Carl Nielsen followed his first numbered string quartet with his second, in E flat, some eight years later in 1898. It represents an advance over an already considerable initial essay in a genre. However, Nielsen's lifelong preoccupation with tonal conflict yields here to a firm entrenchment in the home key; variety and contrast are arrived at by other means but there is a constant affirmation of tonal center throughout the four movements.

The opening movement, "Allegro con brio", is festive, grand and expansive. Despite changes of tempo and mood, the sweep (that word so often appended to Nielsen's compositional processes) carries the work through with a sense of organic wholeness. The studied yet seemingly effortless chromatic counterpoint seems to foreshadow the later work of Reger and Busoni. The succeeding movement gives evidence of the composer's emphasis on E flat by its retention of that key, something almost unheard of in any multi-movement work. But static is avoided by the wonderful contrast in mood; here a sensitive "Andante malincolico" is unfolded in a beautiful elegiac manner, anticipatory of the corresponding movements in the Second and Fourth symphonies. A brilliant C major climax is reached and the movement subsides to a solemn yet serene conclusion. The third movement, "Allegretto pastorale", returns to C major and shows the leisurely type of scherzo which Nielsen, like Brahms, preferred over the more rampaging type; some boisterousness emerges in the 6/8 trio, bucolic and hearty in nature. For the finale, Nielsen returns to E flat once more with a vigorous "Allegro corragioso"; the spirit the music and the slashing fourths-laden main theme invites comparison with the finale of the First Symphony although the sense of urgency is missing owing to the already established tonality. But rather than consider it a flaw it can be viewed as a throwback to the more Classical-era concept of a less weighty conclusion.



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