Once upon time, there was a kingdom. The citizens in this kingdom were friendly, meek, with smooth personalities yet timid and hypocritical. Everyone was living at peace with one another. One day, a young blood got tired of this “Dolce” and “un poco” world and wanted to throw off the shackles of the tasteless world, and make something different. This story has not been cartooned by Disney’s “Fantasia” yet; however, all the pictures of "fantasia" jumped out while I was listening to Carl Nielsen’s Clarinet Concerto. The piece started without heavy meaning, yet as the score become longer and more complicated，he was attracted by interesting connections of logistics from the work. He became serious on the logistics of the story telling and completes the concerto with abstractive ideas. I would like to present what went through Nielsen’s mind when he composes the piece.
Back to the story, there are several characters: Clarinet, Snare Drum Violin etc. The kingdom was steady and safe, colorless and boring, people were repeating their work day by day, people lived together and imitated each other, tried to follow the rules of the kingdom, because once they break the “harmonic phrase”, the hellish royal guard “Snare drum” will punish them. That is why people were cautious and acting alike. Nielsen only used about 10 seconds of performing time to tell us all the background of this interesting society - F C C Bb C C is the theme of the caged world. The way he presents the theme right in the beginning shows us how straight forward Nielsen was.
For me, the melody is like a restriction of the tradition. It presents a life that had been constrained by habit to the same few activities and life styles. Here we have our hero, the Clarinet, a brave and clinging character who has a great voice and soul, strong and energetic. The Clarinet was trying to break out the bar lines and twist the cage made by 5 lines. The Clarinet comes in after the strings routinely play a melody, and he repeats the melody for two measures, just like a normal guy doing the same thing with others. The little swanky variation on the 3rd measure suddenly manifests the Clarinet’s different personality.
There was a short cadenza right after the clarinet shows off his uniqueness. It is not common place for a cadenza to appear so early, but it shows us that the clarinet is too anxious to live in a routine life. Especially the F sharp after the little tale speaking, like a scream, it breaks the peaceful atmosphere. Of course we have a bad guy, the Snare drum. He is the opponent of the clarinet who holds opposite opinions.The Snare drum always demurs the Clarinet’s points with forceful suppression.
Even though the piece did not split into movements, I divide it into four sections. The first section of the piece describes the tough journey of the Clarinet and how the battle was going between him and the Snare drum. The stretched rhythm and up and down running show us the fight between the freedom seeker and a ruler. In the middle of the first section, there was a huge cadenza for the Clarinet. This part is the sneaky escaping scene. In the darkness of night, the Clarinet was trying to pass the tall city wall in order to skip out of the kingdom. However, there were guards patrolling on the wall. The Clarinet ran fast when guards didn’t pay attention to him. He stops running and starts walking once the guards laid eyes on him. But unfortunately, his shadowy sneaky figure went past the darkness and was caught by the patrollers. The Snare drum was unhappy after he got the message, so he jumped on his horse in pursuit of the Clarinet. The Clarinet was too fast to be caught and made it out the wall.
The second section I would say is Poco Adagio, the duet of the Bassoon and the Horn. The quiet melody took me to a totally different field of land without anymore struggles. The Clarinet finally escaped from the multifarious world. The melody changed from F C C to F# C# C#. This is the opposite direction, from high to low. This change promptly relaxed my mood. It indicated that the Clarinet finally got a little bit of freedom. A peaceful place that allows him to tell the truth and breath some fresh air. Happy days do not last long. The Snare drum sneaks up, like a spy, and he was trying to snatch up the Clarinet in order to put him in jail.
The “hide-and-seek” theme is delicately composed by Nielsen. The tempo choosing and colorful harmonic change vividly presents the relationship between the brave and duplicity. After the contest, the Snare drum slips out of the theme. The Clarinet was the winner, yet he still got a sense of alienation.
The third section starts from Allegro un troppo. The loneliness comes out from the horn’s solo. The 3/8 tempo is driven by the lower strings, and the pace feels much lighter than previous sections. The scene is that the wind is blowing gently, and the sad Clarinet is moving on with his new understanding of the world. He is looking for something or someone that can be trusted. He changed his frame of mind, and opened his heart, ready to accept new friends. At the beginning, he became friendly with the Violin, who is always live mannered. However, soon, he found out Violin cannot agree with all his uniqueness. The Violin was too smooth and restful to be his friend. No matter how hard the Clarinet convinced the Violin. The Violin actions stayed the same. At this point time, an elder person, the Bassoon, who was wise stood up and tried to calm the Clarinet down. The Clarinet did accept some of the compassion from the Bassoon, but the sluggish slow speaking just made the Clarinet more angry and impatient. The cadenza after their conversation was emphatic. The veracious composing shows us the image that a tantalizing person is talking almost breathlessly. After his tantrum, the Clarinet calmed down. The Clarinet thought that the only way to fly away from this cage completely was to destroy the walls and rules, so he must fight the obstacles in his way of making a difference.
The last section starts Allegro vivace. There are eight measures of humorous Clarinet solo. The melody sounds simple and friendly, yet it drives the others crazy. The Clarinet’s sound was menacing. It was a declaration of war. It provoked the rage of the Snare drum, and the argument between these two foes reached the climax. This last section contains vehement struggling between the Clarinet and the Snare drum were finally the Clarinet overcame and won the fight. The Clarinet told crowd he eventually realized that it is not to overcome a bad guy. We have to make changes to the deep hearts of ourselves before we can change the world. He shyly admitted his actions. The strings softly repeat the “Eb C C” melody. This gently comforts him. All the onlookers wanted to help him to find the truth about life. At this moment, the music goes back to the previous theme--the arguing theme. The Snare drum comes out of nowhere, and repeats his old actions. Everything was falling apart, and it seems like all the efforts the Clarinet had made was going to be undone! He was going back to the cage again
I have to say that Nielsen did a great job on the story telling. Such a joke!
What happened there at the end? The fact is that it was truly a nightmare, just a dream. The protagonist stretched his eyes while the sweat rolled off in great drops. He woke up and his breathing slowed down. He calmed down and looked around. Everything was asleep in the predawn, but only the wide-awake clock was telling him that it was something more than just a dream...
He smiled.
This is the last concerto of three that Nielsen wrote in his life. The clarinet concerto is the deepest and most mature one of all his concertos. Even Sibelius was surprised by the skillful orchestration and of course, the logistical fantasy. As one of the hardest clarinet concertos, it does not only require players to have absolute control of the instrument; it also gives them a mental challenge on digging up the meaning of the piece. However, we can hear this wonderful clarinet classic in the concert halls all over the world. Once you hear this piece performed by a master clarinetist, you will look at the world around you differently. I think the reason that this piece is not seen as the “cannon” repertoire is because most people didn’t get the pictures while listening, especially the quiet ending part. It doesn’t match the crazy and vicious fireworks in the previous sections. That confuses people on understanding the logic of Nielsen. I love this piece not only because of its detailed characteristic description, but also my personal way of reading the work helps make sense of the structure. I have to say that the ending is definitely where the punch line is.
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