Nielsen: Symphonies, Tone Poems & Concertos

Carl Nielsen’s cycle of six symphonies is one of the most original orchestral corpuses of the late Romantic-early Modern era, with its ever-changing tonality, rich orchestration putting emphasis on wind instruments, and constant inventiveness. The Inextinguishable and the Four Temperaments are masterpieces that would be well-worth being performed more often outside Scandinavia.

Herbert Blomstedt is a great specialist of Nielsen’s music, being the only conductor to have recorded the complete cycle twice. Here is the first version, with the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra, coupled with various tone poems (including the very evocative Imaginary Journey to the Faroe Islands) and three beautiful concertos, for clarinet, flute and violin.