Kayser may have been a more widely known name in twentieth century musical history had he not made a critical decision at the age of twenty-three to abandon a musical career, well founded as a student at the Royal Danish Academy, to journey to Rome and train for the priesthood. He returned to Denmark in 1949 and took up a post as priest at the Catholic Cathedral of St Ansgar in Copenhagen. He continued to compose, completing a third Symphony begun whilst in Rome, and devoting much time to religious works (a Christmas Oratorio and Te Deum, both for chorus and large orchestra) as well as a great many organ works. However, in 1964 he requested a release from his vows, began teaching at the Academy and eventually married. His standards as a teacher were high, and he applied similar scrutiny to his continuing compositional work and the many keyboard arrangements he made of major Danish symphonic works. His style recalls Nielsen in many ways, and his ingenious inventiveness continues to impress.

Symphony No 1 was written around 1938 when he was nineteen, and shows extraordinary technical mastery, both in its formal symphonic organisation (it is a concentrated single movement work of about sixteen minutes) and in its resourceful and challenging orchestration—not least in a colourfully vivacious ‘scherzo’ section.

Symphony No 4 seems to reverse the youthful optimism of the 1st by moving into a more introverted and searching mode. It is a work by a composer keenly aware that the time of its first performance (1966) is a period of radical musical changes, and—like Nielsen earlier—he is unsure of his possibly outmoded place in those adventurous times. Modernism created expectations in the world of contemporary arts and music that were opposed to his own ideals. The third movement of the 4th Symphony has something monumental about it like a cathedral, meditative, expansive and bold, but there is still a hint of vigorous demands being made in the scherzo.

Kayser continued to work up to his death in 2001, forever challenging, never allowing himself (or his students) an easy way out. An anecdote is worth quoting: a visitor who came to play Kayser’s four-hand arrangement of The Rite of Spring felt unable to meet the demands. ‘Cissy!’ said Kayser.

“Carl Nielsen rose to Olympus, but sent Kayser down here,” is how one influential critic reacted to the debut of the Symphony No. 1, by Leif Kayser (1919–2001). Premiered when the composer was not yet 20, the work presaged a brilliant career for the young musician, who was also a distinguished conductor, pianist, and organist. So it made quite a stir when Kayser abruptly terminated all his musical responsibilities in 1942 and flew to Rome, training for the priesthood. Although he resumed both composition and performance after returning to Copenhagen in 1949, the musical landscape had begun to shift dramatically. The serialists were gaining ascendance, even in conservative Denmark, and the musical establishment over the ensuing years began to be far less sympathetic and even openly hostile to Kayser’s new works. He in turn grew defensive, and in 1966—two years after leaving the priesthood—declared in an interview before the premiere of his Fourth Symphony, “You must not expect it to be like what you usually understand by the music of our time. I have been so old-fashioned as to use music paper, and the instruments are also allowed to play.” The critics of the day were not kind.

The First Symphony is in four continuous movements. It makes use of Nielsen’s “progressive tonality,” but is less dissonant overall. It is a work brimming with justified self-confidence, most especially in the Largo cantabile movement, a slowly unwinding hymn set as a series of variations in two and three-part counterpoint. One of the dramatic high points is the way this ethereal piece is suddenly displaced by the pompous, off-kilter mock-march that forms the Scherzo. Throughout, the orchestral writing is distinctive, and the thematic content richly memorable.

There is no question upon hearing Kayser’s Symphony No. 4 that it continues the language present in his earliest symphonic essay. Neither, however, is it a dry, academic attempt to recapture old forms. There is great vitality and imagination in this work, cast in four expansive movements, of which the third, a magnificent Lento lasting here over 20 minutes, is the centerpiece. Rising to an impressive climax, it displays his emotional immediacy, brilliant orchestration, and lightly dissonant harmonic language to excellent advantage. Elsewhere, there’s a measured introductory movement that demonstrates Kayser’s contrapuntal prowess and sharp rhetorical logic, a breathless, ingenious Scherzo, and a lengthy, conflicted finale that incorporates motifs from the other movements before going out in a blaze of optimistic glory.

The First Symphony is a concise romantic work with a rising and surging insistence. The silvery perfection of his string writing recalls Respighi in the Concerto Gregoriano. The four movement Fourth Symphony was a long time in the making. The first movement is by turns sturdy and dignified and then lightly fugal. There is a racing Molto Vivace with memorable brass fanfares and quick joyous writing for the strings (tr.3 1:20). The last two movements are very substantial: 20:37 and 17:11 as against the first two: 8:40; 6:02. The Lento is a dark and serious affair shackled in soulful tones to the matte lower range of the orchestra. The finale includes many solo episodes and the music is couched in a pastoral contemplative style with some moments rather like Nielsen and Vaughan Williams especially at the start. These are punctuated by some wonderfully empowered hammer-impact chords redolent of Jon Leifs (at 4:20). Some of the surging writing for strings reminded me of Hindemith’s Mathis der Maler symphony and at 14:37 the cresting climaxes of the vintage Roy Harris symphonies. At the peak (16:10) it is as if Kayser is exultantly referencing Nielsen’s Fifth Symphony. Thus Kayser’s final symphony written at the age of 47.

The recordings of both works are an object lesson in naturalism and immediacy - not always easy bedfellows.