TheGaggle
Politics • Culture • News
Our community is made up of those who value the freedom of speech, the right to debate and the promise of open, honest conversations.

We don't agree on everything but we never silence our followers and value every opinion on our channel.
Interested? Want to learn more about the community?
The Gaggle Music Club: Carl Nielsen's Symphony No. 4, "The Inextinguishable"

This week's selection for The Gaggle Music Club is Carl Nielsen's Symphony No. 4, "The Inextinguishable." Composed between 1914 and 1916 during the Great War, the symphony is frequently described as Nielsen's greatest work—in terms of ambition, originality and long-term influence.

Unquestionably Denmark’s greatest composer, Carl Nielsen (1865–1931) was born into a modest family on the island of Funen and developed into one of the most original symphonic voices of the early 20th century. His style is characterized by contrapuntal clarity, structural innovation and a fascination with dynamic opposition—conflict and resolution are central to his symphonic thought. Nielsen also contributed significantly to chamber music, concertos, choral works and songs.

The war deeply disturbed Nielsen, and the symphony reflects his anguish. He saw Europe’s civilization, art and values under siege. Nonetheless, he wanted to assert that life persists, fights, renews itself—and that music embodies this same vitality. The symphony expresses the indestructibility of the human spirit and of music itself.

The symphony features a struggle between opposing forces: turbulence and serenity, chaos and lyricism. Its structure is continuous--there are no breaks between movements--creating a sense of growth, development and narrative.

Though Symphony No. 4 was composed as a continuous whole, it nonetheless contains four connected sections.

The work opens with shocking, eruptive energy—the music seems already in the middle of a struggle. A sense of restlessness and organic growth pervades.

The second movement is a more lyrical, dance-like interlude, but the tension relaxes but is never fully absent.

The third movement is warm and hymn-like, yet shadowed by unease. It provides emotional depth and momentary spiritual repose amid the turbulence.

The fourth movement begins with a renewed sense of conflict, and gradually escalates toward a dramatic climax. The symphony ends in a radiant affirmation of life, with a bold, unifying final theme.

Nielsen's Symphony No. 4 bridges the classical optimism of his earlier works (Symphony No. 1 and No. 3) and the modernist, dissonant ambiguity of his later works (Symphony No. 5). It is the first of his symphonies to abandon conventional movement breaks, anticipating similar experiments by Sibelius and others.

Nielsen' Symphony No. 4 is today it is widely performed and recorded. Its structural boldness and use of musical conflict have influenced later composers such as Malcolm Arnold and Peter Maxwell Davies.

In this performance from 2020, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra is conducted by chief conductor Fabio Luisi.

00:35:57
Interested? Want to learn more about the community?
What else you may like…
Videos
Posts
Articles
The Gaggle Music Club: Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain"

This week's selection for The Gaggle Music Club is "Night on Bald Mountain" by Modest Mussorgsky.

Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky (1839–1881), one of the most distinctive voices in 19th-century Russian music, was a member of the “Mighty Handful” that also included Mily Balakirev, César Cui, Alexander Borodin and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. The Five’s mission was to break from Western European models and forge an authentically Russian style, drawing on folk melody, native idioms and Orthodox liturgy. Mussorgsky was perhaps the least conventional of the group, and the one whose music most strongly resisted later academic tidying up. His rejection of Western compositional norms, favoring speech-like vocal lines, abrupt modulations and stark orchestral colors, made him seem unrefined to contemporaries, but visionary to later composers.

The piece that is now called "Night on Bald Mountain" was not a single, straightforward composition. The piece audiences are most familiar with is Rimsky-Korsakov’s 1886 orchestration ...

00:13:36
TG 1948: Ukraine Cuts Off Hungary's Oil Supply; Trump Steps In

George Szamuely and Peter Lavelle discuss Ukraine's repeated attacks on the Druzhba oil pipeline that lead to cutoffs in Hungary's oil supply, and wonder what Kiev's motives may be in launching such attacks.

