its dense texture and harks back to Baroque instrumentation and sonorities. The result is a sound-world that defies chronology – a conversation across centuries.

Royal Academy of Music Soloists Ensemble
Ryan Wigglesworth, conductor

Ryan Wigglesworth
who took up the position of Chief Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in September 2022, has established himself as one of the foremost composer-conductors of his generation. He was Principal Guest Conductor of the Hallé Orchestra from 2015 to 2018 and Composer in Residence at English National Opera. He held the Daniel R. Lewis Composer Fellowship with the Cleveland Orchestra for the two seasons 2013/15 and 14/15 and was Composer-in-Residence at the 2018 Grafenegg Festival. In close partnership with the Royal Academy of Music, he recently founded the Knussen Chamber Orchestra which made both its Aldeburgh Festival and BBC Proms debuts in 2019.

Recent concerts include the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Finnish Radio Symphony, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, DSO Berlin, Bergen Philharmonic, Swedish Radio SO, Tokyo, Seattle, Melbourne, Lahti Symphony, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony, London Philharmonic, Philharmonia, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, BBC Symphony, BBC Scottish Symphony, and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. He returned to the Proms in 2023 for Beethoven 9 and the UK premiere of Kurtag’s opera Endgame, and to the Aldeburgh Festival for further concerts with the Knussen Chamber Orchestra.

Also active as a pianist, recent play/direct projects across Europe and the Far East have included concertos by Mozart and Beethoven, and he regularly appears in recital partnering with Mark Padmore, Lawrence Power and Sophie Bevan.

One of the leading composers of his day, his first opera, The Winter’s Tale, premiered at ENO in February 2017 in a production directed by Rory Kinnear and conducted by the composer. Other works include commissions from the Royal Concertgebouw and Cleveland orchestras, BBC Symphony (BBC Proms), song cycles for Sophie Bevan (Wigmore Hall/Grafenegg) and Mark Padmore (Aldeburgh Festival/Wigmore Hall). Further performances of his works have been directed by, amongst others, Sir Andrew Davis, Edward Gardner, Pablo Heras-Casado, Vladimir Jurowski, Oliver Knussen, Jukka-Pekka Saraste and Franz Welser-Möst. Recent and current projects include a song cycle for Roderick Williams (Barbican), a piano concerto for Marc-André Hamelin (BBC Proms), and Magnificat, for soprano, chorus and orchestra, co-commissioned by the Bergen Philharmonic and Hallé.

Born in Yorkshire, he studied at New College, Oxford and the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. Between 2007-9 he was a Lecturer at Cambridge University where he was also a Fellow of Corpus Christi College. In January 2019 he took up the position of Sir Richard Rodney Bennett Professor at the Royal Academy of Music.

Booklet for Nielsen: Symphony No. 6 & Commotio (Arr. by Hans Abrahamsen)