Like many composers of the late nineteenth/early twentieth century, Carl Nielsen straddled the line between Romanticism and Modernism. One can hear in his symphonic works melodies that reveal the influence of Brahms, Mahler and Wagner, but there are also surprising moments of intense dissonance and atonality. Mostly, however, Nielsen is remembered as a nationalist. Like Sibelius in Finland, Janacek in Czechoslovakia and Granados in Spain, this Danish composer is known for fusing folk song and Western art music to create something highly personal and strikingly original; but there is always more "high art" than folk in his pieces. His Little Suite for Strings in A Minor, for instance, is highly inventive and imaginative, as it contains a playful waltz section, solemn and mournful melodic themes, and a tempestuous finale that whips the listener through moods of joy and torment. Once unknown outside of Denmark, Nielsen's rich orchestration and vivid, image-laden melodies and harmonies are not easily forgotten.
