Carl Nielsen: Synphonies Nos.4&5 (Naxos Audio CD)

• The most important Danish composer of the first third of the twentieth century, Carl Nielsen was prolific in almost all genres.

• The six Symphonies are essentially tonal, emotionally direct works, which alternate long lines of melody with passages of blazing energy.

• Symphony No. 4, ‘The Inextinguishable’, his most dramatic, conveys ‘the elemental will to live’, while in his Symphony No. 5, written after the 1914-18 war, Nielsen develops new and stronger rhythms and more advanced harmonies.

• Symphonies Nos. 1 and 6 (8.570737) and Nos. 2 and 3 (8.570738) are also available.

“Schønwandt's performances, a reissue of recordings made in 2000 for the Dacapo label, are spectacular in every way…He imparts a melodic flow to the music that both minimizes the jarring juxtapositions and binds them together in a more continuous, unified progression.” Fanfare