00:32:18
TG 1947: NATO's Deceit Over The Ukraine "Security Guarantees"

George Szamuely discusses NATO's attempt to fool the world over the "robust security guarantees" that President Trump and Russia have supposedly signed on to.

00:53:37
The Gaggle Book Club: "The Hitler Of History: Hitler's Biographers On Trial" By John Lukacs

Each week, The Gaggle Book Club recommends a book for Gagglers to read and—most important—uploads a pdf version of it.

Our practice is that we do not vouch for the reliability or accuracy of any book we recommend. Still less, do we necessarily agree with a recommended book's central arguments. However, any book we recommend will be of undoubted interest and intellectual importance.

Today's book club selection is "The Hitler of History: Hitler's Biographers on Trial" By John Lukacs. Published in 1997, Lukacs's work is not another biography of Hitler; rather, it is a work of historiography, an account of how historians, journalists, politicians and even novelists had tried to interpret Germany's most calamitous leader. Lukacs examines why some saw Hitler as a nihilistic madman, others as a cynical opportunist, others as an ideological fanatic, others as a master politician, others as the embodiment of modernity and others still as a throwback to barbarism. Lukacs argued that Hitler’s place in history is ...

The_Hitler_of_history___Hitler_s_biographers_on_trial_--_Lukacs,_John_--_New_Ed_edition,_April_18,_2002_--_Weidenfeld___Nicholson_history;_Orion_--_9781842125243_--_09b30345ce428a1faa610352c8f94570_--_Anna’s_Archive.pdf
11 hours ago

The Bolton Raid:

Is Stalin to BLAME for WW2? The true story from the Soviet Archives | Prof Michael J. Carley

The Burning Archive

32.1K subscribers

Subscribed

1,534 views Aug 23, 2025 History Book Recommendations

The true story of how the West and the USSR failed to stop the threat of fascism in the 1930s is NOT what you think. Prof Michael J. Carley gives a masterclass in the history of the failed diplomacy ("appeasement" ) that led to the outbreak of World War Two and the disaster of the German invasion of the Soviet Union. From Munich 1938 to Churchill's Operation Unthinkable - be prepared to change how you see the origins of World War Two and the history of the Cold War in the twentieth century.

January 21, 2023
More Leftie Than Thou
"Jacobin" Magazine Celebrates A Strike Against Ol' Blue Eyes

Here at "The Gaggle" we have very little time for the "more Leftie than thou" school of thought--that's the approach to life according to which the only thing that matters is whether you take the right position on every issue under the sun from Abortion to Zelensky. No one in the world meets the exacting standards of this school of thought; any Leftie leader anywhere is always selling out to the bankers and the capitalists. The perfect exemplar of this is the unreadable Jacobin magazine. 

The other day I came across this article from 2021. It's a celebration of trade union power. And not simply trade union power, but the use of trade union power to secure political goals. Of course (and this is always the case with the "more Leftie than thou" crowd), this glorious, never-to-be-forgotten moment on the history of organized labor took place many years ago--in the summer of 1974 to be exact. Yes, almost half a century has gone by since that thrilling moment when the working-class movement of Australia mobilized and prepared to seize the means of production, distribution and exchange. 

Well, not quite. Organized labor went into action against...Ol' Blue Eyes, the Chairman of the Board, the Voice; yes, Frank Sinatra. Why? What had Sinatra done? Sinatra was certainly very rich, and he owned a variety of properties and businesses. But if the Australian trade union movement were, understandably, searching for the bright, incandescent spark that would finally awaken the working class from its slumber there were surely richer, greedier, more dishonest, more decadent, above all more Australian individuals it could have discovered. Australia was never short of them. Rupert Murdoch immediately springs to mind. Why Sinatra?

 

Only for Supporters
To read the rest of this article and access other paid content, you must be a supporter
Read full Article
See More
Available on mobile and TV devices
google store google store app store app store
google store google store app tv store app tv store amazon store amazon store roku store roku store
Powered by Locals