I can’t imagine a better way to start the day. From Carl Nielsen’s incidental music to “The Mother,” “The Fog is Lifting” is two minutes of atmospheric bliss.

Nielsen, of course, is widely regarded as Denmark’s foremost composer. You wouldn’t know it from this serene miniature, but “The Mother” is an allegorical play written for a patriotic occasion: the reunification of Southern Jutland with Denmark. In the play, which is couched as a fairy tale, a mother’s son is kidnapped. Their climactic reunion is celebrated with a rousing march and choral anthem.

The fiery spirit with which the work concludes is nowhere in evidence in its best-known cues – “The Fog is Lifting,” “Faith and Hope are Playing,” and “The Children are Playing” – which can be heard at the first link below. For years, these were all I knew of the complete score. I kind of wish all of the numbers were of the same character. I’m always up for a dreamy wallow.

The complete incidental music was recorded for the first time in 2020, and I was surprised – and I confess a little disappointed – to find the rest of the work does not sustain the mellow and mysterious character of the seven-minute suite. Hardly surprising, I suppose, when you learn that Nielsen was also at work at the time on his turbulent Symphony No. 5. That’s the one with the implacable snare drum.

Sometimes a piece of music is so ineffably beautiful, it has the power to suspend time, and you wish it would go on forever. That’s the case with “The Fog is Lifting.” Enjoy it as the first of three movements from “The Mother” here:

Then shatter the mood with 30 minutes of highlights from the complete score

The Symphony No. 5, with its menacing snare

A tip of the blond brush cut to Carl Nielsen on his birthday!