Editing Carl Nielsen (section)

=== Musical style ===
[[File:Nielsen5 poster.jpg|thumb|alt=Poster advertising a concert programme at Musikforeningen with items by Beethoven, Bach, and lastly Nielsen's fifth Symphony, 1922|Poster for premiere of Carl Nielsen's Fifth Symphony, 1922]]In his ''Lives of the Great Composers'', the music critic [[Harold C. Schonberg]] emphasizes the breadth of Nielsen's compositions, his energetic rhythms, generous orchestration and his individuality. In comparing him with [[Jean Sibelius]], he considers he had "just as much sweep, even more power, and a more universal message".{{sfn|Schonberg|1997|p=94}} The [[Oxford University]] music professor Daniel M. Grimley qualifies Nielsen as "one of the most playful, life-affirming, and awkward voices in twentieth-century music" thanks to the "melodic richness and harmonic vitality" of his work.{{sfn|Grimley|2010|p=ix}} Anne-Marie Reynolds, author of ''Carl Nielsen's Voice: His Songs in Context'', cites Robert Simpson's view that "all of his music is vocal in origin", maintaining that song-writing strongly influenced Nielsen's development as a composer.{{sfn|Reynolds|2010|pp=13–14}}

The Danish sociologist Benedikte Brincker observes that the perception of Nielsen and his music in his home country is rather different from his international appreciation. His interest and background in folk music had special resonance for Danes, and this was intensified during the nationalistic movements of the 1930s and during World War II, when singing was an important basis for the Danes to distinguish themselves from their German enemies.{{sfn|Brincker|2008|p=684}} Nielsen's songs retain an important place in Danish culture and education. The musicologist Niels Krabbe describes the popular image of Nielsen in Denmark as being like "the ugly duckling syndrome" – a reference to the tale of the Danish writer [[Hans Christian Andersen]] – whereby "a poor boy&nbsp;... passing through adversity and frugality&nbsp;... marches into Copenhagen and&nbsp;... comes to conquer the position as the uncrowned King".

While outside Denmark Nielsen is largely thought of as a composer of orchestral music and the opera ''Maskarade'', in his own country he is more of a national symbol. These two sides were officially brought together in Denmark in 2006 when the Ministry of Culture issued a list of the twelve greatest Danish musical works, which included Nielsen's opera ''Maskarade'', his Fourth Symphony, and a pair of his Danish folk songs.{{sfn|Krabbe|2012|p=55}} Krabbe asks the rhetorical question: "Can 'the national' in Nielsen be demonstrated in the music in the form of particular themes, harmonies, sounds, forms, etc., or is it a pure construct of reception history?"{{sfn|Krabbe|2007|p=44}}

Nielsen himself was ambiguous about his attitudes to late Romantic German music and to nationalism in music. He wrote to the Dutch composer [[Julius Röntgen]] in 1909 "I am surprised by the technical skills of the Germans nowadays, and I cannot help thinking that all this delight in complication must exhaust itself. I foresee a completely new art of pure archaic virtue. What do you think about songs sung in [[unison]]? We must go back&nbsp;... to the pure and the clear."{{sfn|Brincker|2008|p=689}} On the other hand, he wrote in 1925 "Nothing destroys music more than nationalism does&nbsp;... and it is impossible to deliver national music on request."{{sfn|Brincker|2008|p=684}}

Nielsen studied Renaissance [[polyphony]] closely, which accounts for some of the melodic and harmonic content of his music. This interest is exemplified in his ''[[Tre Motetter]]'' (Three Motets, Op. 55).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://bachtrack.com/sibelius-nielsen-choral-music-feature|title=National poetry and polyphony: Exploring the choral music of Sibelius and Nielsen|last=Tollåli|first=Aksel|publisher=Bachtrack|date=11 March 2015|access-date=31 May 2015|archive-date=18 May 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150518120553/http://bachtrack.com/sibelius-nielsen-choral-music-feature|url-status=live}}</ref> To non-Danish critics, Nielsen's music initially had a [[Neoclassicism (music)|neo-classical]] sound but became increasingly modern as he developed his own approach to what the writer and composer [[Robert Simpson (composer)|Robert Simpson]] called progressive tonality, moving from one key to another. Typically, Nielsen's music might end in a different key from that of its commencement, sometimes as the outcome of a struggle as in his symphonies.{{sfn|Pankhurst|2008|pp=113, 165}} There is debate as to how much such elements owe to his folk music activities. Some critics have referred to his rhythms, his use of [[acciaccatura]]s or [[appoggiatura]]s, or his frequent use of a [[flattened seventh]] and [[minor third]] in his works, as being typically Danish.{{sfn|White|Murphy|2001|p=129}}<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.classical-music.com/topic/carl-nielsen|title=Carl Nielsen|last=Johnson|first=Stephen|publisher=Classical-music.com: Website of BBC Music Magazine|access-date=31 May 2015|archive-date=10 June 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150610051929/http://www.classical-music.com/topic/carl-nielsen|url-status=live}}</ref> The composer himself wrote "The [[interval (music)|intervals]], as I see it, are the elements which first arouse a deeper interest in music&nbsp;... [I]t is intervals which surprise and delight us anew every time we hear the cuckoo in spring. Its appeal would be less if its call were all on one note."{{sfn|Brincker| 2008|p=694}}

Nielsen's philosophy of music style is perhaps summed up in his advice in a 1907 letter to the Norwegian composer Knut Harder: "You have&nbsp;... fluency, so far, so good; but I advise you again and again, my dear Mr. Harder; ''Tonality, Clarity, Strength''."<ref>Cited in {{harvnb|Grimley|2005|p=216}}.</ref>