Carl Nielsen prefaced his Symphony No.4 with the following remarks:

The Inextinguishable:  Under this title the composer has endeavored to indicate in one word what the music alone is capable of expressing to the full:  The elemental Will of Life. Music is Life and, like it, is inextinguishable.  The title given by the composer to this musical work might therefore seem superfluous; the composer, however, has employed the word in order to underline the strictly musical character of his subject.  It is not a program, but only a suggestion as to the right approach to the music.

Four years after completion of the symphony, Nielsen further elaborated on this subject in a letter:

The title The Inextinguishable is not a program but a pointer to the proper domain of music.  It is meant to express the appearance of the most elementary forces among men, animals, and even plants.  We can say:  In case all the world was devastated through fire, flood, volcanoes, etc., and all things were destroyed and dead, then nature would still begin to breed new life again, begin to push forward again with all the fine and strong forces inherent in matter.  Soon the plants would begin to multiply, the breeding and screaming of birds be seen and heard, man’s aspiration and yearning would be felt.  These forces, which are “inextinguishable,” are what I have tried to present.

The world had in fact never seen as much devastation and destruction as at the time this symphony was written, and the symphony’s message could never have been timelier than it was during the years of World War I.

Even at first hearing, it is impossible to miss the fact that this symphony is about a violent conflict.  Commentators have found one aspect of that conflict in the absence of tonal unity.  The symphony has no key designation like D minor or E major, because each of its four movements (played without pause) is in a different key.  Moreover, movements often don’t end in the keys in which they began, a phenomenon quite contrary to traditional practice.  If this “progressive tonality” cannot be recognized by those of us without absolute pitch, it certainly can be felt intuitively by every sensitive listener:  this music is constantly on the move.

From the first measure to the last, this symphony bristles with a relentless, robust energy, and this is the other way in which Nielsen expresses the idea of conflict.  The sforzatos (heavy accents), the prominent tritones (dissonant augmented fourths), and especially the heavy strokes on the timpani make the first measures of the work one of the great symphonic openings.

The full orchestral texture gradually thins out; after a transitional section played by a solo cello and woodwinds, the clarinets intone what will turn out to be the most important melody of the entire symphony.  We first hear it on a pair of clarinets in parallel thirds.  The volume gradually grows to fortissimo as more and more instruments join in; the melody is transformed from a lyrical one in triple meter into a powerful march in duple time, only to return to triple meter for a festive and majestic conclusion of the movement’s first section.

The central development section of the movement comes remarkably close to atonality as the first flute and later the violins elaborate on a fluttering little two-note motif, exploring all twelve pitches of the chromatic scale.  This passage is set against a drone in the violas and timpani repeating a single note (D, eventually rising to E flat and then to E), but this drone is never perceived as a tonal center.  It ascends to a further half-step to E sharp, played fortissimo by the winds, and leads directly into a new con fuoco (“with fire”) section in which the entire orchestra participates.  The conflict is now out in the open:  the tritone motif of the opening and some new, equally belligerent-sounding themes alternate with the hymn melody as if fighting to defeat one another.  The hymn melody seems victorious at first, but the return of the dramatic first theme soon creates new tension.  The recapitulation is short and, after stating the two main themes, leads into the second movement through a brief transition for first violin and timpani only.

The second movement (“Poco allegretto”) has been compared to the third movements in the first two Brahms symphonies, which are formally Scherzos, but without the humorous or mysterious character usually associated with that type of movement.  Like its Brahmsian models, Nielsen’s Allegretto has a simple and delightful melody given primarily to the woodwinds; its form is reminiscent of traditional Scherzo form (A-B-A), with a new melody played by pizzicato (plucked) strings as its middle section.  The recapitulation is greatly abridged.  

This brief respite from the fight, however, is soon over, and an intensely dramatic slow movement begins.  A broad legato melody (with closely connected notes) in the violins receives a violent counterpoint from the timpani, which plays an entire scale, thanks to an ingenious pedal mechanism.  The theme is then taken over by the violas and cellos, entering to tremendous effect at a pitch higher than that of the violins, always punctuated by the irregular beats of the timpani.  A second section of the movement begins with a solo violin playing a calm and serene melody in straightforward E major, as opposed to the constantly shifting tonal centers of the preceding section (E major will ultimately turn out to be the closing key of the symphony).  Instead of unsettling timpani strokes, this melody is accompanied by ingratiating figures in the woodwind.  But the lyrical intermezzo soon comes to an abrupt end as a new fortissimo theme appears.  It is developed in the form of a fugato (the various instrumental parts “chasing one another,” as it were) and combined with a transformation of the violin melody, now played by four horns and no longer calm and serene but warlike and agitated.  An enormous climax builds up, then subsides, giving way to a fast and excited string passage (another fugato) which, after a silent bar, leads directly into the Finale.

This Allegro is the final showdown in the conflict represented by the symphony.  In his book on Nielsen, Robert Simpson characterized the first theme as a “long, expansive melody” whose “majestic confidence is soon shattered by disruptive rhythms and dissonances.”  The confrontation becomes particularly exacerbated with the entrance of a second pair of timpani.  We have repeatedly seen the prominent role played by the kettledrums throughout this symphony; what happens at this juncture, however, is not only unprecedented in this work but has few parallels in the entire symphonic literature.  According to the composer’s instructions, the two “dueling” timpani players are seated at opposite ends of the stage, and are required “to maintain a menacing tone throughout, even when playing piano.”  Nielsen makes full use of the modern pedal timpani, having the percussionists play tritones on their instruments in a quite unprecedented move.  Even more unusual is the timpani glissando, described as “unique” by James Blades, author of the article on timpani in the New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments.  The part of the timpani and various other combative melodic materials clash with the peaceful first theme in two consecutive “battles”; the first ends with a celebratory passage on the full orchestra, followed by a lyrical episode with graceful woodwind solos and a piano recapitulation of the movement’s first theme on the strings.  But the ill-boding timpani remains in the background throughout the wind solos.  Soon they are ready to launch a final attack, but are defeated by the great hymn-like melody from the first movement, returning in a glorious fortissimo in the bright E major.  The symphony concludes in a jubilant mode, affirming that the will to live is indeed inextinguishable.

~ Notes by Peter Laki copyright 2024